Note 117 — APHORISMS—BOOK II ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, OR THE REIGN OF MAN (continued 2)

The collective instances here meant are no other than general facts or laws of some degree of generality, and are themselves the result of induction. For example, the system of Jupiter, or Saturn with its satellites, is a collective instance, and materially assisted in securing the admission of the Copernican system. We have here in miniature, and displayed at one view, a system analogous to that of the planets about the sun, of which, from the circumstance of our being involved in it, and unfavorably situated for seeing it otherwise than in detail, we are incapacitated from forming a general idea, but by slow and progressive efforts of reason.