GROUND OF INDUCTION. 187 



and never yet found false, will be found true again. Wlietlicr the 

 instances are few or many, conclusive or inconclusive, does not much 

 affect the matter : these are considerations which occur only on re- 

 flection : the unprompted tendency of the mind is to generalize its ex- 

 perience, provided this points all in one direction ; provided no other 

 experience of a conflicting character comes unsought. The notion of 

 seeking it, of experimenting for it, of interrogating nature (to use 

 Bacon's expression), is of much later growth. The observation of nature, 

 by uncultivated intellects is purely passive : they take the facts which 

 present themselves, without taking the trouble of searching for more : 

 it is a superior mind only which asks itself what facts ai-e needed to 

 enable it to come to a sure conclusion, and then looks out for these. 



But although we have always a propensity to generalize from un- 

 varying experience, we are not always warranted in doing so. Be- 

 fore we can be at liberty to conclude that something is universally true 

 because we have never known an instance to the contrary, it must be 

 proved to us that if there were in nature any instances to the contrary, 

 we should have known of tliem. This assurance, in the great majority 

 of cases, we cannot have, or can have only in a very moderate degree. 

 The possibility of having it, is the foundation on which we shall see 

 hereafter that induction by simple enumeration may in some remark- 

 able cases amount to full proof.* No such assurance, however, can 

 be had, on any of the ordinary subjects of scientific inquiry. Popular 

 notions are usually founded upon induction by simple enumeration ; 

 in science it carries us but a little way. We are forced to begin with 

 it ; we must often rely upon it provisionally, in the absence of means 

 of more searching investigation. But, for the accurate study of nature, 

 we require a surer and a more potent instrument. 



It was, above all, by pointing out the insufficiency of this rude and 

 loose conception of Induction, that Bacon merited the title so generally 

 awarded to him, of Founder of the Inductive Philosophy. The value 

 of his own contributions to a more philosophical theory of the subject 

 has certainly been exaggerated. Although (along, with some funda- 

 mental errors) his wi'itings contain, more or less fully developed, 

 several of the most important principles of the Inductive Method, 

 physical investigation has now far outgrown the Baconian conception 

 of Induction. Moral and political inquiry, indeed, are as yet far 

 behind that conception. The current and approved modes of reason- 

 ing on these subjects are still of the same vicious description against 

 which Bacon protested : the method almost exclusively employed by 

 those professing to treat such matters inductively, is the very indicctio 

 per emuncrationcm simplicem which he condemns ; and the experience, 

 which we hear so confidently appeidcd to by all sects, parties, and in- 

 terests, is still, in his own emphatic words, mera palpatio. 



§ 3. In order to a better understanding of the problem which the 

 logician must solve if he would establish a scientific theory of Induc- 

 tion, let us compare a few cases of incorrect inductions with others 

 which are acknowledged to be legitimate. Some, we know, which 

 were believed for centuries to be correct, were nevertheless incorrect. 

 That all swans are white, cannot have been a good induction, since 



* Infra, chap, xxi, xxii. 



