362 INDUCTION. 



called in to connect. This, Mr. Whewell himself 

 admits, when he observes, (which he does on several 

 occasions) how great a service would be rendered to 

 the science of physiology by the philosopher "who 

 should establish a precise, tenable, and consistent 

 conception of life*." Such a conception can only be 

 abstracted from the phenomena of life itself; from the 

 very facts which it is put in requisition to connect. 

 In other cases (no doubt) instead of collecting the 

 conception from the very phenomena which we are 

 attempting to colligate, we select it from among those 

 which have been previously collected by abstraction 

 from other facts. In the instance of Kepler's laws, the 

 latter was the case. The facts being out of the reach 

 of being observed, in any such manner as would have 

 enabled the senses to identify directly the path of the 

 planet, the conception requisite for framing a general 

 description of that path could not be collected by 

 abstraction from the observations themselves ; the 

 mind had to supply hypothetically, from among the 

 conceptions it had obtained from other portions of its 

 experience, some one which would correctly represent 

 the series of the observed facts. It had to frame a 

 supposition respecting the general course of the 

 phenomenon, and ask itself, If this be the general 

 description, what will the details be? and then com- 

 pare these with the details actually observed. If they 

 agreed, the hypothesis would serve for a description 

 of the phenomenon : if not, it was necessarily aban- 

 doned, and another tried. It is such a case as this 

 which gives colour to the doctrine that the mind, in 

 framing the descriptions, adds something of its own 

 which it does not find in the facts. 



Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii., p. 173. 



