384 INDUCTION. 



this instance, being the Ruler of the universe. When, 

 therefore, it appeared that any of the uniformities 

 which were observed in nature, would result sponta- 

 neously from certain other uniformities, without any 

 separate act of creative will, the former have not 

 usually been spoken of as laws of nature. According 

 to another mode of expression, the question, What 

 are the laws of nature ? may be stated thus : What 

 are the fewest and simplest assumptions, which being 

 granted, the whole existing order of nature would 

 result ? Another mode of stating it would be thus : 

 What are the fewest general propositions from which 

 all the uniformities which exist in the universe might 

 be deductively inferred ? 



As has already been hinted (and will be more 

 fully discussed hereafter) every great advance which 

 marks an epoch in the progress of science, has con- 

 sisted in a step made towards the solution of this 

 problem. Even a simple colligation of inductions 

 already made, without any fresh extension of the 

 inductive inference, is already an advance in that 

 direction. When Kepler expressed the regularity 

 which exists in the observed motions of the heavenly 

 bodies, by the three general propositions called his 

 laws, he, in so doing, pointed out three simple voli- 

 tions, by which, instead of a much greater number, 

 it appeared that the whole scheme of the heavenly 

 motions, so far as yet observed, might be con- 

 ceived to have been produced. A similar, and still 

 greater step was made when these laws, which 

 at first did not seem to be included in any more 

 general truths, were discovered to be cases of the 

 three laws of motion, as obtaining among bodies 

 which mutually tend towards one another with a 

 certain force, and have had a certain instantaneous 



