418 INDUCTION. 



known species (the only case in Avliich our previous knowledge affords no 

 other guidance than the approximate generalization), we can generally 

 make a specific experiment, which is a surer resource. 



It often happens, however, that the proposition. Most A are B, is not 

 the ultimatum of our scientific attainments, though the knowledge we pos- 

 sess beyond it can not conveniently be brought to bear upon the particular 

 instance. We may know well enough what circumstances distinguish the 

 portion of A which has the attribute B from the portion which has it not, 

 but may have no means, or may not have time, to examine whether those 

 characteristic circumstances exist or not in the individual case. This is 

 the situation we are generally in when the inquiry is of the kind called 

 moral, that is, of the kind which has in view to predict human actions. 

 To enable us to affirm any thing universally concerning the actions of 

 classes of human beings, the classification must be grounded on the circum- 

 stances of their mental culture and habits, which in an individual case are 

 seldom exactly known ; and classes grounded on these distinctions would 

 never precisely accord with those into which mankind are divided for so- 

 cial purposes. All propositions which can be framed respecting the actions 

 of human beings as ordinarily classified, or as classified according to any 

 kind of outward indications, are merely appi'oximate. We can only say, 

 Most persons of a particular age, profession, country, or rank in society, 

 have such and such qualities; or, Most persons, when placed in certain 

 circumstances, act in such and such a way. Not that we do not often 

 know well enough on what causes the qualities depend, or what sort of 

 persons they are who act in that particular way; but we have seldom the 

 means of knowing whether any individual person has been under the influ- 

 ence of those causes, or is a person of that particular sort. We could re- 

 place the approximate generalizations by propositions universally true ; 

 Ijut these would hardly ever be capable of being apphed to practice. We 

 should be sure of our majors, but we should not be able to get minors to 

 fit; we are forced, therefore, to draw our conclusions from coarser and 

 more fallible indications. 



§ 4. Proceeding now to consider what is to be regarded as sufficient evi- 

 dence of an approximate generalization, we can have no difficulty in at 

 once recognizing that, when admissible at all, it is admissible only as an 

 empirical law. Propositions of the form. Every A is B, are not necessarily 

 laws of causation, or ultimate uniformities of co- existence; propositions 

 like Most A are B, can not be so. Propositions hitherto found true in ev- 

 ery observed instance may yet be no necessary consequence of laws of cau- 

 sation, or of ultimate uniformities, and unless they are so, may, for aught 

 we know, be false beyond the limits of actual observation ; still more evi- 

 dently must this be the case with propositions which are only true in a 

 mere majority of the observed instances. 



There is some difference, however, in the degree of certainty of the 

 proposition, Most A are B, according as that approximate generalization 

 composes the whole of our knowledge of the subject, or not. Suppose, 

 first, that the former is the case. We know only that most A arc B, not 

 why they are so, nor in what respect those which are differ from those 

 which are not. How, then, did we learn that most A are B? Precisely 

 in the manner in which we should have learned, had such happened to be 

 the fact that all A are B. We collected a number of instances sufficient 

 to eliminate chance, and, having done so, compared the number of instances 



