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CHAPTER I. 

 OF OBSERVATION, AND DESCRIPTION. 



1. THE inquiry which occupied us in the two 

 preceding books, has conducted us to what appears a 

 satisfactory solution of the principal problem of Logic, 

 according to the conception I have formed of the 

 science. We have found, that the mental process 

 with which Logic is conversant, the operation of inves- 

 tigating truths by means of evidence, is always, even 

 when appearances point to a different theory of it, a 

 process of induction. And we have particularized 

 the various modes of induction, and obtained a clear 

 view of the principles to which it must conform, in 

 order to lead to results which can be relied on. 



The consideration of induction, however, does not 

 end with the direct rules for its performance. Some- 

 thing must be said of those other operations of the 

 mind, which are either necessarily presupposed in all 

 induction, or are instrumental to the more difficult 

 and complicated inductive processes. The present 

 book will be devoted to the consideration of these 

 subsidiary operations: among which our attention 

 must first be given to those, which are indispensable 

 preliminaries to all induction whatsoever. 



Induction being merely the extension to a class of 

 cases, of something which has been observed to be 

 true in certain individual instances of the class; the 

 first place among the operations subsidiary to induc- 

 tion, is claimed by Observation. This is not, how- 

 ever, the place to lay down rules for making good 

 observers ; nor is it within the competence of Logic to 



