140 REASONING. 



the general theory of reasoning, every doctrine which we then laid 

 down holds equally true in these more intricate cases. ' The succes- 

 sive general propositions are not steps in the reasoning, are not inter- 

 mediate links in the chain of inference, between the particulars observed, 

 and those to which we apply the observation. If we had sufficiently 

 capacious memories, and a sufficient power of maintaining order among 

 a huge mass of details, the reasoning could go on without any general 

 jjropositions ; they are mere formula? for infemng particulars from 

 particulars. The principle of general reasoning is (as before explained), 

 that if from observation of certain kno^^^l particulars, what was seen to 

 be true of them can be infeiTod to be time of any others, it may be in^ 

 fened of all others which are of a certain description. And in order 

 that we may never fail to draw this conclusion in a new case when it 

 can be dra^vTi coiTectly, and may avoid drawing it when it cannot, we 

 determine once for all what are the distinguishing marks by which 

 such cases may be recognized. The subsequent process is merely 

 that of identifying an object, and ascertaining it to have those marks; 

 whether we identify it by the very marks themselves, or by others 

 which we have ascertained (through another and a similar process) to 

 be marks of those marks. The real inference is always fi-om particu- 

 lars to particulars, from the observed instances to an unobserved one : 

 but in drawing this inference, we conform to a formula which we have 

 adopted for our guidance in such operations, and which is a record of 

 the criteria by which we thought we had ascertained that we might 

 distinguish when the inference could and when it could not be drawai. 

 The real premisses are the individual observations, even though they 

 may have been forgotten, or being the observations of others and not 

 of ourselves, may, to us, never have been known : but we have 

 before us proof that we or others once thought them sufficient for an 

 induction, and we have marks to show whether any new case is 

 one of those to which, if then knowTi, the induction would have been 

 deemed to extend. These marks we either recognize at once, or by 

 the aid of other marks, which by another previous induction we col- 

 lected to be marks of f/icm. Even these marks of marks may only be 

 recognized through a third set of marks ; and we may have a train of 

 reasoning, of any length, to bring a new case within the scope of an 

 induction gi-ounded on particulars its simifarity to which is only ascer- 

 tained in this indirect manner. 



Thus, in the argument concerning the Prussian government, the 

 ulthnate inductive inference was, that it was not liable to revolution : 

 this inference was drawn according to a formula in which desire of the 

 public good was set down as a mark of not being liable to revolution ; 

 a mark of this mark was, acting in a particular manner ; and a mark of 

 acting in that manner, was, being asserted to do so by many disinter- 

 ested witnesses : this mark, the Prussian government was recognized 

 by the senses as possessing. Hence that government fell within the 

 last induction, and by it was brought within all the others. The per- 

 ceived resemblance of the case to one set of observed particular cases, 

 brought it into known resemblance with another set, and that with a 

 third. 



In the more complex branches of knowledge, the deductions seldom 

 consist, as in the examples hitherto exhibited, of a single chain, k a 

 mark of b, i of c, c of d, therefore a a mark of d. They consist (to 



