COLLIGATION OF FACTS, in Induction, is a phrase employed by Whewell (Phil. of Induc. Sci., II. 213), to denote the binding together groups of facts by means of some suitable conception. «The descriptive operation which enables a number of details to be summed up in a single proposition, Mr Whewell, by an aptly chosen expression, has termed the Colligation of Facts… I only think him mistaken in setting up this kind of operation, which, according to the old and received meaning of the term, is not induction at all, as the type of induction generally; and laying down throughout his work, as principles of induction, the principles of mere colligation» (J. S. Mill’s Logic, bk. III. ch. II., «Inductions improperly so called,» 2nd ed., I. 350, cf. II. 312; Thomson, Outline of Laws of Thought, 2nd ed., p. 353; Whewell, Nov. Org. Rem., p. 60).
