[5] The most favourable cases for making such approximate generalizations are what may be termed collective instances; where we are fortunately enabled to see the whole class respecting which we are inquiring, in action at once; and, from the qualities displayed by the collective body, are able to judge what must be the qualities of the majority of the individuals composing it. Thus the character of a nation is shown in its acts as a nation; not so much in the acts of its government, for those are much influenced by other causes; but in the current popular maxims, and other marks of the general direction of public opinion; in the character of the persons or writings that are held in permanent esteem or admiration; in laws and institutions, so far as they are the work of the nation itself, or are acknowledged and supported by it; and so forth. But even here there is a large margin of doubt and uncertainty. These things are liable to be influenced by many circumstances: they are partly determined by the distinctive qualities of that nation or body of persons, but partly also by external causes which would influence any other body of persons in the same manner. In order, therefore, to make the experiment really complete, we ought to be able to try it without variation upon other nations: to try how Englishmen would act or feel if placed in the same circumstances in which we have supposed Frenchmen to be placed; to apply, in short, the Method of Difference as well as that of Agreement. Now these experiments we cannot try, nor even approximate to.
[6] "To which," says Dr. Whewell, "we may add, that it is certain from the history of the subject, that in that case the hypothesis would never have been framed at all."
Dr. Whewell (Philosophy of Discovery, pp. 277-282) defends Bacon's rule against the preceding strictures. But his defence consists only in asserting and exemplifying a proposition which I had myself stated, viz. that though the largest generalizations may be the earliest made, they are not at first seen in their entire generality, but acquire it by degrees, as they are found to explain one class after another of phenomena. The laws of motion, for example, were not known to extend to the celestial regions, until the motions of the celestial bodies had been deduced from them. This however does not in any way affect the fact, that the middle principles of astronomy, the central force for example, and the law of the inverse square, could not have been discovered, if the laws of motion, which are so much more universal, had not been known first. On Bacon's system of step-by-step generalization, it would be impossible in any science to ascend higher than the empirical laws; a remark which Dr. Whewell's own Inductive Tables, referred to by him in support of his argument, amply bear out.
[7] Vol. i. p. 494 to the end of the chapter.
[8] Biographia Literaria, i. 214.
[9] Supra, vol. i. p. 500.
[10] Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, pp. 137-140.
[11] The quotations in this paragraph are from a paper written by the author, and published in a periodical in 1834.
[12] Cours de Philosophie Positive, iv. 325-9.
[13] Since reprinted entire in Dissertations and Discussions, as the concluding paper of the first volume.