GROUND OF INDUCTION. 375 



fundamental axiom of induction, until a more ad- 

 vanced period of our inquiry*. At present it is of 

 more importance to understand thoroughly the import 

 of the axiom itself. For the proposition, that the 

 course of nature is uniform, possesses rather the 

 brevity suitable to popular, than the precision requi- 

 site in philosophical, language : its terms require to 

 be explained, and a stricter than their ordinary signi- 

 fication given to them, before the truth of the asser- 

 tion can be admitted. 



2. Every person's consciousness assures him 

 that he does not always expect uniformity in the 

 course of events ; he does not always believe that the 

 unknown will be similar to the known, that the 

 future will resemble the past. Nobody believes that 

 the succession of rain and fine weather will be the 

 same in every future year as in the present. Nobody 

 expects to have the same dreams repeated every 

 night. On the contrary, everybody mentions it as 

 something extraordinary, if the course of nature is 

 constant, and resembles itself, in these particulars. 

 To look for constancy where constancy is not to be 

 expected, as, for instance, that a day which has once 

 brought good fortune will always be a fortunate day, 

 is justly accounted superstition. 



The course of nature, in truth, is not only uni- 

 form, it is also infinitely various. Some phenomena 

 are always seen to recur in the very same combina- 

 tions in which we met with them at first ; others seem 

 altogether capricious ; while some, which we had been 

 accustomed to regard as bound down exclusively to a 

 particular set of combinations, we unexpectedly find 



* Infra, chap. xxi. 



