372 



INDUCTION. 



can have made. We arrive at this 

 universal law by generalisation from 

 many laws of inferior generality. We 

 should never have had the notion of 

 causation (in the philosophical mean- 

 ing of the term) as a condition of 

 all phenomena, unless many cases of 

 causation, or, in other words, many 

 partial uniformities of sequence, had 

 previously become familiar. The 

 more obvious of the particular uni- 

 formities suggest, and give evidence 

 of, the general uniformity, and the 

 general uniformity, once established, 

 enables us to prove the remainder of 

 the particular uniformities of which 

 it is made up. As, however, all 

 rigorous processes of induction pre- 

 suppose the general uniformity, our 

 knowledge of the particular uniformi- 

 ties from which it was first inferred 

 was not, of course, derived from 

 rigorous induction, but from the loose 

 and uncertain mode of induction per 

 enumei'ationem simplicem; and the 

 law of universal causation, being 

 collected from results so obtained, 

 cannot itself rest on any better 

 foundation. 



It would seem, therefore, that in- 

 duction pet' enumerationem simplicem 

 not only is not necessarily an illicit 

 logical process, but is in reality the 

 only kind of induction possible ; since 

 the more elaborate process depends 

 for its validity on a law, itself ob- 

 tained in that inartificial mode. Is 

 there not then an inconsistency in con- 

 trasting the looseness of one method 

 with the rigidity of another, when 

 that other is indebted to the looser 

 method for its own foundation ? 



The inconsistency, however, is only 

 apparent. Assuredly, if induction by 

 simple entimeration were an invalid 

 process, no process grounded on it 

 could be valid ; just as no reliance 

 could be placed on telescopes if we 

 could not trust our eyes. But though 

 a valid process, it is a fallible one, 

 and fallible in very different degrees : 

 if therefore we can substitute for the 

 more fallible forms of the process an 

 operation grounded on the same pro- 



cess in a less fallible form, we shall 

 have effected a very material improve- 

 ment. And this is what scientific in- 

 duction does. 



A mode of concluding from ex- 

 perience must be pronounced untrust- 

 worthy when subsequent experience 

 refuses to confirm it. According to 

 this criterion, induction by simple 

 enumeration — in other words, gene- 

 ralisation of an observed fact from 

 the mere absence of any known in- 

 stance to the contrary — affords in 

 general a precarious and unsafe ground 

 of assurance ; for such generalisations 

 are incessantly discovered, on further 

 experience, to be false. Still, how- 

 ever, it affords some assurance, suffi- 

 cient, in many cases, for the ordinary 

 guidance of conduct. It would be 

 absurd to say that the generalisations 

 arrived at by mankind in the outset 

 of their experience, such as these. 

 Food nourishes, Fire burns. Water 

 drowns, were unworthy of reliance.* 

 There is a scale of trustworthiness in 

 the results of the original unscientific 

 Induction ; and on this diversity (as 



* It deserves remark, that these early- 

 generalisations did not, like scientific in- 

 ductions, presuppose causation. What they 

 did presuppose, was uniformity in physical 

 facts. But the obsei-vers were as ready to 

 presume uniformity in the co-existences of 

 facts as in the sequences. On the other 

 hand, they never thought of assuming that 

 this uniformity was a pi'inciple pervading 

 all nature ; their generalisations did not 

 imply that there was unifoi mity in every- 

 thing, but only that as much uniformity as 

 existed within their observation, existed 

 also beyond it. The induction, Fire burns, 

 does not require for its validity that all na- 

 ture should observe uniform laws, but only 

 that there should be uniformity in one par- 

 ticular class of natuial phenomena; the 

 effects of fire on the senses and on com- 

 bustible substances. And uniformity to 

 this extent was not assumed, anterior to 

 the experience, but proved by the ex- 

 perience. The same observed instances 

 which proved the narrower truth, proved 

 as much of the wider one as corresponded 

 to it. It is from losing sight of this fact, 

 and con-sidering the law of causation in its 

 full extent as necessarily presupposed in 

 the very earliest generalisations, that per- 

 sons, have been led into the belief that the 

 law of causation is known d priori, and is 

 not itsulf a conclusion from experience. 



