NAMING. 



433 



ral Joes in morals and politics to the 

 present day. 



It would thus, in my view of the 

 matter, be an inaccurate mode of ex- 

 pression to say, that obtaining appro- 

 priate conceptions is a condition pre- 

 cedent to generalisation. Throughout 

 the whole process of comparing pheno- 

 mena with one another for the purpose 

 of generalisation, the mind is trying 

 to make up a conception ; but the 

 conception which it is trying to make 

 up is that of the really important 

 point of agreement in the phenomena. 

 As we obtain more knowledge of the 

 phenomena themselves, and of the 

 c(mditions on which their important 

 properties depend, our views on this 

 subject naturally alter ; and thus we 

 advance from a less to a more " appro- 

 priate " general conception, in the pro- 

 gress of our investigations. 



We ought not, at the same time, 

 to forget that . the really important 

 agreement cannot always be dis- 

 covered by mere comparison of the 

 \ery phenomena in question, without 

 the aid of a conception acquired else- 

 where ; as in the case, so often re- 

 ferred to, of the planetary orbits. 



The search for the agreement of a 

 set of phenomena is in truth very 

 similar to the search for a lost or 

 liidden object. At first we place our- 

 selves in a sufficiently commanding 

 position, and cast our eyes around us, 

 and if we can see the object, it is 

 well ; if not, we ask ourselves men- 

 tally what are the places in which it 

 may be hid, in order that we may 

 there search for it : and so on, until 

 we imagine the place where it really 

 is. And here too we require to have 

 had a previous conception or know- 

 ledge of those different places. As 

 in this familiar process so in the 

 philosophical operation which it illus- 

 trates, we first endeavour to find the 

 lost object or recognise the common 

 attribute, without conjecturally in- 

 voking the aid of any previously ac- 

 quired conception, or, in other M'ords, 

 of any hypothesis. Having failed in 

 this, we call upon our imagination 



for some hypothesis of a possible 

 place, or a possible point of resem- 

 blance, and then look to see whether 

 the facts agree with the conjecture. 



For such cases something more in 

 required than a mind accustomed to 

 accurate observation and comparison. 

 It must be a mind stoi-ed with gene- 

 ral conceptions, previously acquired, 

 of the sorts which bear affinity to 

 the subject of the particular inquiry. 

 And much will also depend on the 

 natural strength and acquired culture 

 of what has been termed the scien- 

 tific imagination ; on the faculty pos- 

 sessed of mentally arranging known 

 elements into new combinations, such 

 as have not yet been observed in 

 nature, though not contradictory to 

 any known laws. 



But the variety of intellectual ha- 

 bits, the purposes which they serve, 

 and the modes in which they may be 

 fostered and cultivated, are considera- 

 tions belonging to the Art of Educa- 

 tion : a subject far wider than Logic, 

 and which this treatise does not pro- 

 fess to discuss. Here, therefore, the 

 present chapter may properly close. 



CHAPTER III. 



OK NAMING, AS SUBSIDIARY TO 

 INDUCTION. 



§ I. It does not belong to the pre- 

 sent undertaking to dwell on the im- 

 portance of language as a medium of 

 human intercourse, whether for pur- 

 jx)ses of sympathy or of information. 

 Nor does out design admit of more 

 than a passing allusion to that great 

 property of names on which their 

 functions as an intellectual instru- 

 ment are, in reality, ultimately de- 

 pendent — their potency as a means of 

 forming and of riveting associations 

 among our other ideas : a subject on 

 which an able thinker* has thus 

 written : — 



"Names are impressions of sense, 



* Profesaor Bain. 



