PHILOSOPHY AS AN ORGANON 



factors, we can calculate the exact ratio at which 

 the retardation diminishes. We are therefore 

 perfectly justified in concluding that if the fric- 

 tion and resistance could be utterly abolished, 

 the momentum of the pendulum, acting in 

 concert with gravity, would carry it backward 

 and forward forever. But because the abstrac- 

 tion of heat causes the molecules of a body to 

 approach each other, it is not safe to infer that, 

 if all the heat were abstracted, the molecules 

 would be in complete contact. This is a more 

 or less plausible guess, not a true induction. 

 " For since we neither know how much heat 

 there is in any body, nor what is the real dis- 

 tance between any two of its particles, we can- 

 not judge whether the contraction of the dis- 

 tance does or does not follow the diminution 

 of the quantity of heat according to such a nu- 

 merical relation that the two quantities would 

 vanish simultaneously." * In similar wise, from 

 the fact that in alcoholic intoxication the se- 

 verity of the narcotic symptoms varies accord- 

 ing to the size of the dose, it is not legitimate 

 to infer that a very small dose will cause slight 

 narcotic symptoms or even a tendency to the 

 production of such symptoms. For we can 

 neither ascertain the quantitative ratio between 

 the variation in the dose and the variation in 

 the narcosis, nor in the case of such a complex 

 1 Mill, System of Logic, 6th edition, vol. i. p. 447. 



77 



