INDUCTIONS IMPROPERLY SO CALLED. 



'95 



add to, but found in, the motions of 

 the planet, namely, that it occupied 

 in succession the various points in the 

 circumference of a given ellipse, was 

 the very fact the separate parts of 

 which had been separately observed ; 

 it was the sum of the different obser- 

 vations. 



Having stated this fundamental 

 difference between my opinion and 

 that of Dr. Whewell, I must add, 

 that his account of the manner in 

 which a conception is selected suit- 

 able to express the facts appears to 

 me perfectly just. The experience of 

 all thinkers will, I believe, testify 

 that the process is tentative ; that it 

 consists of a succession of guesses ; 

 many being rejected, until one at last 

 occurs fit to be chosen. We know 

 from Kepler himself that before hit- 

 ting upon the " conception " of an 

 ellipse, he tried nineteen other ima- 

 ginary paths, which, finding them in- 

 consistent with the observations, he 

 was obliged to reject. But, as Dr. 

 Whewell truly says, the successful 

 hypothesis, though a guess, ought 

 generally to be called, not a lucky, 

 but a skilful guess. The guesses 

 which serve to give mental unity and 

 wholeness to a chaos of scattered par- 

 ticulars are accidents which rarely 

 occur to any minds but those abound- 

 ing in knowledge and disciplined in 

 intellectual combinations. 



How far this tentative method, so 

 indispensable as a means to the col- 

 ligation of facts for purposes of de- 

 scription, admits of application to In- 

 duction itself, and what functions 

 belong to it in that department, will 

 be considered in the chapter of the 

 present Book which relates to Hypo- 

 theses. On the present occasion we 

 have chiefly to distinguish this pro- 

 cess of Colligation from Induction 

 properly so called ; and that the dis- 

 tinction may be made clearer, it is 

 well to advert to a curious and in- 

 teresting remark, which is as strik- 

 ingly true of the former operation, as 

 it appears to me unequivocally false 

 of the latter. 



In different stages of the progress 

 of knowledge, philosophers have em- 

 ployed, for the colligation of the same 

 order of facts, different conceptions. 

 The early rude observations of the 

 heavenly bodies, in which minute pre- 

 cision was neither attained nor sought, 

 presented nothing inconsistent with 

 the itepresentation of the path of a 

 planet as an exact circle, having the 

 earth for its centre. As observations 

 increased in accuracy, facts were dis- 

 closed which were not reconcilable 

 with this simple supposition : for the 

 colligation of those additional facts, 

 thesuppo-sition was varied ; and varied 

 again and again as facts became more 

 immerous and precise. The earth 

 was removed from the centre to some 

 other point within the circle ; the 

 planet was supposed to revolve in a 

 smaller circle called an epicycle, round 

 an imaginary point which revolved in 

 a circle round the earth : in proportion 

 as observation elicited fresh facts con- 

 tradictory to these representations, 

 other epicycles and other excentrics 

 were added, producingadditional com- 

 plications ; until at last Kepler swept 

 all these circles away, and substituted 

 the conception of an exact ellipse. 

 Even this is found not to represent 

 with complete correctness the accurate 

 observations of the present day, which 

 disclose many slight deviations from 

 an orbit exactly elliptical. Now Dr. 

 Whewell has remarked that these 

 successive general expressions, though 

 apparently so conflicting, were all 

 correct : they all answered the purpose 

 of colligation ; they all enabled the 

 mind to represent to itself with facility, 

 and by a simultaneous glance, the 

 whole body of facts at the time ascer- 

 tained : each in its turn served as a 

 correct description of the phenomena, 

 so far as the senses had up to that 

 time taken cognisance of them. If a 

 necessity afterwards arose for discard- 

 ing one of these general descriptions 

 of the planet's orbit, and framing a 

 different imaginary line, by which to 

 express the series of observed positions, 

 it was because a number of new factp 



