considered by them as a man _below par_ in the general powers of his understanding; then, 'O what a lucky fellow! Well, Fortune _does_ favour fools--that's for certain!--It is always so!' And forthwith the exclaimer relates half a dozen similar instances. Thus accumulating the one sort of facts and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in their diction, and quacks of all denominations do in their reasoning, put a part for the whole." This passage very happily sets forth the manner in which, under the loose mode of induction which proceeds _per enumerati onem simplicem_, not seeking for instances of such a kind as to be decisive of the question, but generalizing from any which occur, or rather which are remembered, opinions grow up with the apparent sanction of experience, which have no foundation in the laws of nature at all. "Itaque recte respondit ille," (we may say with Bacon,[18]) "qui cum suspensa tabula in templo ei monstraretur eorum, qui vota solverant, quod naufragii periculo elapsi sint, atque interrogando premeretur, anne tum quidem Deorum numen agnosceret, quæsivit denuo, _At ubi sunt illi depicti qui post vota nuncupata perierunt?_ Eadem ratio est fere omnis superstitionis, ut in Astrologicis, in Somniis, Ominibus, Nemesibus, et hujusmodi; in quibus, homines delectati hujusmodi vanitatibus, advertunt eventus, ubi implentur; ast ubi fallunt, licet multo frequentius, tamen negligunt, et prætereunt." And he proceeds to say, that independently of the love of the marvellous, or any other bias in the inclinations, there is a natural tendency in the intellect itself to this kind of fallacy; since the mind is more moved by affirmative instances, though negative ones are of most use in philosophy; "Is tamen humano intellectui error est proprius et perpetuus, ut magis moveatur et excitetur Affirmativis quam Negativis; cum rite et ordine æquum se utrique præbere debeat; quin contra, in omni Axiomate vero constituendo, major vis est instantiæ negativæ."