FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 401 



value of some English article (beyond what would 

 otherwise be exported), either to the same foreign 

 country or to some other ; which fact, although from 

 the- complication of the circumstances it cannot always 

 be verified by specific observation, no observation can 

 possibly be brought to contradict, while the evidence 

 of reasoning upon which it rests is absolutely irrefra- 

 gable. The fallacy is, therefore, the same as in the 

 preceding case, that of seeing a part only of the phe- 

 nomena, and imagining that part to be the whole ; and 

 may be ranked among Fallacies of Non-observation. 



$ 5. To complete the examination of the second 

 of our five classes, we have now to speak of Mai- 

 observation ; in which the error does not lie in the 

 fact that something is unseen, but that something seen 

 is seen wrong. 



Perception being infallible evidence of whatever is 

 really perceived, the error now under consideration 

 can be committed no otherwise than by mistaking for 

 perception what is in fact inference. We have for- 

 merly shown how intimately the two are blended in 

 almost everything which is called observation, and 

 still more in every Description*. What is actually 

 on any occasion perceived by our senses being so 

 minute in amount, and generally so unimportant a 

 portion of the state of facts which we wish to ascertain 

 or to communicate ; it would be absurd to say that 

 either in our observations, or in conveying their result 

 to others, we ought not to mingle inference with fact ; 

 all that can be said is, that when we do so we ought 

 to be aware of what we are doing, and to know what 

 part of the assertion rests upon consciousness, and is 



* Supra, p. 201. 

 VOL. II. 2 D 



