112 EEASONING. 



aims at tracing our acquired knowledge to its sources, that the inquirer 

 should commence with the later rather than with the earlier stages of 

 the process of constructing our knowledge ; and should trace deriva- 

 tive ti-uths backward to the ti'uths from which they are deduced, and 

 upon which they depend for their evidence, before attempting to point 

 out the original spring from which both ultimately take their rise. 

 The advantages of this order of proceeding in the present instance will 

 manifest themselves as we advance, in a manner superseding the ne- 

 cessity of any further justification or explanation. 



Of Induction, therefore, we shall say no more at present, than that 

 it at least is, without doubt, a process of real inference. The conclu- 

 sion in an induction embraces more than is contained in the premisses. 

 The principle or law collected from particular instances, the general 

 proposition in which we embody the result of our experience, covers 

 a much larger extent of ground than the individual experiments which 

 are said to form its basis. A principle ascertained by experience, is 

 more than a mere summing up of what we have specifically observed 

 in the individual cases that we have examined ; it is a generalization 

 grounded on those cases, and expressive of our belief, that what we 

 there found ti'ue is true in an indefinite number of cases which we have 

 not examined, and are never likely to examine. The nature and 

 gi'ounds of this inference, and the conditions necessary to make it 

 legitimate, will be the subject of discussion in the Third Book : but 

 that such inference really takes place is not susceptible of question. 

 In every induction we proceed from truths which we knew, to truths 

 which we did not know : from facts certified by observation, to facts 

 which we have not observed, and even to facts not capable of being 

 now obsen^ed ; future facts, for example : but which we do not hesitate 

 to believe upon the sole evidence of the induction itself 



Induction, then, is a real process of Reasoning or Inference. 

 Whether, and in what sense, so much can be said of the Syllogism, 

 remains to be determined by the examination into which we are about 

 to enter. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 



§ 1. The analysis of the Syllogism has been so accurately and fully 

 performed in the common manuals of Logic, that in the present work, 

 which is not designed as a manual, it is sufficient to recapitulate, me- 

 mories causd, the leading results of that analysis, as a foundation for 

 the remarks to be afi:erwards made upon the functions of the syllogism, 

 and the place which it holds in philosophy. 



To a legitimate syllogism it is essential that there should be three, 

 and no more than three, propositions, namely, the conclusion, or propo- 

 sition to be proved, and two other propositions which together prove 

 it, and which are called the premisses. It is essential that there should 

 be three, and no more than three terms, namely, the subject and pred- 

 icate of the conclusion, and another called the middleterm, which must 



