The Student's Handbook - John stuart mill

The Student's Handbook; Synoptical and Explanatory, of Mr. J.S. Mill's System of Logic by John Stuart Mill ..Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher.

 1888. Excerpt: ... under a general description; or which enables us to sum up a number of details in a single Proposition. There are two questions at issue between Mill and Whewell with respect to Colligation: -- 1. As to the exact nature of Colligation, or the pro cess of forming general notions. 2. The relation between Induction and Colligation. The first is discussed in Book iv., chapter 2; the second we now proceed to examine. II. Relation between Induction and Collation. According to Whewell--" Induction is the Colligation of phenomena by means of appropriate conceptions, -- in short, Colligation is Induction." Mill replies. -- The two processes are quite distinct; Colligation, or the formation of a general conception of the phenomena to be investigated, is a necessary preliminary to Induction; but Induction is something more than Colligation; for-- 1. There is no real inference in mere Colligation. 2. Successive Colligations, though conflicting, may yet all be correct as far as they go; that is, they may all correctly represent the facts observed at the time they were respectively framed. Now, it would be absurd to assert that conflicting Inductions could all be true. Thus, the successive notions which the ancients formed of the nature of the paths of the heavenly bodies were all correct as descriptions, i.e., as far as they represented the facts known at the time. Suppose I observe certain facts, and attempt to describe them to another, it is evident that my description is correct, as a description, if I succeed in conveying to him the same notion as he would have had of the facts if he himself had observed them in my stead. But if new facts are discovered, a new, and perhaps different, notion or description will be required, which again may have to give place to a third, differing from both, i..