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CHAPTER II. 

 OF INDUCTIONS 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 at certain times will be true under 

 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 infe- 

 rence ; it proceeds from the known to the unknown ; 

 and any operation involving no inference, any process 

 in which what seems the conclusion is no wider 

 than the premisses from which it is drawn, does not 

 fall within the meaning of the term. Yet in the 

 common books of Logic we find this laid down as the 

 most perfect, indeed the only quite perfect, form of 

 induction. In those books, every process which sets 

 out from a less general and terminates in a more 

 general expression, which admits of being stated in 

 the form, " This and that A are B, therefore every A 

 is B," is called an induction, whether anything be 

 really concluded or not ; and the induction is asserted 

 to be not perfect, unless every single individual of the 

 class A is included in the antecedent, or premiss : 

 that is, unless what we affirm of the class, has already 



