364 INDUCTION. 



Whewell truly says, the successful hypothesis, although 

 a guess, ought not to be called a lucky, but a skilful 

 guess. The guesses which serve to give mental unity 

 and wholeness to a chaos of scattered particulars,, are 

 accidents which occur to no minds but those abound- 

 ing in knowledge and disciplined in scientific combi- 

 nations. 



How far this tentative method, so indispensable as 

 a means to the colligation of facts for purposes of 

 description, admits of application to Induction itself, 

 and what functions belong to it in that department, 

 will be considered in the chapter of the present Book 

 which relates to Hypotheses. On the present occasion 

 we have chiefly to distinguish this process of colliga- 

 tion from Induction properly so called : and that the 

 distinction may be made clearer, it is well to advert to 

 a curious and interesting remark of Mr. Whewell, 

 which is as strikingly true of the former operation, as 

 it is unequivocally false of the latter. 



In different stages of the progress of knowledge, 

 philosophers have employed, for the colligation of the 

 same order of facts, different conceptions. The early 

 and rude observations of the heavenly bodies, in which 

 minute precision was neither attained nor sought, 

 presented nothing inconsistent with the representation 

 of the path of a planet as an exact circle,, having the 

 earth for its centre. As observations increased in 

 accuracy, and facts were disclosed which were not 

 reconcileable with this simple supposition ; for the 

 colligation of those additional facts, the supposition 

 was varied; and varied again and again as facts 

 became more numerous and precise. The earth was 

 removed from the centre to some other point within 

 the circle ; the planet was supposed to revolve in a 

 smaller circle called an epicycle, round an imaginary 



