Note 9 — Chapter III · OF THE GROUND OF INDUCTION.

In the first edition a note was appended at this place, containing some criticism on Archbishop Whately's mode of conceiving the relation between Syllogism and Induction. In a subsequent issue of his Logic, the Archbishop made a reply to the criticism, which induced me to cancel part of the note, incorporating the remainder in the text. In a still later edition, the Archbishop observes in a tone of something like disapprobation, that the objections, "doubtless from their being fully answered and found untenable, were silently suppressed," and that hence he might appear to some of his readers to be combating a shadow. On this latter point, the Archbishop need give himself no uneasiness. His readers, I make bold to say, will fully credit his mere affirmation that the objections have actually been made.

But as he seems to think that what he terms the suppression of the objections ought not to have been made "silently," I now break that silence, and state exactly what it is that I suppressed, and why. I suppressed that alone which might be regarded as personal criticism on the Archbishop. I had imputed to him the having omitted to ask himself a particular question. I found that he had asked himself the question, and could give it an answer consistent with his own theory. I had also, within the compass of a parenthesis, hazarded some remarks on certain general characteristics of Archbishop Whately as a philosopher. These remarks, though their tone, I hope, was neither disrespectful nor arrogant, I felt, on reconsideration, that I was hardly entitled to make; least of all, when the instance which I had regarded as an illustration of them, failed, as I now saw, to bear them out. The real matter at the bottom of the whole dispute, the different view we take of the function of the major premise, remains exactly where it was; and so far was I from thinking that my opinion had been "fully answered" and was "untenable," that in the same edition in which I cancelled the note, I not only enforced the opinion by further arguments, but answered (though without naming him) those of the Archbishop.

For not having made this statement before, I do not think it needful to apologize. It would be attaching very great importance to one's smallest sayings, to think a formal retractation requisite every time that one commits an error. Nor is Archbishop Whately's well-earned fame of so tender a quality as to require, that in withdrawing a slight criticism on him I should have been bound to offer a public amende for having made it.