THE SECOND IDEA OF MAN.

PLATE IL

RIGHT-HAND SECTION.

THE IDEA OF INTELLECT.

33.-The Idea of Inference is the primary Axis of Inference. Intellect (par. 4), or stands to Intellect in the relationship of Consciousness (par 25) to Instinct, and consists as its etymology imports, in the bringing-in to the mind, of such interconnexions of any present Consciousness or Reflection, as, although more or less hidden in the back ground of Memory or Speculation (par. 30), may be necessary to the completing of that present.

"To infer is nothing but by virtue of one proposition laid down as Inference a true, to draw in another as true; i.e., to see or suppose such a connection bringing in of the two ideas of the inferred proposition."-Locke, "Essay on the Human Understanding." B. 4; chap. 17.

to the Mind of Complementary interconnexions

"We ought to comprehend, within the sphere of inference, all processes wherein a truth, involved in a thought or thoughts given as antecedent, is evolved in a thought which is found as consequent."-Spalding Log. P. 1.

"Truths are known to us in two ways; some are known directly, and of themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject of intuition or consciousness; the latter, of inference. The truths known by intuition (consciousness), are the original premises from which all others are inferred. Our assent to the conclusion being grounded upon the truth of the premises, we never could arrive at any knowledge by reasoning, unless something could be known antecedently to all reasoning."

Whatever we are capable of knowing must belong

to the one class or the other; must be in the number of primitive data or of the conclusions which may be drawn therefrom.

"Whatever is known to us by consciousness, is known beyond possibility of question. What one sees or feels, whether bodily or mentally, one cannot but be sure that one sees or feels.

fancy that we see or feel what we in reality infer.

But we may

A truth,

or supposed truth, which is really the result of a very rapid inference, may seem to be apprehended intuitively. It has long been agreed by philosophers of the most opposite schools, that this mistake is actually made in so familiar an instance as that of the eyesight.

perception of distance by the eye, which seems so like intuition, is

The

in reality, an inference grounded on experience; an inference, too, which we learn to make; and which we make with more and more correctness as our experience increases.

"Of the science (Logic) therefore, which expounds the operations of the human understanding in the pursuit of truth, one essential part is

the enquiry; what are the truths which are the objects of intuition or consciousness, and what are those which we merely infer ? ' '— Mill's Logic. Introduction, pp. 3 and 5.

"We have seen that rational action arises out of instinctive action when this grows to be too complex to be perfectly automatic. We have now to observe that, at the same time, there arises that kind of reasoning which does not directly lead to action-that reasoning through which the great mass of surrounding Co-existences and sequences are known.

As fast as the groups of external attributes and relations recognised, become too complex to be consolidated into single psychical states, there result both the opportunity and the power of inferring such attributes or relations belonging to any group, as are not immediately presented. Pure Instinct continues so long as the stimuli responded to are made up of few and constant components. While the combined impressions of colour, position, size, and motion, which together stand for an adjacent object that can be seized for prey, are alone receivable, the actions will be purely automatic. But by the time that the organisation of experiences has given a power of appreciating the complicated relations of form, of mixed colouring, of peculiar motions, etc., along with the more general ones of colour, position, size, and motion; the attributes and relations united into a group, have grown not only too numerous to be all mentally presented at the same instant, but too numerous to be all physically presented at the same instant. For the same experiences which have rendered these complex groups of attributes cognisable, have also brought them before the senses in such various ways, that sometimes one part of a group has been perceptible, and someetims another part of it: Now these elements of an animal's form, and markenings, and actions have been visible, and now those. Though on the average each experience of the group has resembled previous ones, yet it has presented some attributes which they did not present, and has not presented others

which they did present. Hence, by an accumulation of such experiences, each complex group of external phenomena establishes in the organism an answering complex group of psychical states, which has the peculiarity that it contains more states than were ever produced, or ever can be produced, by any one presentation of the external group. What must happen from this? It must happen that when, on any future presentation of the external group, certain of these aggregated psychical states are directly produced by the impressions made on the senses, various others of the psychical states that have been aggregated with them, or made coherent to them by experience, will become nascent: the ideas of one or more unperceived attributes will be aroused: the unperceived attributes will be inferred."-Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychology." Part 4; chap. 7; p. 458.

Induction

and Deduction.

Induction as

34. The Co-ordinate Poles of Inference are Induction and Deduction-Induction the negative pole or mental process by which inter-connections are recognised or affirmed. Deduction, the more positive pole or process, by which certain of the interconnected or involved are again disentangled from such interconnection or involution, and presented to the Mind, as leading most prominently in the direction of immediate or ultimate ends.

"Induction is a kind of argument which infers, respecting a whole the basic pole class, what has been ascertained respecting one or more individuals of that class."-Whately, Log., book II., chap. 5.

of Inference.

[The ascertained is in this case the patent which draws its latent relationship with the class to which it belongs after it, and into the Mind.-AUTHOR.]