CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON INDUCTION IN 

 GENERAL. 



1. THE portion of the present inquiry upon which we 

 are now about to enter, may be considered as the principal, 

 both from its surpassing in intricacy all the other branches, 

 and because it relates to a process which has been shown in 

 the preceding Book to be that in which the investigation of 

 nature essentially consists. We have found that all Inference, 

 consequently all Proof, and all discovery of truths not self- 

 evident, consists of inductions, and the interpretation of induc 

 tions : that all our knowledge, not intuitive, comes to us ex 

 clusively from that source. What Induction is, therefore, and 

 what conditions render it legitimate, cannot but be deemed the 

 main question of the science of logic the question which in 

 cludes all others. It is, however, one which professed writers 

 on logic have almost entirely passed over. The generalities of 

 the subject have not been altogether neglected by metaphysi 

 cians ; but, for want of sufficient acquaintance with the processes 

 by which science has actually succeeded in establishing general 

 truths, their analysis of the inductive operation, even when un 

 exceptionable as to correctness, has not been specific enough 

 to be made the foundation of practical rules, which might fee 

 for induction itself what the rules of the syllogism are for the 

 interpretation of induction : while those by whom physical 

 science has been carried to its present state of improvement 

 and who, to arrive at a complete theory of the process, needed 

 only to generalize, and adapt to all varieties of problems, the 

 methods which they themselves employed in their habitual 

 pursuits never until very lately made any serious attempt to 

 philosophize on the subject, nor regarded the mode in which 



