210 INDUCTION. 



data as the application of the theorem requires ; for the theorem itself is 

 as true of them as it is of the moon.* 



We shall fall into no error, then, if in treating of Induction, we limit our 

 attention to the establishment of general propositions. The principles and 

 rules of Induction as directed to this end, are the principles and rules of 

 all Induction ; arid the logic of Science is the universal Logic, applicable to 

 all inquiries in which man can engage. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF INDUCTIOXS IMPROPERLY SO CALLED. 



/§ 1. INDUCTION", then, is that operation of the mind, by which we infer 

 that what we know to be true in a particular case or cases, will be true in 

 all cases which resemble the former in certain assignable respects. In other 

 words. Induction is the process by which we conclude that what is true of 

 certain individuals of a class is true of the whole class, or that what is true 

 V^at certain times will be true in similar circumstances at all times. 



This definition excludes from the meaning of the term Induction, various 

 logical operations, to which it is not unusual to apply that name. 



Induction, as above defined, is a process of inference ; it proceeds f roin 

 ^the known to the unknown ; and any operation involving no inference, any 

 I process in which what seems the conclusion is no wider than the premises 

 Wrom which it is drawn, does not fall within the meaning of the term. Yet 



* Dr. Whewell thinks it improper to apply the term Induction to any operation not termi- 

 nating in the establishment of a general truth. Induction, he says (Philosojihy of Discovery, 

 p. 245), "is not the same thing as experience and observation. Induction is experience or 

 observation consciously looked at in a general form. This consciousness and generality are 

 necessary parts of that knowledge which is science." And he objects (p. 241) to tlie mode in 

 which the word Induction is employed in this work, as an undue extension of that term "not 

 only to the cases in which the general induction is consciously applied to a particular in- 

 stance, but to the cases in which the particular instance is dealt with by means of experience 

 in that rude sense in which experience can be asserted of brutes, and in which of course we 

 can in no way imagine that the law is possessed or understood as a general proposition." 

 This use of the term he deems a "confusion of knowledge with practical tendencies." 



I disclaim, as strongly as Dr. Whewell can do, the application of such terms as induction, 

 inference, or reasoning, to operations performed by mere instinct, that is, from an animal im- 

 pulse, without the exertion of any intelligence. But I perceive no ground for confining the 

 use of those terras to cases in which the inference is drawn in the forms and with the precau- 

 tions required by scientific propriety. To the idea of Science, an express recognition and 

 distinct apprehension of general laws as such, is essential : but nine-tenths of tlie conclusions 

 drawn from experience in the course of practical life, are draw-n without any such recognition : 

 they are direct inferences from known cases, to a case supposed to be similar. I have endeav- 

 ored to show that this is not only as legitimate an opei'ation, but substantially the same oper- 

 ation, as that of ascending from known cases to a general proposition ; except tiiat the latter 

 process has one great security for correctness which the former does not possess. In science, 

 the inference must necessarily pass through the intermediate stage of a general proposition, 

 because Science wants its conclusions for record, and not for instantaneous use. But the in- 

 ferences drawn for the guidance of practical affairs, by persons who would often be quite in- 

 capable of expressing in unexceptionable terms the corresponding generalizations, may and 

 frequently do exhibit intellectual powers quite equal to any which have ever been displayed 

 in science ; and if these inferences are not inductive, what are they ? The limitation imposed 

 on the term by Dr. Whewell seems perfectly arbitrary ; neither justified by any fundamental 

 distinction between what he includes and what he desires to exclude, nor sanctioned by usage, 

 at least from the time of Keid and Stewart, the principal legislators (as far as the English 

 language is concerned) of modern metaphysical terminology. 



