zoo THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



our actual experience of general uniformity, imperfect and pos 

 sibly interrupted though this may be, a firm belief or expectation 

 that the same regularity which has obtained within the limits of 

 our actual experience will obtain also outside these limits. 



Thus, actual experience of uniformity may be regarded as 

 the proximate, psychical ground of our belief in uniformity beyond 

 this experience. But we must go further if we are to assign an 

 ultimate rational justification for this belief. If I am asked why 

 I believe that nature is uniform beyond the actual range of my 

 own personal sense experience, it will not suffice to answer : 

 &quot; Because I have found it uniform within this range &quot;. No doubt, 

 this is the true psychological account of the genesis of my ex 

 pectation that the uniformity will obtain beyond my experience ; 

 and, no doubt, I may quite prudently and reasonably act upon 

 this belief. I may go on investigating nature as a scientist, 

 observing, experimenting, conjecturing general truths or laws, 

 generalizing from experience, and in this way passing beyond 

 experience, even discovering and establishing laws of physical 

 nature : I may do all this without once pausing to inquire what 

 rational grounds I have at any time for going a single step 

 beyond my actual experience of nature and inferring anything 

 with any rational certitude about what is beyond this experience. 

 But what right have I to infer that because a thing has existed, 

 or an event happened, in a certain uniform way within my very 

 limited experience, it therefore does, or will, or must exist, or 

 happen, in the same way beyond ? What right had Leibniz to 

 think or say that &quot; Tis all like here . . . The present is preg 

 nant with the future ; the future may be deciphered in the past. 

 . . . The distant is mirrored in the near&quot;? 1 The &quot;leap&quot; beyond 

 experience takes place in every single induction we make, because 

 we believe in the &quot; uniformity of nature &quot;. But what right have 

 we to believe in it? What view of nature will afford us a 

 rational justification of this belief? 



Scholastic View. Philosophers differ in assigning an ulti 

 mate rational ground for our belief in the uniformity of nature, 

 because they differ in their views about the ultimate nature of the 

 universe itself. The justification Scholastics offer in common 

 with all who admit creation, and the dependence of all nature on 



1 &quot; C est tout comme ici. . . . Le present est gros de 1 avenir ; le futur se pour- 

 rait lire dans le passe . . . l e&quot;loigne est exprim^ par le prochain.&quot; apud VENN, 

 Empirical Logic, p. 81 ; cf. 124. 



