408 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



reach general laws. The whole process, though it involves 

 deductive, hypothetical, and disjunctive reasoning, is not itself a 

 logical inference &quot; from particular to general &quot;. It is essentially 

 a process of abstraction and generalization, i.e. of conception and 

 judgment aided by complex and laborious subsidiary processes 

 of observation and experiment. 1 Although, therefore, we admit, 

 with Mill, that our knowledge of the general truths established 

 by induction, as indeed our knowledge of all general truths 

 whatsoever, starts from the particular facts of sense experience, 

 we deny that this ascent from particular facts to general truths 

 can be properly described as a logical inference (198). We admit 

 freely, however, that in most cases the inductive ascent from the 

 particular facts, by way of observation, hypothesis, and experi 

 ment, to the abstract law, is much more laborious than the mere 

 formal generalization of this abstract law, and the subsequent 

 application of it, by way of syllogistic inference, to new instances 

 brought under it. 2 



It is not true, however, to say that once the abstract, general 

 law or truth is established by induction, all the real mental work 

 is over. It would be, indeed, if the law in question were a mere 

 collective judgment, for then all the individual instances would 

 have been already known, and the minor premisses which would 

 bring them under the collective majors, would be mere records 

 of work already done. This, in fact, is a difficulty against 

 Mill s view of the syllogism, and one he has not succeeded in 

 answering : that, in his view, the minor premiss would be useless 

 and superfluous ; s whereas in every real syllogism it is not only 

 useful but necessary. And why? Because when the universal 

 major is established, all the mental work is not over : the general 



1 Cf. JOYCE, Logic, p. 217. &quot; This process is not ratiocinative. We do not 

 argue from premisses to conclusion.&quot; Cf. infra, 212. 



2 Cf. VENN, Empirical Logic, p. 377. &quot; There is a great deal of labour and 

 insight required perhaps for the acquirement of our major premise in the form in 

 which we can employ it, and then there is a single almost instantaneous step of 

 inappreciably small advance.&quot; 



3 Mill s reply, that the major indicates individuals only by marks and that the 

 function of the minor is to identify an individual by comparison with those marks, 

 only shows the impossibility of his own interpretation of the major. If the latter 

 is a judgment about a collection, what right have we to assert it until we have ex 

 amined the minor and put it into the collection ? What right have we to assert 

 what we do not know ? &quot; I do not say that a person who affirmed, before the 

 Duke of Wellington was born, that all men are mortal, knew that the Duke of Wel 

 lington was mortal; but I do say that he asserted it&quot; (Logic, bk. ii., chap, iii., 

 2, note). The &quot; assertion &quot; of an unknown fact is not an assertion of a judgment at 

 all. 



