NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF INFERENCE 393 



the mental recognition, and acceptance as true, of some necessary 

 and universal intuition upon which we ground the possibility and 

 legitimacy of the passage from antecedent to consequent. Did we 

 not, for instance, recognize as evidently, necessarily, and universally 

 true, the principles laid down in the preceding section in refer 

 ence to relations of magnitude, multitude, identity, space, time, 

 etc. as axioms of the corresponding classes of inferences, we 

 should have no logical ground for passing from premisses to 

 conclusion in any of them. 



Hence, we may draw the general conclusion that no logical 

 inference from particular or indefinite judgments is possible with 

 out the mental intervention and assistance of universal truths. 



This teaching may seem at first sight to contradict much of 

 our ordinary experience : for we are commonly said to &quot; draw 

 inferences &quot; from &quot; particular &quot; facts, to &quot; reason &quot; by analogy 

 from some &quot;particular&quot; fact to some other similar &quot; particular &quot; 

 fact, etc. Here, however, the term &quot;particular&quot; is used in the 

 sense of&quot; individual,&quot; &quot;singular&quot;. And we shall find, moreover, 

 on closer analysis of those processes by which we argue from in 

 dividual facts to other individual facts by analogy, or to general 

 truths by induction, that there is, in all such cases, a tacit uni 

 versal axiom in the mind, underlying the mental process, and 

 guaranteeing the validity of the passage from antecedent to con 

 sequent. 1 



Inference by analogy is a process in which it is claimed that 

 we reason directly from particulars to particulars. Mill, contend 

 ing that all inference Is from particulars, writes : 2 &quot;It is not only 

 the village matron who, when called to a consultation upon the 

 case of a neighbour s child, pronounces on the evil and its remedy 

 simply on the recollection and authority of what she accounts 

 the similar case of her Lucy &quot;. But is the reasoning here directly 

 from one individual case to another, without any universal prin 

 ciple? Apparently, it is. &quot;This child is affected like Lucy; 

 therefore what cured Lucy will cure it also.&quot; Really, however, 

 the universal must and does intervene. For, why does the village 

 matron account this case &quot; similar &quot; to that of Lucy ? Because 

 it reveals the same symptoms ? And, therefore, the same kind of 



1 This will be illustrated in connexion with the doctrine of Induction, when we 

 come to analyse the various forms and phases of the process by which we ascend ment 

 ally from the concrete, individual facts of sense experience, to the apprehension 

 general intellectual truths. 



3 Logic, ii., ch. iii., 3. 



