A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)
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, that general description, which is improperly confounded with
induction, is 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 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 shew more clearly in what our difference of opinion
consists, as well as, in some measure, to account for it.
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.