ABSTRACT
The two operations spoken of in the preceding chapters [ sic ], – the Explication of the Conceptions of our own minds, and the Colligation of observed Facts by the aid of such Conceptions, – are, as we have just said, inseparably connected with each other. When united, and employed in collecting knowledge from the phenomena which the world presents to us, they constitute the mental process of Induction ; which is usually and justly spoken of as the genuine source of all our real general knowledge respecting the external world. And we see, from the preceding analysis of this process into its two constituents, from what origin it derives each of its characters. It is real, because it arises from the combination of Real Facts, but it is general, because it implies the possession of General Ideas. Without the former, it would not be knowledge of the External World, without the latter, it would not be Knowledge at all. When Ideas and Facts are separated from each other, the neglect of Facts gives rise to empty speculations, idle subtleties, visionary inventions, false opinions concerning the laws of phenomena, disregard of the true aspect of nature: while the want of Ideas leaves the mind overwhelmed, bewildered, and stupified by particular sensations, with no means of connecting the past with the future, the absent with the present, the example with the rule; open to the impression of all appearances, but capable of appropriating none. Ideas are the Form, facts the Material of our structure. Knowledge does not consist in the empty mould, or in the brute mass of matter, but in the rightly-moulded substance. Induction gathers general truths from particular facts; – and in her harvest, the corn and the reaper, the solid ears and the binding band, are alike requisite. All our knowledge of nature is obtained by Induction; the term being understood according to the explanation we have now given. And our knowledge is then most complete, then most truly deserves the name of Science, when both its elements are most perfect; – when the Ideas which have been concerned in its formation have, at every step, been clear and consistent; and when they have, at every step also, been employed in binding together real and certain Facts. Of such Induction, I have already given so many examples and illustrations in the two preceding chapters [ sic ], that I need not now dwell further upon the subject.
