228 REASONING. 



mate of it. Their principal objection cannot be better or more 

 succinctly stated than by borrowing a sentence from Arch- 

 bishop Whately.* " In every case where an inference is drawn 

 from Induction (unless that name is to be given to a mere 

 random guess without any grounds at all) we must form a 

 judgment that the instance or instances adduced are sufficient 

 to authorize the conclusion ; that it is allowable to take these 

 instances as a sample warranting an inference respecting the 

 whole class ;" and the expression of this judgment in words 

 (it has been said by several of my critics) is the major 

 premise. 



I quite admit that the major is an affirmation of the suffi- 

 ciency of the evidence on which the conclusion rests. That it 

 is so, is the very essence of my own theory. And whoever 

 admits that the major premise is only this, adopts the theory 

 in its essentials. 



But I cannot concede that this recognition of the suffi- 

 ciency of the evidence that is, of the correctness of the induc- 

 tion is a part of the induction itself; unless we ought to say 

 that it is a part of everything we do, to satisfy ourselves that 

 it has been done rightly. We conclude from known instances 

 to unknown by the impulse of the generalizing propensity ; 

 and (until after a considerable amount of practice and mental 

 discipline) the question of the sufficiency of the evidence is 

 only raised by a retrospective act, turning back upon our own 

 footsteps, and examining whether we were warranted in doing 

 what we have already done. To speak of this reflex opera- 

 tion as part of the original one, requiring to be expressed in 

 words in order that the verbal formula may correctly represent 

 the psychological process, appears to me false psychology.f 

 We review our syllogistic as well as our inductive pro- 

 cesses, and recognise that they have been correctly per- 

 formed ; but logicians do not add a third premise to the 

 syllogism, to express this act of recognition. A careful copyist 

 verifies his transcript by collating it with the original ; and 



* Logic, book iv. ch. i. sect. 1. 



f See the important chapter on Belief, in Professor Bain's great treatise, 

 The Emotions and the Will, pp. 581-4. 



