142 INDUCTION 



yet be no necessary consequence of laws of causation 

 or of ultimate uniformities,, and unless they are so, 

 may, for aught we know, be false beyond the limits of 

 actual observation : still more evidently must this be 

 the case with propositions which are only true in a 

 mere majority of the observed instances. 



There is some difference, however, in the degree 

 of certainty of the proposition, Most A are B, accord- 

 ing as that approximate generalization composes the 

 whole of our knowledge of the subject, or not. Sup- 

 pose, first, that the former is the case. We know 

 only that most A are B, not why they are so, nor in 

 what respect those which are, differ from those which 

 are not. How then did we learn that most A are B ? 

 Precisely in the manner in which we should have 

 learnt, had such happened to be the fact, that all A are 

 B. We collected a number of instances sufficient to 

 eliminate chance, and having done so, compared the 

 number of instances in the affirmative with the 

 number in the negative. The result, like other 

 unresolved derivative laws, can be relied on solely 

 within the limits not only of place and time, but also 

 of circumstance, under which its truth has been 

 actually observed ; for as we are supposed to be 

 ignorant of the causes which make the proposition 

 true, we cannot tell in what manner any new circum- 

 stance might perhaps affect it. The proposition. 

 Most judges are inaccessible to bribes, would be found 

 true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, North 

 Americans, and so forth ; but if on this evidence alone 

 we extended the assertion to Orientals, we should step 

 beyond the limits, not only of place but of circum- 

 stance, within which the fact had been observed, and 

 should let in possibilities of the absence of the deter- 



