GROUND OF INDUCTION. 



347 



mankind believed in an uniformity of the course of nature 

 where no such uniformity really existed. 



According to the notion which the ancients entertained of 

 induction, the foregoing were cases of as legitimate inference 

 as any inductions whatever. In these two instances, in 

 which, the conclusion being false, the ground of inference 

 must have been insufficient, there was, nevertheless, as much 

 ground for it as this conception of induction admitted of. 

 The induction of the ancients has been well described by 

 Bacon, under the name of &quot; Inductio per enumerationem sim- 

 plicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria.&quot; It con 

 sists in ascribing the character of general truths to all pro 

 positions which are true in every instance that we happen 

 to know of. This is the kind of induction which is natural 

 to the mind when unaccustomed to scientific methods. The 

 tendency, which some call an instinct, and which others 

 account for by association, to infer the future from the past, 

 the known from the unknown, is simply a habit of expecting 

 that what has been found true once or several times, and 

 never yet found false, will be found true again. Whether 

 the instances are few or many, conclusive or inconclusive, 

 does not much affect the matter : these are considerations 

 which occur only on reflection ; the unprompted tendency of 

 the mind is to generalize its experience, provided this points 

 all in one direction ; provided no other experience of a con 

 flicting character comes unsought. The notion of seeking it, 

 of experimenting for it, of interrogating nature (to use Bacon s 

 expression) is of much later growth. The observation of \ 

 nature, by uncultivated intellects, is purely passive : they I 

 accept the facts which present themselves, without taking 

 the trouble of searching for more : it is a superior mind only j 

 which asks itself what facts are needed to enable it to come to I 

 a safe conclusion, and then looks out for these. 



But though we have always a propensity to generalize 

 from unvarying experience, we are not always warranted in 

 doing so. Before we can be at liberty to conclude that some 

 thing is universally true because we have never known an 



