A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II

by John Stuart Mill

CHAPTER I.
OF OBSERVATION AND DESCRIPTION.

[§ 1.] The inquiry which occupied us in the two preceding books, has conducted us to what appears a satisfactory solution of the principal problem of Logic, according to the conception I have formed of the science. We have found, that the mental process with which Logic is conversant, the operation of ascertaining truths by means of evidence, is always, even when appearances point to a different theory of it, a process of induction. And we have particularized the various modes of induction, and obtained a clear view of the principles to which it must conform, in order to lead to results which can be relied on.

The consideration of Induction, however, does not end with the direct rules for its performance. Something must be said of those other operations of the mind, which are either necessarily presupposed in all induction, or are instrumental to the more difficult and complicated inductive processes. The present book will be devoted to the consideration of these subsidiary operations: among which our attention must first be given to those, which are indispensable preliminaries to all induction whatsoever.

Induction being merely the extension to a class of cases, of something which has been observed to be true in certain individual instances of the class; the first place among the operations subsidiary to induction, is claimed by Observation. This is not, however, the place to lay down rules for making good observers; nor is it within the competence of Logic to do so, but of the art of intellectual Education. Our business with observation is only in its connexion with the appropriate problem of logic, the estimation of evidence. We have to consider, not how or what to observe, but under what conditions observation is to be relied on; what is needful, in order that the fact, supposed to be observed, may safely be received as true.

[§ 2.] The answer to this question is very simple, at least in its first aspect. The sole condition is, that what is supposed to have been observed shall really have been observed; that it be an observation, not an inference. For in almost every act of our perceiving faculties, observation and inference are intimately blended. What we are said to observe is usually a compound result, of which one-tenth may be observation, and the remaining nine-tenths inference.

I affirm, for example, that I hear a man's voice. This would pass, in common language, for a direct perception. All, however, which is really perception, is that I hear a sound. That the sound is a voice, and that voice the voice of a man, are not perceptions but inferences. I affirm, again, that I saw my brother at a certain hour this morning. If any proposition concerning a matter of fact would commonly be said to be known by the direct testimony of the senses, this surely would be so. The truth, however, is far otherwise. I only saw a certain coloured surface; or rather I had the kind of visual sensations which are usually produced by a coloured surface; and from these as marks, known to be such by previous experience, I concluded that I saw my brother. I might have had sensations precisely similar, when my brother was not there. I might have seen some other person so nearly resembling him in appearance, as, at the distance, and with the degree of attention which I bestowed, to be mistaken for him. I might have been asleep, and have dreamed that I saw him; or in a state of nervous disorder, which brought his image before me in a waking hallucination. In all these modes, many have been led to believe that they saw persons well known to them, who were dead or far distant. If any of these suppositions had been true, the affirmation that I saw my brother would have been erroneous; but whatever was matter of direct perception, namely the visual sensations, would have been real. The inference only would have been ill grounded; I should have ascribed those sensations to a wrong cause.

Innumerable instances might be given, and analysed in the same manner, of what are vulgarly called errors of sense. There are none of them properly errors of sense; they are erroneous inferences from sense. When I look at a candle through a multiplying glass, I see what seems a dozen candles instead of one: and if the real circumstances of the case were skilfully disguised, I might suppose that there were really that number; there would be what is called an optical deception. In the kaleidoscope there really is that deception: when I look through the instrument, instead of what is actually there, namely a casual arrangement of coloured fragments, the appearance presented is that of the same combination several times repeated in symmetrical arrangement round a point. The delusion is of course effected by giving me the same sensations which I should have had if such a symmetrical combination had really been presented to me. If I cross two of my fingers, and bring any small object, a marble for instance, into contact with both, at points not usually touched simultaneously by one object, I can hardly, if my eyes are shut, help believing that there are two marbles instead of one. But it is not my touch in this case, nor my sight in the other, which is deceived; the deception, whether durable or only momentary, is in my judgment. From my senses I have only the sensations, and those are genuine. Being accustomed to have those or similar sensations when, and only when, a certain arrangement of outward objects is present to my organs, I have the habit of instantly, when I experience the sensations, inferring the existence of that state of outward things. This habit has become so powerful, that the inference, performed with the speed and certainty of an instinct, is confounded with intuitive perceptions. When it is correct, I am unconscious that it ever needed proof; even when I know it to be incorrect, I cannot without considerable effort abstain from making it. In order to be aware that it is not made by instinct but by an acquired habit, I am obliged to reflect on the slow process through which I learnt to judge by the eye of many things which I now appear to perceive directly by sight; and on the reverse operation performed by persons learning to draw, who with difficulty and labour divest themselves of their acquired perceptions, and learn afresh to see things as they appear to the eye.

It would be easy to prolong these illustrations, were there any need to expatiate on a topic so copiously exemplified in various popular works. From the examples already given, it is seen sufficiently, that the individual facts from which we collect our inductive generalizations are scarcely ever obtained by observation alone. Observation extends only to the sensations by which we recognise objects; but the propositions which we make use of, either in science or in common life, relate mostly to the objects themselves. In every act of what is called observation, there is at least one inference—from the sensations to the presence of the object; from the marks or diagnostics, to the entire phenomenon. And hence, among other consequences, follows the seeming paradox, that a general proposition collected from particulars is often more certainly true than any one of the particular propositions from which, by an act of induction, it was inferred. For, each of those particular (or rather singular) propositions involved an inference, from the impression on the senses to the fact which caused that impression: and this inference may have been erroneous in any one of the instances, but cannot well have been erroneous in all of them, provided their number was sufficient to eliminate chance. The conclusion, therefore, that is, the general proposition, may deserve more complete reliance than it would be safe to repose in any one of the inductive premises.

The logic of observation, then, consists solely in a correct discrimination between that, in a result of observation, which has really been perceived, and that which is an inference from the perception. Whatever portion is inference, is amenable to the rules of induction already treated of, and requires no further notice here: the question for us in this place is, when all which is inference is taken away, what remains. There remains, in the first place, the mind's own feelings or states of consciousness, namely, its outward feelings or sensations, and its inward feelings—its thoughts, emotions, and volitions. Whether anything else remains, or all else is inference from this; whether the mind is capable of directly perceiving or apprehending anything except states of its own consciousness—is a problem of metaphysics not to be discussed in this place. But after excluding all questions on which metaphysicians differ, it remains true, that for most purposes the discrimination we are called upon practically to exercise is that between sensations or other feelings, of our own or of other people, and inferences drawn from them. And on the theory of Observation this is all which seems necessary to be said for the purposes of the present work.