CHAPTER III. 



PRESUPPOSITIONS OF INDUCTION : CONCEPTS OF REASON &quot; 

 AND &quot;CAUSE&quot;. 



214. JUSTIFICATION OF CHAPTERS III. AND IV. Since the 

 days of Lord Bacon, many conflicting theories on the nature and 

 grounds of induction have been advocated by logicians. Seeing that 

 induction is the method by which we attain to a knowledge of uni 

 versal truths about the nature and activities of the things of the 

 visible universe, animate and inanimate, it is easy to understand 

 the importance of the whole subject. Before, therefore, we proceed 

 to analyse more closely the process of ascent from phenomena 

 to their laws, we must examine the rational principles that underli- 

 the process. Modern logicians have analysed these principles 

 in great detail, thus importing into the logic of induction long 

 disquisitions which would, perhaps, find a more appropriate place 

 in psychology, criteriology, and cosmology. 



No doubt, the logic of induction cannot be understood with 

 out a statement of the principles which underlie the process. But 

 a treatise on logic is hardly the proper place for their full ex 

 position and vindication ; nor is it our intention to go into them 

 here at any great length. We shall endeavour to confine our 

 selves to a brief explanation of the rational foundations of the 

 inductive process, i.e. the principles that justify us in rising from 

 particular facts to the conception of a general law ; and to a brief 

 criticism of some current views that seem more or less erroneous, 

 regarding those principles. In doing this, however, we cannot 

 avoid some reference to numerous notions which must be left for 

 fuller treatment to more suitable branches of philosophy. What 

 these notions are, will be at once suggested by any ordinary 

 example of a natural phenomenon that calls for interpretation 

 from us. Let us take an instance. 1 



This morning, for example, at half-past eight o clock, the ash- 



1 Adapted from Mercier s Logique, pp. 298 $qq. 

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