NAMING. 399 



suggestion of the evidence, with tlie promptitude and certainty of an 

 instinct. 



§ 3. But although inf(;roiicc of an inductive character is possible 

 without the use of signs, it could never, without them, be canned much 

 beyond the very simple cases which wc have just described, and which 

 form, in all probability, the limit of the reasonings of those animals to 

 whom conventional language is unknown. Without language, or some- 

 thing equivalent to it, there could only be as much of reasoning from 

 experience, as can take place \\-ithout the aid of general propositions. 

 Now, although in strictness wc may reason from past experience to a 

 fiesh individual case without the intermediate stage of a general pro- 

 position, yet without general propositions we should seldom remember 

 what experience we have had, and scarcely ever what conclusions that 

 experience will warrant. The division of the inductive process into 

 two paits, the first ascertaining what is a mark of the given fact, the 

 second whether in the new case that mark exists, is natural, and 

 scientifically indispensable. It is, indeed, in a majority of cases, 

 rendered necessary by mere distance of time. The experience by 

 which we are to guide our judgments may be other people's expe- 

 rience, little of which can be communicated to us otherwise than by 

 language ; when it is our own, it is generally experience long past ; 

 unless, therefore, it were recorded by means of artificial signs, little of 

 it (except in cases involving our intenser sensations or emotions, or the 

 subjects of our daily and hourly contemplations) would be retained in 

 the memory. It is hardly necessary to add, that when the inductive 

 inference is of any but the most direct and obvious nature — when it 

 requires several observations or experiments in varying circumstances, 

 and the comparison of one of these with another — it is impossible to 

 proceed a step, without the artificial memory which words bestow, 

 without words, we should, if we had often seen A and B in imme- 

 diate and obvious conjunction, expect B whenever we saw A; but to 

 discover their conjunction when not obvious, or to determine whether 

 it is really constant or only casual, and whether there is reason to ex- 

 pect it under any given change of circumstances, is a process far too 

 complex to be performed without some contrivance to make our 

 remembrance of our own mental oj^erations accurate. Now, language 

 is such a contrivance. Wlien that instrument is called to our aid, the 

 difficulty is reduced to that of making our remembrance of the mean- 

 ing of words accurate. This being secured, whatever passes through 

 our minds may be remembered accurately, by putting it carefully into 

 words, and committing the words either to writing or to memory. 



The function of Naming, and particularly of General Names, in In- 

 duction, may be recapitulated as follows. Every inductive inference 

 which is good at all, is good for a whole class of cases ; and, that the 

 inference may have any better warrant of its coiTectness than the mere 

 clinging together of two ideas, a process of experimentation and com- 

 paris(m is necessary ; in which the whole class of cases must be 

 brought to view, and some uniformity in the course of nature evolved 

 and ascertained, since the existence of such an uniformity is required 

 as a justification for drawing the inference in even a single case. This 

 uniformity, therefore, may be ascertained once for all ; and if, being 

 ascertained, it can be remembered, it will serve as a formula for 



