FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 391 



set of lucky accidents to the illustrious father and 

 founder of philosophic alchemy ; if they had presented 

 themselves to Professor Davy exclusively in conse- 

 quence of his luck in possessing a particular galvanic 

 battery ; if this battery, as far as Davy was concerned, 

 had itself been an accident, and not (as in point of fact 

 it was) desired and obtained by him for the purpose 

 of ensuring the testimony of experience to his princi- 

 ples, and in order to bind down material nature under 

 the inquisition of reason, and force from her, as by 

 torture, unequivocal answers to prepared and precon- 

 ceived questions, yet still they would not have been 

 talked of or described as instances of luck, but as the 

 natural results of his admitted genius and known skill. 

 But should an accident have disclosed similar disco- 

 veries to a mechanic at Birmingham or Sheffield, and 

 if the man should grow rich in consequence, and 

 partly by the envy of his neighbours and partly with 

 good reason, be considered by them as a man below 

 par in the general powers of his understanding; then, 

 ' O what a lucky fellow ! Well, Fortune does favour 

 fools that's for certain ! It is always so !' And 

 forthwith the exclaimer relates half a dozen similar 

 instances. Thus accumulating the one sort of facts 

 and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in their 

 diction, and quacks of all denominations do in their 

 reasoning, put a part for the whole, and at once 

 soothe our envy arid gratify our love of the marvel- 

 lous, by the sweeping proverb, Fortune favours fools." 

 This passage very happily sets forth the manner 

 in which, under the loose mode of induction which 

 proceeds per enumerationem simplicem, not seeking 

 for instances of such a kind as to be decisive of the 

 question, but generalizing from any which occur, or 

 rather which are remembered, opinions grow up with 



