A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
In every way, therefore, it is evident that to explain induction as the
colligation of facts by means of appropriate conceptions, that is,
conceptions which will really express them, is to confound mere
description of the observed facts with inference from those facts, and
ascribe to the latter what is a characteristic property of the former.
There is, however, between Colligation and Induction, a real
correlation, which it is important to conceive correctly. Colligation is
not always induction; but induction is always colligation. The assertion
that the planets move in ellipses, was but a mode of representing
observed facts; it was but a colligation; while the assertion that they
are drawn, or tend, towards the sun, was the statement of a new fact,
inferred by induction. But the induction, once made, accomplishes the
purposes of colligation likewise. It brings the same facts, which Kepler
had connected by his conception of an ellipse, under the additional
conception of bodies acted upon by a central force, and serves therefore
as a new bond of connexion for those facts; a new principle for their
classification.
Further, the descriptions which are improperly confounded with
induction, are nevertheless a necessary preparation for induction; no
less necessary than correct observation of the facts themselves. Without
the previous colligation of detached observations by means of one
general conception, we could never have obtained any basis for an
induction, except in the case of phenomena of very limited compass. We
should not be able to affirm any predicates at all, of a subject
incapable of being observed otherwise than piecemeal: much less could we
extend those predicates by induction to other similar subjects.
Induction, therefore, always presupposes, not only that the necessary
observations are made with the necessary accuracy, but also that the
results of these observations are, so far as practicable, connected
together by general descriptions, enabling the mind to represent to
itself as wholes whatever phenomena are capable of being so represented.
§ 5. Dr. Whewell has replied at some length to the preceding
observations, re-stating his opinions, but without (as far as I can
perceive) adding anything material to his former arguments. Since,
however, mine have not had the good fortune to make any impression upon
him, I will subjoin a few remarks, tending to show more clearly in what
our difference of opinion consists, as well as, in some measure, to
account for it.
Nearly all the definitions of induction, by writers of authority, make
it consist in drawing inferences from known cases to unknown; affirming
of a class, a predicate which has been found true of some cases
belonging to the class; concluding, because some things have a certain
property, that other things which resemble them have the same
property--or because a thing has manifested a property at a certain
time, that it has and will have that property at other times.