otions, and Volitions.

As in the simplest observation much is inference, so, in describing an
observed fact, we not merely describe the fact, but are always forced to
class it, affirming the resemblance, in regard of whatever is the ground
of the name being given, between it and all other things denoted by the
name. The resemblance is sometimes perceived by direct comparison of the
objects together; sometimes (as, e.g. in the description of the earth's
figure as globular and so forth) it is inferred through intermediate
marks, i.e. deductively. When a hypothesis is made (e.g. by Kepler, as
to the figure of the earth's orbit), and then verified by comparison
with actual observations, Dr. Whewell calls the process Colligation of
Facts by appropriate Conceptions, and affirms it to be the whole of
Induction. But this also is only description, being really the ordinary
process of ascertaining resemblance by a comparison of phenomena; and,
though subsidiary to Induction, it is not itself Induction at all.

CHAPTER II.

ABSTRACTION, OR THE FORMATION OF CONCEPTIONS.

_This Chapter is a digression._

Abstract Ideas, that is, General Conceptions, certainly do exist,
however Metaphysics may decide as to their composition. They
_represent_ in our minds the whole classes of things called by the
general names; and, being implied in the mental operation whereby
classes are formed, viz. in the comparison of phenomena, to ascertain in
what they agree, cannot be dispensed with in induction, since such a
comparison is a necessary preliminary to an induction, and more than two
objects cannot well be compared without a type, in which capacity
conceptions serve.

But, though implied in the comparison, it does not follow that, as Dr.
Whewell supposes, they must have existed in the mind prior to
comparison. Sometimes, but only sometimes, they are pre-existent to the
comparison of the particular facts in question, being, as was Kepler's
hypothesis of an ellipse, familiar conceptions borrowed from different
facts, and _superinduced_, to use Dr. Whewell's expression, on the facts
in question. But even such conceptions are the results of former
comparisons of individual facts. And much more commonly (and these are
the more difficult cases in science) conceptions are not pre-existent
even in this sense; but they have to be got (e.g. the Idea of Polarity)
by abstraction, that is, by comparison, from among the very phenomena
which the