13. Besides this difference of speculative thought and practical instinct which thus are, as appears to me, confounded in Mr. Mill's philosophy, in such a way as tends to destroy all coherent views of human knowledge, there is another set of cases to which Mr. Mill applies the term _Induction_, and to which it appears to me to be altogether inapplicable. He employs it to describe the mode in which superstitious men, in ignorant ages, were led to the opinion that striking natural events presaged or accompanied calamities. Thus he says (i. 389), "The opinion so long prevalent that a comet or any other unusual appearance in the heavenly regions was the precursor of calamities to mankind, or at least to those who witnessed it; the belief in the oracles of Delphi and Dodona; the reliance on astrology, or on the weather-prophecies in almanacs; were doubtless inductions supposed to be grounded on experience;" and he speaks of these insufficient inductions being extinguished by the stronger inductions subsequently obtained by scientific inquiry. And in like manner, he says in another place (i. 367), "Let us now compare different predictions: the first, that eclipses will occur whenever one planet or satellite is so situated as to cast its shadow upon another: the second, that they will occur whenever some great calamity is impending over mankind." 14. Now I cannot see how anything but confusion can arise from applying the term _Induction_ to superstitious fancies like those here mentioned. They are not imperfect truths, but entire falsehoods. Of that, Mr. Mill and I are agreed: how then can they exemplify the progress towards truth? They were not collected from the facts by seeking a law of their occurrence; but were suggested by an imagination of the anger of superior powers shown by such deviations from the ordinary course of nature. If we are to speak of _inductions_ to any purpose, they must be such inductions as represent the facts, in some degree at least. It is not meant, I presume, that these opinions are in any degree true: to what purpose then are they adduced? If I were to hold that my dreams predict or conform to the motions of the stars or of the clouds, would this be an induction? It would be so, as much one as those here so denominated: yet what but confusion could arise from classing it among scientific truths? Mr. Mill himself has explained (ii. 389) the way in which such delusions as the prophecies of almanac-makers, and the like, obtain credence; namely, by the greater effect which the positive instances produce on ordinary minds in comparison with the negative, when the rule has once taken possession of their thoughts. And this being, as he says, the recognized explanation of such cases, why should we not leave them to their due place, and not confound and perplex the whole of our investigation by elevating them to the rank of "inductions"? The very condemnation of such opinions is that they are not at all inductive.