SECTION 26.DED UCTION. 371 



or specie-cultural sciences, with a view to discovering where 

 and to what extent attention enters as a factor. 



In any relatively new subject of enquiry deduction plays at the 

 commencement a subordinate part inasmuch as any statements 

 then reached are almost certainly of practically no value and 

 therefore worse than profitless for deductive ends. Nevertheless, 

 we should test even then all our statements in a passing manner, 

 because some suggestive minor deductions may emerge. As the 

 investigation develops, and we reach more and more definite 

 conclusions which we express in the form of careful, though 

 provisional, definitions, deduction becomes increasingly important 

 since we can employ it more and more to test, and indirectly 

 to enrich, our conclusions. When the inductive enquiry is on 

 the point of being concluded and comprehensive definitions are 

 formulated, deduction assumes superlative importance, in that 

 it, on the one hand, probes to the depths the value of our results, 

 and, on the other, places us in a position to gather in a definite 

 form the main implications of our investigation. In Conclusion 13 

 we sought to illustrate this. We assumed there that we had 

 reached the conclusion that man alone is dependent on species- 

 produced thought, and from that we deduced twelve subsidiary 

 practical conclusions of capital import. Regarding one of these 

 conclusions as a fresh point of departure, we might deduce 

 from it an entire department of conduct. These secondary 

 conclusions are in great measure no doubt not novel to the 

 framer of the fundamental definition; but the definition, de- 

 ductively explored, reveals much that is new, tests everything 

 otherwise reached, ever suggests fresh truths and investigations, 

 and confers a rigidity and reasonableness on the main con- 

 clusion that no other method affords. Accordingly, generalisation 

 and deduction are in no sense processes which can be ad- 

 vantageously separated, especially when we consider that in 

 the process of deduction advantage should be taken, per contra, 

 to generalise as far as possible the statements deduced. 1 



195. An apt illustration of deductive procedure is provided 

 by the solutions of some of the problems of temperature. From 

 observations in regard to the dependence of plant growth on a 

 relatively high temperature, the hothouse was gradually evolved. 

 Much later, analogous observations gave birth to the incubator. 

 The cognate problem of heat-retention in cooking suggested 

 the self-cooker and also certain appliances having for their 

 object the prevention of heat waste in the preliminary cooking 



1 ''It is very important to observe, that the successful process of scientific 

 enquiry demands continually the alternate use of both the inductive and de- 

 ductive method. The path by which we rise to knowledge must be made 

 smooth and beaten in its lower steps, and often ascended and descended, 

 before we can scale our way to any eminence, much less climb to the summit. 

 The achievement is too great for a single effort; stations must be established, 

 and communications kept open with all below." (Herschel. Discourse, [184.].) 



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