FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 369 



their ideas followed the accidental or arbitrary combi- 

 nations of that language, more completely than can 

 happen among the moderns to any but illiterate per- 

 sons. They had great difficulty in distinguishing 

 between things which their language confounded, or 

 in putting mentally together things which it distin- 

 guished ; and could hardly combine the objects in 

 nature, into any classes but those which were made for 

 them by the popular phrases of their own country ; or 

 at least could not help fancying those classes to be 

 natural, and all others arbitrary and artificial. Accord- 

 ingly, as is remarked by Mr. Whewell, scientific inves- 

 tigation among the Greek philosophers and their fol- 

 lowers in the middle ages, was little more than a mere 

 sifting and analyzing of the notions attached to com- 

 mon language. They thought that by determining 

 the meaning of words, they could become acquainted 

 with facts. " They took for granted," says Mr. 

 Whewell*, "that philosophy must result from the 

 relations of those notions which are involved in the 

 common use of language, and they proceeded to seek 

 it by studying such notions." In his next chapter 

 Mr. Whewell has so well illustrated and exemplified 

 this error, that we shall take the liberty of quoting him 

 at some length. 



"The propensity," says he, " to seek for prin- 

 ciples in the common usages of language, may be dis- 

 cerned at a very early period. Thus we have an 

 example of it in a saying which is reported of Thales, 

 the founder of Greek philosophy. When he was 

 asked, 'What is the greatest thing?' he replied 

 4 Place ; for all other things are in the world, but the 

 world is in it.' In Aristotle we have the consumma- 



* History of the Inductive Sciences, Book i., chap. 1. 

 VOL. II. 2 B 



