SECTION 1 7.IND UCTION. \ 35 



scientific discovery, cannot be justifiably dissociated from in- 

 duction, especially if it originates in established generalisations 

 and terminates in verification. So long as some men relied on 

 sagacity, instinct, or other mysterious properties of the mind, 

 for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion and utilising it, 

 in an equally magical manner, for deductive ends, and other 

 men diligently sought for general truths only by mechanically 

 producing complete enumerations, a contrast and a separation 

 were possible; but in our day there can only be, in harmony 

 with practical necessities, a question of varying emphasis on 

 these two instruments of thought. The fundamental conception 

 underlying both terms may be said, therefore, to 'be the syste- 

 matic and conscientious reliance on, and exploitation of, direct 

 experience according to the most recent and most refined 

 methods of enquiry. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the pre- 

 sumed independence of, and rivalry between, the two primal 

 elements of the one scientific process will soon be regarded 

 as apparent rather than as real. 1 



57. Macaulay denies all originality to Bacon, the founder 

 of the inductive method. He declares: "The inductive method 

 has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every 

 human being. It is constantly practised by the most ignorant 

 clown, by the most thoughtless schoolboy, by the very child at 

 the breast. That method leads the clown to the conclusion that 

 if he sows barley he shall not reap wheat. By that method a 

 schoolboy learns that a cloudy day is the best for catching tr&ut. 

 The very infant, we imagine, is led by induction to expect milk 

 from his mother or nurse, and none from his father." (Essays, 

 ed. 1885, p. 407.) He even ventures so far as to aver that the 

 plain man has nothing to learn from Bacon's presentation of 

 that method. He furnishes this amusing instance: "A plain man 

 finds his stomach out of order. He never heard Lord Bacon's 

 name. But he proceeds in the strictest conformity with the 

 rules laid down in the second book of the Novum Organum, 

 and satisfies himself that mince pies have done the mischief. 

 'I ate minced pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept 

 awake by indigestion all night.' This is the comparentia ad 

 intellectum instantianim convenientium. 'I did not eat any on 

 Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well.' This is the com- 

 parentia instantiarum in proximo qua? natura data privantur. 

 'I ate very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly 

 indisposed in the evening. But on Christmas-day I almost dined 

 on them, and was so ill that I was in great danger.' This is the 

 comparentia instantiarum secundum magis et minus. 'It cannot 

 have been the brandy which I took with them. For I have 

 drunk brandy daily for years without being the worse for it.' 



1 Comte uses the word Generalisation and Systematisation in the place 

 of Induction and Deduction. 



