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CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON INDUCTION 

 IN GENERAL. 



1 . THE portion of the present inquiry upon which 

 we are now about to enter, may be considered as the 

 principal, both from its surpassing in intricacy all the 

 other branches, and because it relates to a process 

 which has been shown in the preceding Book to be 

 that in which the Investigation of Nature essentially 

 consists. We have found that all Inference, conse- 

 quently all Proof, and all discovery of truths not self- 

 evident, consists of inductions, and the interpretation 

 of inductions : that all our knowledge, not intuitive, 

 comes to us exclusively from that source. What 

 Induction is, therefore, and what conditions render it 

 legitimate, cannot but be deemed the main question 

 of the science of logic the question which includes 

 all others. It is, however, one which professed 

 writers on logic have almost entirely passed over. 

 The generalities of the subject have not been alto- 

 gether neglected by metaphysicians ; but, for want of 

 sufficient acquaintance with the processes by which 

 science has actually succeeded in establishing general 

 truths, their analysis of the inductive operation, even 

 when unexceptionable as to correctness, has not been 

 specific enough to be made the foundation of practical 

 rules, which might be for induction itself what the 

 rules of the syllogism are for the interpretation of 

 induction: while those by whom physical science has 

 been carried to its present high state of improvement 

 and who, to arrive at a complete theory of the process, 



