188 



INDUCTION. 



We shall fall into no error, then, 

 if, in treating of Induction, we limit 

 our attention to tlie establishment of 

 general propositions. The principles 

 and rules of Induction as directed to 

 this end, are the principles and rules 

 of all Induction ; and the logic of 

 Science is the universal Logic, appli- 

 cable to all inquiries in which man can 

 engage. 



CHAPTER II. 



OP INDUCTIONS IMPROPERLY SO 

 CALLED. 



§ I. Induction, then, is that opera- 

 tion of the mind by which we infer 

 that what we know to be true in a 

 particular case or cases, will be true 

 in all cases which resemble the for- 

 mer in certain assignable respects. 

 In other words, Induction is the pro- 

 cess by which we conclude that what 

 is true of certain individuals of a 

 class is true of the whole, class, or 



/general tnith. Induction, he says, (Philo- 

 sophy of Discovery, p. 245,) " is not the same 

 thing as experience and observation. In- 

 duction is experience or observation con- 

 sciously looked, at in 3i,gen(raliorm. This 

 consciousness and generality are necessary 

 parts of that knowledge which is science. " 

 And he objects (p. 241) to the mode in 

 vi'hich the word Induction is employed in 

 this work, as an undue extension of that 

 term "not only to the cases in which the 

 general induction is consciously applied to 

 a particular instance, but to the cases in 

 which the particular instance is dealt with 

 by means of experience in that rude sense 

 in which experience can be asserted of 

 brutes, and in which of course we can in 

 no way imagine that the law is possessed 

 or understood as a general proposition." 

 This use of the term he deems a "con- 

 fusion of knowledge with practical ten- 

 dencies." 



I disclaim, as strongly as Dr. Whewell 

 can do, the application of such terms as 

 induction, inference, or reasoning to opera- 

 tions performed by mere instinct, that is, 

 from an animal impulse, without the exer- 

 tion of any intelligence. But I perceive 

 no ground for confining the use of those 

 terms to cases in which the inference is 

 drawn in the forms and with the precau- 

 tions reqiiired by scientific propriety. To 

 the idea of science, an express recognition 

 and distinct apprehension of general laws, 



that what is true sJb certain times 

 will be true in similar circumstances 

 at all times. 



This definition excludes from the 

 meaning of the term Induction, vari- 

 ous logical operations, to which it is 

 not unusual to apply that name. 



Induction, as above defined, is a 

 process of inference ; it proceeds from 

 the known to the unknown ; and any 

 operation involving no inference, any 

 process in which what seems the con- 

 clusion is no wider than the premises 

 from which it is drawn, does not fall 

 within the meaning of the term. Yet 

 in the common books of Logic we 

 find this laid down as the most per- 

 fect, indeed the only quite perfect, 

 form of induction. In those books, 

 every process which sets out from 

 a less general and terminates in a 

 more general expression, — which ad- 

 mits of being stated in the form, 

 " This and that A are B, therefore 

 every A is B," — is called an induc- 

 tion, whether anything be really con- 

 as such, is essential ; but nine-tenths of 

 the conclusions drawn from experience in 

 the course of practical life are drawn with- 

 out any such recognition : they are direct 

 inferences from known cases to a case 

 supposed to be similar. I have endeavoured 

 to show that this is not only as legitimate 

 an operation, but substantially the same 

 operation as that of ascenoing from known 

 cases to a general proposition ; except that 

 the latter process has one great security 

 for correctness which the former does not 

 possess. In science the inference must 

 necessarily pass through the intermediate 

 stage of a general proposition, becau.sc 

 Science wants its conclusions for record, and 

 not for instantaneous use. But the infer- 

 ences drawn for the guidance of practical 

 affairs, by persons who would often be quite 

 incapable of expressing in unexceptional 

 terms the corresponding generalisations 

 may, and frequently do, exhibit intellectual 

 powers quite equal to any which have ever 

 been displayed in science : and if these 

 inferences are not inductive, what are 

 they? The limitation imposed on the 

 term by Dr. Whewell seems perfectly arbi- 

 trary ; neither justified by any fundamen- 

 tal distinction between what he includes 

 and what he desires to exclude, nor sanc- 

 tioned by usage, at least from the time of 

 Reid and Stewart, the principal legislators 

 (as far as the English language is concerned) 

 of modern metaphysical terminology. 



