Thus, in the preceding example, the ultimate inductive inference was, that a certain government was not likely to be overthrown: this inference was drawn according to a formula in which desire of the public good was set down as a mark of not being likely to be overthrown; a mark of this mark was, acting in a particular manner; and a mark of acting in that manner was, being asserted to do so by intelligent and disinterested witnesses: this mark, the government under discussion was recognised by the senses as possessing. Hence that government fell within the last induction, and by it was brought within all the others. The perceived resemblance of the case to one set of observed particular cases, brought it into known resemblance with another set, and that with a third.
In the more complex branches of knowledge, the deductions seldom consist, as in the examples hitherto exhibited, of a single chain, _a_ a mark of _b_, _b_ of _c_, _c_ of _d_, therefore _a_ a mark of _d_. They consist (to carry on the same metaphor) of several chains united at the extremity, as thus: _a_ a mark of _d_, _b_ of _e_, _c_ of _f_, _d e f_ of _n_, therefore _a b c_ a mark of _n_. Suppose, for example, the following combination of circumstances: 1st, rays of light impinging on a reflecting surface; 2nd, that surface parabolic; 3rd, those rays parallel to each other and to the axis of the surface. It is to be proved that the concourse of these three circumstances is a mark that the reflected rays will pass through the focus of the parabolic surface. Now, each of the three circumstances is singly a mark of something material to the case. Rays of light impinging on a reflecting surface, are a mark that those rays will be reflected at an angle equal to the angle of incidence. The parabolic form of the surface is a mark that, from any point of it, a line drawn to the focus and a line parallel to the axis will make equal angles with the surface. And finally, the parallelism of the rays to the axis is a mark that their angle of incidence coincides with one of these equal angles. The three marks taken together are therefore a mark of all these three things united. But the three united are evidently a mark that the angle of reflexion must coincide with the other of the two equal angles, that formed by a line drawn to the focus; and this again, by the fundamental axiom concerning straight lines, is a mark that the reflected rays pass through the focus. Most chains of physical deduction are of this more complicated type; and even in mathematics such are abundant, as in all propositions where the hypothesis includes numerous conditions: "_If_ a circle be taken, and _if_ within that circle a point be taken, not the centre, and _if_ straight lines be drawn from that point to the circumference, then," &c.