CHAPTER II. 



INDUCTION IN ITS VARIOUS SENSES. INTRODUCTORY AND 

 HISTORICAL NOTIONS. 



206. THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION: ASCENT FROM THE 

 PARTICULAR TO THE UNIVERSAL. In the foregoing chapter we 

 have gleaned some general notions about method, and about the 

 processes of analysis and synthesis involved in method. We 

 now purpose to deal with the analytic method and the doctrine 

 of Induction. To the main problem of induction we have referred 

 already (194, 198). How do we, from particular facts of sense 

 experience, attain to a knowledge of necessary, universal truths? 

 Such universal judgments we have seen to be essential not only to 

 all deductive, but to all mediate, reasoning whatsoever (193, 195). 

 We have called them abstract, general, universal, generic judg 

 ments (92). They are likewise called logical and scientific prin 

 ciples, axioms, laws of thought, laws of physical nature, etc. 

 We have expressed them both categorically : &quot; M as such is P &quot; ; 

 &quot; All Ms are P&quot; ; &quot;Whatever is M is P&quot; etc. and hypotheti- 

 cally : &quot; If anything is M it is P&quot; ; &quot; If 5 is M it is P&quot; etc. 

 And now we have to analyse the conscious processes by which, 

 from the apprehension of particular facts, instances, cases (con 

 taining S, M, P, etc.), we reach a certain knowledge of such 

 general truths or laws. Since, moreover, the essential merit and 

 excellence of &quot;scientific&quot; knowledge lies in the fact that it is 

 a knowledge of the universal truth, principle, law, etc. and, 

 through this, of the particular phenomena or instances under it, 

 the importance of clearly understanding the process by which, 

 and the rational grounds on which, we give our assent to the 

 universal truth, will be at once apparent. 



We have distinguished three kinds of universal truths 

 (195). There are, firstly, those absolutely necessary, self-evident 

 axioms such as the laws of thought, metaphysical principles 

 such as the principle of causality &quot; Whatever happens has a 



