224 REASONING. 



more general than the largest of the premisses, the 

 argument is commonly called Induction ; when less 

 general, or equally general, it is Ratiocination. 



As all experience hegins with individual cases, and 

 proceeds from them to generals, it might seem most 

 conformable to the natural order of thought that 

 Induction should be treated of before we touch upon 

 Ratiocination. It will, however, be advantageous, in 

 a science which aims at tracing our acquired know- 

 ledge to its sources, that the inquirer should com- 

 mence with the later rather than with the earlier 

 stages of the process of constructing our knowledge ; 

 and should trace derivative truths backward to the 

 truths from which they are deduced, and upon which 

 they depend for their evidence, before attempting to 

 point out the original spring from which both ulti- 

 mately take their rise. The advantages of this order 

 of proceeding in the present instance will manifest 

 themselves as we advance, in a manner superseding the 

 necessity of any further justification or explanation. 



Of Induction, therefore, we shall say no more at 

 present, than that it at least is, without doubt, a 

 process of real inference. The conclusion in an 

 induction embraces more than is contained in the 

 premisses. The principle or law collected from par- 

 ticular instances, the general proposition in which we 

 embody the result of our experience, covers a much 

 larger extent of ground than the individual experi- 

 ments which are said to form its basis. A principle 

 ascertained by experience, is more than a mere 

 summing up of what we have specifically observed in 

 the individual cases that we have examined ; it is a 

 generalisation grounded on those cases, and expressive 

 of our belief, that what we there found true is true 

 in an indefinite number of cases which we have not 



