4aS 



OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



by a comparison of particular pheno- 

 mena,, so, when obtained, the mode 

 in which we apply it to other pheno- 

 mena is again by comparison. We 

 compare phenomena with each other 

 to get the conception, and we then 

 compare those and other phenomena 

 with the conception. We get the 

 conception of an animal (for instance) 

 by comparing different animals, and 

 when we afterwards see a creature 

 resembling an animal, we compare 

 it with our general conception of an 

 animal ; and if it agrees with that 

 general conception, we include it in 

 the class. The conception becomes 

 the type of comparison. 



And we need only consider what 

 comparison is, to see that where the 

 objects are more than two, and still 

 more when they are an indefinite 

 number, a type of some sort is an 

 indispensable condition of the com- 

 parison. When we have to arrange 

 and classify a great number of objects 

 according to their agreements and 

 differences, we do not make a con- 

 fused attempt to compare all with all. 

 We know that two things are as 

 much as the mind can easily attend 

 to at a time, and we therefore fix 

 upon one of the objects, either at 

 hazard or because it offers in a peculi- 

 arly striking manner some important 

 character, and, taking this as our 

 standard, compare it with one object 

 after another. If we find a second 

 object which presents a remarkable 

 agreement with the first, inducing us 

 to class them together, the question 

 instantly arises, in what particular 

 circumstances do they agree ? and to 

 take notice of these circumstances is 

 already a first stage of abstraction, 

 giving rise to a general conception. 

 Having advanced thus far, when we 

 now take in hand a third object, we 

 naturally ask ourselves the question, 

 not merely whether this third object 

 agrees with the first, but whether it 

 agrees with it in the same circum- 

 stances in which the second did? in 

 other words, whether it agrees with 

 the general conception which has been 



obtained by abstraction from the first 

 and second? Thus we see the ten- 

 dency of general conceptions, as soon 

 as formed, to substitute themselves 

 as types for whatever individual ob- 

 jects previously answered that pur- 

 pose in our comparisons. We may, 

 perhaps, find that no considerable 

 number of other objects agree with 

 this first general conception, and 

 that we must drop the conception, 

 and beginning again with a different 

 individual case, proceed by fresh com- 

 parisons to a different general con- 

 ception. Sometimes, again, we find 

 that the same conception will serve, 

 by merely leaving out some of its 

 circumstances ; and by this higher 

 effort of abstraction we obtain a still 

 more general conception ; as in the 

 case formerly referred to, the scientific 

 world rose from the conception of 

 poles to the general conception of 

 opposite properties in opposite direc- 

 tions ; or as those South-Sea islanders, 

 whose conception of a quadruped had 

 been abstracted from hogs, (the only 

 animals of that description which they 

 had seen,) when they afterwards com- 

 pared that conception with other 

 quadrupeds, dropped some of the cir- 

 cumstances, and arrived at the more 

 general conception which Europeans 

 associate with the term. 



These brief remarks contain, I be- 

 lieve, all that is well-grounded in the 

 doctrine that the conception by which 

 the mind arranges and gives unity to 

 phenomena m.ust be furnished by the 

 mind itself, and that we find the right 

 conception by a tentative process, try- 

 ing first one and then another until 

 we hit the mark. The conception is 

 not furnished by the mind until it has 

 been furnished to the mind ; and the 

 facts which supply it are sometimes 

 extraneous facts, but more often the 

 very facts which we are attempting 

 to arrange by it. It is quite true, 

 however, that in endeavouring to 

 arrange the facts, at whatever point 

 we begin, we never advance three 

 steps without forming a general con- 

 ception, more or less distinct and 



