372 INDUCTION. 



it, the proposition that the course of nature is uniform, 

 is the fundamental principle, or general axiom, of 

 Induction. It would yet be a great error to offer this 

 large generalization as any explanation of the induc- 

 tive process. On the contrary, I 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 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. Yet this 

 principle, though so far from being our earliest induc- 

 tion, must be considered as our warrant for all the 

 others, in this sense, that unless it were true, all other 

 inductions would be fallacious. And this, as we have 

 already seen, is the sole mode in which the general 

 propositions which we place at the head of our rea- 

 sonings when we throw them into syllogisms, ever 

 really contribute to their validity. Archbishop 

 Whately has well remarked, that every induction is 

 a syllogism with the major premiss suppressed ; or 

 (as I prefer expressing it), that every induction may 

 be thrown into the form of a syllogism, by supplying 

 a major premiss. If this be actually done, the prin- 

 ciple which we are now considering, that of the 

 uniformity of the course of nature, will appear as the 

 ultimate major premiss 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 



