4t2 



INDUCTION. 



dible. Accordingly, it is to assertions 

 supposed to be contradictory to these 

 laws, or to some others coming near 

 to them in generality, that the word 

 impossibility (at least total impossi- 

 bility) seems to be generally confined. 

 Violations of other laws, of special 

 laws of causation for instance, are 

 said, by persons studious of accuracy 

 in expression, to be impossible in the 

 circumstances of the case, or impos- 

 sible unless some cause had existed 

 which did not exist in the particular^ 

 case.* Of no assertion, not in con- 

 tradiction to some of these vezy general 

 laws, will more than improbability be 

 asserted by any cautious person ; and 

 improbability not of the highest de- 

 gree, unless the time and place in 

 which the fact is said to have oc- 

 curred, render it almost certain that 

 the anomaly, if real, could not have 

 been overlooked by other observers. 

 Suspension of judgment is in all other 

 cases the resource of the judicious 

 inquirer, provided the testimony in 

 favour of the anomaly presents, when 

 well sifted, no suspicious circum- 

 stances. 



But the testimony is scarcely ever 

 found to stand that test in cases in 

 which the anomaly is not real. In 

 the instances on record in which a 

 great number of witnesses, of good 

 reputation and scientific acquirements, 

 have testified to the truth of some- 

 thing which has turned out untrue, 

 there have almost always been cir- 

 cumstances which, to a keen observer 

 who had taken due pains to sift the 

 matter, would have rendered the testi- 

 mony untrustworthy. There have 

 generally been means of accounting 



* A writer to whom I have several times 

 referred gives as the definition of an im- 

 possibility, that which there exists in the 

 world no canse adequate to produce. This 

 definition does not take in such impossi- 

 ■bilities as these — that two and two should 

 make five ; tint two straight lines eh uld 

 enclose a space ; or that anything should 

 be-iu to exist without a cause. I can 

 think of no definition of impossibility 

 comprehensive enough to inchide all its 

 Tarieties, except the one which I have 

 given, viz. An impossibility is that, the 

 truth of which would conflict with a com- 



for the impression on the senses or 

 minds of the alleged percipients by 

 fallacious appearances ; or some epi- 

 demic delusion, propagated by the 

 contagious influence of popular feel- 

 ing, has been concerned in the case ; 

 or some strong interest has been im- 

 plicated — religious zeal, party feeling, 

 vanity, or at least the passion for the 

 marvellous, in persons strongly sus- 

 ceptible of it. When none of these 

 or similar circumstances exist to ac- 

 count for the apparent strength of 

 the testimony ; and where the asser- 

 tion is not in contradiction either to 

 those universal laws which know no 

 counteraction or anomaly, or to the 

 generalisations next in comprehen- 

 siveness to them, but would only 

 amount, if admitted, to the exist- 

 ence of an unknown cause or an 

 anomalous Kind, in circumstances 

 not so thoroughly explored but that 

 it is credible that things hitherto 

 unknown may still come to light ; a 

 cautious person will neither admit 

 nor reject the testimony, but will 

 wait for confirmation at other times 

 and from other unconnected sources. 

 Such ought to have been the conduct 

 of the King of Siam when the Dutch 

 travellers aflBrmed to him the exist- 

 ence of ice. But an ignorant person 

 is as obstinate in his contemptuous in- 

 credulity as he is unreasonably credu- 

 lous. Anything unlike his own narrow 

 experience he disbelieves if it flatters 

 no propensity ; any nursery tale is 

 swallowed implicitly by him if it does. 



§ 4.. I shall now advert to a very 

 serious misapprehension of the prin- 

 ciples of the subject, which has been 

 plete induction, that is, with the most 

 conclusive evidence which we possess of 

 universal truth. 



As to the reputed impossibilities which 

 rest on no other grounds than our ignor- 

 ance of any catise capable of producing the 

 supposed effects, very few of tliem are 

 certainly impossible, or permanently in- 

 credible. The facts of travelling seventy 

 miles an hour, painless surgical operations, 

 and conversing by instantaneous signals 

 between London and New York, held a 

 high place, not many years ago, among 

 such impossibilities. 



