ERROR AND FALLACIES 335 



ductive analysis and generalization have been pointed out already 

 in the course of the various chapters devoted to an examination 

 of the process. It will therefore be sufficient here to recall very 

 briefly a few of the principal ones. 



In establishing a general causal law there is always the pos 

 sibility of not having included all the really operative influences, 

 or of having included some that are not really operative ; and 

 in applying the law there is the danger that we may fail to de 

 tect the presence of counteracting conditions. Intermixture of 

 causes in the concrete world of physical and social phenomena 

 makes the application of laws to actual facts a matter of ex 

 treme delicacy. In the process of applying laws to new facts, 

 for the purpose of explaining these latter, we are constantly being 

 brought face to face with all sorts of anomalies and exceptions. 

 These always demand further analysis : which will determine 

 whether they are apparent or real exceptions, whether they are 

 due to the interfering influence of other known causes, or prove 

 to us that the statement of our law is too wide, or too narrow, and 

 so needs further adjustment and rectification. Thus, the work 

 of applying laws invariably contributes to a more accurate and 

 definite conception of the latter. &quot; For example, to state that 

 the boiling-point of a liquid depends on the temperature would 

 be to omit the equally essential condition of atmospheric pres 

 sure. Thus, to say that water boils at 100 C. is wrong; it 

 boils at that temperature under the pressure of one atmosphere ; 

 i.e., the normal atmospheric pressure at the sea-level. Up a 

 mountain the boiling-point is different. 1 



Needless to say, the exact formulation of scientific laws, and 

 of the conditions under which they are applicable in the con 

 crete, is a matter of much greater complexity, as also of 

 much greater moment, in the human sciences, than in the 

 physical sciences. There, the facts are not amenable to quanti 

 tative measurement. Operative influences which take the form 

 of human motive^ of action are more elusive than mechanical, 

 physical, chemical, or physiological energies. Facts of mind and 

 facts of matter do not belong to the same order ; nor can the 

 evidence, on which the scientific knowledge of such facts is based, 

 be expected to conform to the same order of critical canons and 

 requirements in both cases. And this obvious consideration is 



1 WELTON, op. cit., p. 275. 



