FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 485 



CHAPTER V. 



FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 



§ 1. The class of Fallacies of which we aro now to speak, is the 

 most extensive of all ; einbracin;T a greater number and variety of 

 unfuunclcd inferences than any of the other classes, and which it is even 

 more difficult to reduce to sub-classes or species. If the attempt made 

 in tlie precedin<T Books to define the principles of well-grounded gener- 

 alization has been successful, all generalizations not conformable to 

 tliose principles might, in a certain sense, be brought under the present 

 class : when however the rules ai-e known and kept in view, but a 

 casual lapse committed in the application of them, this is a blunder, 

 not a fallacy. To entitle an error of generalization to the latter ej)ithet, 

 it must be committed on principle ; there must lie in it some erroneous 

 general conception of the inductive process ; the legitimate mode of 

 tlrawing conclusions from observation and experiment must be funda- 

 mentally misconceived. 



Without attempting anything so chimerical as an exhaustive classifi- 

 cation of all the misconceptions which can exist on the subject, let us 

 content ourselves with noting, among the cautions which might be 

 suggested, a few of the most useful and needful. 



§ 2. In the first place, there are certain kinds of generalization which, 

 if the principles already laid down be coiTOCt, must be groundless : 

 experience cannot afford the necessary conditions for establishing tliem 

 by a correct induction. Such, for instance, are all inferences from the 

 order of nature existing on the earth, or in the solar system, to that 

 which may exist in remote parts of the universe; where the phenom- 

 ena, for aught we know, may be entirely different, or may succeed one 

 another according to different laws, or even according to no fixed law 

 at aU. Such, again, in matters dependent on causation, are all universal 

 negatives, all propositions that assert impossibility. The non-existence 

 of any given phenomenon, however uniformly experience may as yet 

 have testified to the fact, proves at most that no cause, adeijuate to its 

 production, has yet manifested itself; but that no such causes exist in 

 nature can only be inferred if we commit the absurdity of supposing 

 that we know all the forces in nature. The supposition would at le.-ist 

 be premature while our acquaintance with some even of those which 

 we do know Ls so extremely recent. And however much our knowl- 

 edge of nature may hereafter be ext(!nd(ul, it is not easy to see how 

 that knowledge could ever be complete, or how, if it were, we could 

 ever be assured of its being so. 



The only laws of nature which afford sufficient wanant for atlribtit- 

 ing impossibility, are first, those of number and extension, which are 

 paramount to the laws of the succession of jdienomena, and not ex- 

 posed to the agency of counteracting causes ; and secondly, the univer- 

 sal law of causality itself That no viunation in any effect or consorpicnt 

 will take place while the whole of the antecedents remain tlie same, 

 may be afhrmed with full assurance. But, that the addition of some 

 new antecedent might not entirely alter and subvert the accustomed 



