NAMING. 233 



will warrant. The division of the inductive process 

 into two parts, the first ascertaining what is a mark 

 of the given fact, the second whether in the new case 

 that mark exists, is natural, and scientifically indis- 

 pensable. It is, indeed, in a majority of cases, 

 rendered necessary by mere distance of time. The 

 experience by which we are to guide our judgments 

 may be other people's experience, little of which can 

 be communicated to us otherwise than by language : 

 when it is our own, it is generally experience long 

 past; unless, therefore, it were recorded by means 

 of artificial signs, little of it (except in cases in- 

 volving our intenser sensations or emotions, or the 

 subjects of our daily and hourly contemplations) 

 would be retained in the memory. It is hardly ne- 

 cessary to add, that when the inductive inference 

 is of any but the most direct and obvious nature 

 when it requires several observations or experiments 

 in varying circumstances, and the comparison of one 

 of these with another it is impossible to proceed a 

 step, without the artificial memory which words be- 

 stow. Without words, we should, if we had often 

 seen A and B in immediate and obvious conjunction, 

 expect B whenever we saw A ; but to discover their 

 conjunction when not obvious, or to determine whe- 

 ther it is really constant or only casual, and whether 

 there is reason to expect it under any given change of 

 circumstances, is a process far too complex to be 

 performed without some contrivance to make our 

 remembrance of our own mental operations accurate. 

 Now, language is such a contrivance. When that 

 instrument is called to our aid, the difficulty is 

 reduced to that of making our remembrance of the 

 meaning of words accurate. This being secured, 

 whatever passes through our minds may be remem- 



