102 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



The existence of God can be proved independently of the 

 assumption that nature is uniform in the sense in which this uni 

 formity has just been explained. 1 Hence, the Scholastic justifica 

 tion of the postulate is free from all circular reasoning, in addition 

 to being intelligible and adequate. But perhaps this fallacy is 

 involved in applying belief in uniformity to individual inductive 

 generalizations before we have -explicitly assigned to this belief its 

 ultimate rational basis ? No, because every such generalization 

 is merely provisional : the assumption of uniformity invblved in 

 it awaits whatever rational justification we may be able to 

 supply for this assumption when we reflect upon it. 



Empiricist View. Mill was right, as we have seen above, in 

 saying that belief in the general uniformity of nature (in the 

 categorical sense) is &quot; by no means one of the earliest &quot; 2 of our 

 beliefs : it is not a mental assent which must precede every scien 

 tific induction we make : it is partially embodied in each, and 

 gradually extended over all nature. 3 But he failed utterly to 

 assign any ground for rational, scientific certitude, whether about 

 this widest law of uniformity of nature, or about any minor 

 generalization reached by induction. He sought to show that 

 the minor generalizations we make without explicit advertence 

 or assent to the general uniformity of nature, can be only mere 

 enumerative inductions, i.e. more or less hazardous extensions of 

 observed uniformities to the region beyond our actual experience ; 

 that our belief in the general uniformity of nature is a gradual 

 summing up of these hazardous conclusions ; and that, neverthe 

 less, this summing-up process gives us the highest attainable scien 

 tific certitude about this law of uniformity, this widest of all 

 generalizations. The general uniformity of nature is, he teaches, 

 a generalization from a number of less general uniformities, them 

 selves reached by a &quot; loose and uncertain mode of induction per 

 enumerationem simplicem &quot;. The law of the uniformity of nature 

 &quot; is itself an instance of induction, and by no means one of the 

 earliest which any of us, or which mankind in general, can have 



1 The same observed and experienced uniformity which prompts us to act on the 

 assumption of its universality, also furnishes, of course, part of the data from which 

 the existence of God is demonstrated. But in using the data for this purpose we are 

 not assuming the principle of uniformity. 



2 Logic, III., xxi., 2. 



3 Cf. infra, 225 ; VENN, op. cit., pp. 134 sqq. For the opposite view that belief 

 in, or assumption of, general uniformity is necessarily antecedent to any and every 

 inductive generalization, see JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 386 sqq. 



