128 INDUCTION. 



hitherto found true in every observed instance, may yet be no 

 necessary consequence of laws of causation, or of ultimate uni 

 formities, and unless they are so, may, for aught we know, be 

 false beyond the limits of actual observation : still more evi 

 dently must this be the case with propositions which are only 

 true in a mere majority of the observed instances. 



There is some difference, however, in the degree of certainty 

 of the proposition, Most A are E, according as that approxi 

 mate generalization composes the whole of our knowledge of 

 the subject, or not. Suppose, first, that the former is the case. 

 We know only that most A are B, not why they are so, nor in 

 what respect those which are, differ from those which are not. 

 How then did we learn that most A are B ? Precisely in the 

 manner in which we should have learnt, had such happened to 

 be the fact, that all A are B. We collected a number of in 

 stances sufficient to eliminate chance, and having done so, 

 compared the number of instances in the affirmative with the 

 number in the negative. The result, like other unresolved 

 derivative laws, can be relied on solely within the limits not 

 only of place and time, but also of circumstance, under which 

 its truth has been actually observed ; for as we are supposed 

 to be ignorant of the causes which make the proposition true, 

 we cannot tell in what manner any new circumstance might 

 perhaps affect it. The proposition, Most judges are inacces 

 sible to bribes, would be found true of Englishmen, French 

 men, Germans, North Americans, and so forth ; but if on this 

 evidence alone we extended the assertion to Orientals, we should 

 step beyond the limits, not only of place but of circumstance, 

 within which the fact had been observed, and should let in 

 possibilities of the absence of the determining causes, or the 

 presence of counteracting ones, which might be fatal to the 

 approximate generalization. 



In the case where the approximate proposition is not the 

 ultimatum of our scientific knowledge, but only the most 

 available form of it for practical guidance ; where we know, 

 not only that most A have the attribute B, but also the causes 

 of B, or some properties by which the portion of A which has 

 that attribute is distinguished from the portion which has it 



