TRAINS OF REASONING. 139 



been founded upon observation of governments concerning wlioso 

 desii'o of the good of their subjects there was no doubt. It has been 

 found, or thought to be found, that these were not liable to revolution, 

 and it has been deemed that those instances wari'anted an extension 

 of the same predicate to any and every government which resembles 

 them in the attribute of desiring earnestly the good of its subjects. 

 But does the Pinissian government thus resemble them 1 This may be 

 debated pro and con by many arguments, and must, in any case, be 

 proved by another induction ; for we cannot directly observe the sen- 

 timents and desires of the persons who conduct the government of 

 that country. To prove the minor, therefore, we require an argument 

 in this form : Every government which acts in a certain manner, de- 

 sires the good of its subjects ; the Prussian government acts in that 

 particular manner, therefore it desires the good of its subjects. But 

 is it true that the Prussian government acts in the manner supposed? 

 This minor also may require proof; still another induction, as thus :■ — . 

 What is asserted by many disinterested witnesses, must be believed 

 to be true ; that the Prussian government acts in this manner, is as- 

 serted by many disinterested witnesses, therefore it must be believed 

 to be true. The argument hence consists of three steps. Having the 

 evidence of our senses that the case of the Prussian government re- 

 sembles a number of fonner cases, in the circumstance of having 

 something asserted respecting it by many disinterested witnesses, we 

 infer, first, that as in those former instances, so in this instance the asser- 

 tion is true. Secondly, what was asserted of the Prussian government 

 being that it acts in a particular manner, and other governments or 

 persons having been observed to act in the same manner,. the Prussian, 

 government is brought into kno^vn resemblance with those other gov- 

 ernments or persons ; and since they were known to desire the good 

 of the people, we thereupon, by a second induction, infer that the 

 Prussian government desires the good of the people. This brings that 

 government into known resemblance -with, the other governments which 

 were observed to escape revolution, and thence, by a third induction, 

 we predict that the Prussian government will in like manner escape. 

 And thus we are enabled to reason from the well-intentioned govern- 

 ments which we historically know as having escaped revolution, to 

 other governments which, when we made the induction, we may have 

 known nothing about : yet if the induction was good, and therefore 

 applicable to all governments of which we know the intentions but do 

 not know the fortunes, it must be no less applicable to those whos6 

 intentions we do not know, but can only infer, provided this inference 

 also rests upon a good induction. We ai-e still reasoning from particu- 

 lars to particulars, but we now reason to the new instance from three 

 distinct sets of fonner instances : to one only of those sets of instances 

 do we directly perceive the new one to be similar ; but from that sim- 

 ilarity we inductively infer that it has the attribute by which it is as- 

 similated to the next set, and brought within the corresponding induc- 

 tion ; when by a repetition of the same operation we infer it to be 

 similar to the third set, and hence a third induction conducts us to the 

 ultimate ccmclusion. 



§ 3. Notwithstanding the superior complication of these examples, 

 compared with those by which in the preceding chapter we illustrated 



