208 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



particular kind of globe which is termed an oblate 

 spheroid ; because it is found by measurement in the 

 direction of the meridian, that the length on the sur- 

 face of the earth which subtends a given angle at its 

 centre, diminishes as we recede from the equator and 

 approach the poles. But these propositions, that the 

 earth is globular, and that it is an oblate spheroid, 

 assert, each of them, one individual fact ; in its own 

 nature capable of being perceived by the senses when 

 the requisite organs and the necessary position are 

 supposed, and only not actually perceived because 

 these organs and that position are wanting. That 

 which, if the fact could have been seen, would have 

 been called a description of the figure of the earth, 

 may without impropriety be so called when instead 

 of being seen it is inferred. But we could not 

 without impropriety call either of these assertions an 

 induction from facts respecting the earth. They are 

 not general propositions collected from particular 

 facts, but particular facts deduced from general pro- 

 positions. They are conclusions obtained deductively, 

 from premisses originating in induction ; but of these 

 premisses some were not obtained by observation of 

 the earth, nor had any peculiar reference to it. 



If, then, the truth respecting the figure of the earth 

 is not an induction, why should the truth respecting 

 the figure of the earth's orbit be so? Mr. Whewell 

 contends that it is; although the two cases only differ 

 in this, that the form of the orbit was not, like the 

 form of the earth itself, deduced by ratiocination from 

 facts which were marks of ellipticity, but was got at 

 by boldly guessing that the path was an ellipse, and 

 finding afterwards, on examination, that the observa- 

 tions were in harmony with the hypothesis. Not 

 only, according to Mr. Whewell, is this process of 



