34 
of the universal and necessary intuition of cause, with observed 
facts of sequence. 
This explanation of the nature of the Inductive Logic power- 
fully confirms the cautions of its wisest practitioners, as to the 
necessity of painstaking care in its pursuit. It is a method of 
ascertaining truth closely conformed to the divine apophthegm, 
‘With the lowly is wisdom.” It is evidently a modest 
science. Only the greatest patience, candour, and caution in 
observing, and the most honest self-denial in guarding against 
the seduction of one’s own hypotheses, can lead to safe results. 
After this review, the charge which Mr. Mill brought against 
much of the pretended inductive science of our day, quoted by 
us at the outset, appears every way just. What else than 
unsafe results can be expected from persons who have never 
truly apprehended what the inductive argument is; when 
they venture to employ it, with the most confused notions of 
its real nature, and under the stvmulus of competition, haste, 
prejudice, and love of hypothesis ? Time and the future have 
a huge work of winnowing to perform upon the fruits of the 
busy mental activity of this generation, before the true wheat 
is gathered into the garners of science. 
As Moses and our Saviour epitomised the Ten Command- 
ments into the one great law of Love, so the canons of valid 
induction may be popularly summarised in one law. It is 
this: So long as all the known facts can be reconciled with any 
other hypothesis whatsoever than the one propounded as the 
inference of the induction, even though that other hypothesis 
be no better than an invention or surmise, the inductive argu- 
ment rs invalid to give a demonstration; it yields only a pro- 
bability. This rule receives an excellent illustration from the 
legal rule of “circumstantial evidence” in criminal trials. 
And the illustration is so good for two reasons: that there is 
so close a resemblance, in many points, between inductive 
reasoning and circumstantial evidence; and that the great 
men who, as jurists, have settled the principles of the legal 
science of evidence, have brought to their problem the ripest 
human sagacity, sobered and steadied by the consideration 
that these principles were to have application, in dreadful 
earnest, to the lives and liberty of all citizens, mcluding 
themselves. 
But the learned judge instructs the jury that the prosecution 
are bound to show, not only that the hypothesis of A. B.’s 
guilt may satisfy all the observed facts, but to demonstrate 
absolutely that zt alone can satisfy them; so that the logical 
result shall be, not only that we may, but that we must, adopt 
this, as the only true explanation of the circumstances proven. 
