224 INDUCTION. 



infer, but from the known to the unknown ; from facts observed to facts 

 unobserved ; from what we have perceived, or been directly conscious of, 

 to what has not come within our experience. In this last predicament is 

 the whole region of the future ; but also the vastly greater portion of the 

 present and of the past. 



/ AVhatever be the most proper mode of expressing it, the proposition that 

 ,-^0 course of nature is uniform, is the fundamental principle, or general ax- 

 iom, of Induction, fit would yet be a great error to offer this large gener- 

 1 alization as any explanation of the inductive process. On the contrary, I 

 j hold it to be itself an instance of induction, and induction by no means of 

 the most obvious kind. Far from being the first induction we make, it is 

 i one of the last, or at all events one of those which are latest in attaining 

 strict philosophical accuracy. As a general maxim, indeed, it has scarcely 

 entered into the minds of any but philosophers ; nor even by them, as we 

 shall have many opportunities of remarking, have its extent and limits been 

 always very justly conceived. The truth is, that this great generalization 

 is itself founded on prior generalizations. The obscurer laws of nature 

 were discovered by means of it, but the more obvious ones must have 

 been understood and assented to as general truths before it was ever heard 

 of. We should never have thought of affirming that all phenomena take 

 place according to general laws, if we had not first arrived, in the case of a 

 great multitude of phenomena, at some knowledge of the laws themselves ; 

 which could be done no otherwise than by induction. In what sense, then, 

 can a principle, which is so far from being our earliest induction, be re- 

 garded as our wan-ant for all the others ? In the only sense, in which (as 

 we have already seen) tlie general propositions which we place at the head 

 of our reasonings when we throw them into syllogisms, ever really contrib- 

 ute to their validity. As Archbishop Whately remarks, every induction is 

 a syllogism with the major premise suppressed ; or (as I prefer expressing 

 it) every induction may be thrown into the form of a syllogism, by supply- 

 ing a major premise. If this be actually done, the principle which we are 

 now considering, that of the uniformity of the course of nature, will appear 

 as the ultimate major premise of all inductions, and will, therefore, stand to 

 all inductions in the relation in which, as has been shown at so much length, 

 the major proposition of a syllogism always stands to the conclusion; not 

 contributing at all to prove it, but being a necessary condition of its being 

 proved ; since no conclusion is proved, for which there can not be found a 

 true major premise.* 



* In the first edition a note was appended at this place, containing some criticism on Arch- 

 bishop Whately's mode of conceiving the relation between Syllogism and Induction. In a 

 subsequent issue of his Logic, the Archbishop made a reply to the criticism, which induced 

 me to cancel part of the note, incorporating the remainder in the text. In a still later edi- 

 tion, the Archbishop observes in a tone of something like disapprobation, that the objections, 

 " doubtless from their being fully answered and found untenable, were silently suppressed," 

 and that hence he might appear to some of his readers to be combating a shadow. On this 

 latter point, the Archbishop need give himself no uneasiness. His readers, I make bold to 

 say, will fully credit his mere affirmation that the objections have actually been made. 



But as he seems to think that what he terms the suppression of the objections ought not to 

 have been made "silently," I now break that silence, and state exactly what it is that I sup- 

 pressed, and why. I suppressed that alone which might be regarded as personal criticism on 

 the Archbishop. I had imputed to him the having omitted to ask himself a particular ques- 

 tion. I found that he had asked himself the question, and could give it an answer consistent 

 with his own theory. I had also, within the compass of a parenthesis, hazarded some re- 

 marks on certain general characteristics of Archbishop Whately as a philosopher. These re- 

 marks, tliough their tone, I hope, was neither disrespectful nor arrogant, I felt, on reconsider- 

 ation, that I was hardly entitled to make ; least of all, when the instance Avhich I had re- 



