Page:System of Logic.djvu/432

426 vation we assure ourselves of its existence; when it is beyond that range, and is therefore said to be absent, we infer its existence from marks or evidences. But what can these evidences be? Other phenomena; ascertained by induction to be connected with the given phenomenon, either in the way of succession or of co-existence. The simple existence, therefore, of an individual phenomenon, when not directly perceived, is inferred from some inductive law of succession or co-existence; and is consequently not amenable to any peculiar inductive principles. We prove the existence of a thing, by proving that it is connected by succession or co-existence with some known thing.

With respect to general propositions of this class, that is, which affirm the bare fact of existence, they have a peculiarity which renders the logical treatment of them a very easy matter; they are generalizations which are sufficiently proved by a single instance. That ghosts, or unicorns, or sea-serpents exist, would be fully established if it could be ascertained positively that such things had been even once seen. Whatever has once happened, is capable of happening again; the only question relates to the conditions under which it happens.

So far, therefore, as relates to simple existence, the Inductive Logic has no knots to untie. And we may proceed to the remaining two of the great classes into which facts have been divided; Resemblance, and Order in Place.

§ 2. Resemblance and its opposite, except in the case in which they assume the names of Equality and Inequality, are seldom regarded as subjects of science; they are supposed to be perceived by simple apprehension; by merely applying our senses or directing our attention to the two objects at once, or in immediate succession. And this simultaneous, or virtually simultaneous, application of our faculties to the two things which are to be compared, does necessarily constitute the ultimate appeal, wherever such application is practicable. But, in most cases, it is not practicable: the objects can not be brought so close together that the feeling of their resemblance (at least a complete feeling of it) directly arises in the mind. We can only compare each of them with some third object, capable of being transported from one to the other. And besides, even when the objects can be brought into immediate juxtaposition, their resemblance or difference is but imperfectly known to us, unless we have compared them minutely, part by part. Until this has been done, things in reality very dissimilar often appear undistinguishably alike. Two lines of very unequal length will appear about equal when lying in different directions; but place them parallel with their farther extremities even, and if we look at the nearer extremities, their inequality becomes a matter of direct perception.

To ascertain whether, and in what, two phenomena resemble or differ, is not always, therefore, so easy a thing as it might at first appear. When the two can not be brought into juxtaposition, or not so that the observer is able to compare their several parts in detail, he must employ the indirect means of reasoning and general propositions. When we can not bring two straight lines together, to determine whether they are equal, we do it by the physical aid of a foot-rule applied first to one and then to the other, and the logical aid of the general proposition or formula, "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another." The comparison of two things through the intervention of a third thing, when their direct