INDUCTION IN ITS VARIOUS SENSES 49 



the one case the concrete and particular aspect comes first, in the 

 other the abstract and universal aspect. 



In the positive sciences, or sciences of observation as they 

 are called, the ascent to the general is difficult ; the descent to 

 the explanation of familiar facts by applying the principle is 

 comparatively easy ; in the abstract, rational sciences, the ascent 

 from particular to general is easy, the descent from the general 

 to its applications is difficult (202). Here, however, the contrast 

 between induction and deduction ceases. As mental processes 

 they are both essential to the attainment of science ; for this is 

 the knowledge of fact by law, of effect by cause, of particular 

 by general. 



But, apparently owing to Aristotle s conception and treatment 

 of enurnerative induction as a sort of syllogism without a middle 

 term, and to the fact that induction aims at generalizing from 

 particular experiences, some logicians have sought to represent 

 induction as a special form of logical inference, distinct from, and 

 in contrast with, those forms of inference which they conceive as 

 deductive. Now, to represent induction as simply a form of 

 inference is rather a misleading simplification of what is in 

 reality a whole series or combination of processes, some of which 

 &quot; are not processes of reasoning- at all &quot;. l Others of them, no 

 doubt, are logical inferences ; but not of any new form, distinct 

 from the various forms of mediate inference, categorical, hypothe 

 tical and disjunctive, that were known and analysed in logic 

 prior to the modern development of induction. These are the 

 only forms of inference known to induction ; and a glance at the 

 various steps in the inductive process (21 1) will show how far 

 they enter into it. The preliminary observation of the facts to 

 be investigated, and of all their surrounding circumstances, is, of 

 course, not a logical inference of any sort, though it may indeed 

 involve inferences, both immediate and mediate (238, 263). The 

 conception of an hypothesis as to the general law connecting the 

 facts with their causes, is not itself an inference either. But the 

 verification of an hypothesis may be expressed in a series of 

 inferences, each taking the form of a mixed hypothetical syllogism : 

 &quot; If this hypothesis is true, certain events ought to follow from a 

 certain combination of agencies ; but (by observation or experi 

 ment we proceed to find that) they do follow (or do not, as the 



JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 482. 

 VOL. II. 4 



