A STUDY OF THE INDUCTIVE THEORIES OF BACON, 

 WHEWELL AND MILL. 



BY BENJAMIN IVES GILMAN. 



At the outset of modern scientific progress an investiga- 

 tion into its correct method was undertaken by Francis Bacon. 

 Aristotle in his Metaphysics (XII, IV), says that we may justly 

 ascribe to Socrates the introduction into science of inductive or 

 adductive reasoning. Instances of this process, elsewhere given 

 by Aristotle, show that by this term he means the same argu- 

 ment from particulars to a general which we now call Induction; 

 and in claiming for Socrates the invention of it, Aristotle draws 

 attention to what may be considered the main characteristic of 

 the Socratic method, the tendency to pierce through the vague 

 generalizations of common thought to the real content of knoAvl- 

 edge beneath, to test general opinions by an appeal to the par- 

 ticular facts on which they are based. 



The dialectic of Socrates was an instrument of criticism em- 

 bodying a rigid search for facts inconsistent with the opinion 

 under discussion (Hippias Major, etc.). A certain definition of 

 a general term being given, its insufficiency is shown by adduc- 

 ing cases in which the term is used while the given character is 

 not present or in which the term is tiot used where it is present. 

 This feature of the Socratic dialectic, the criticism of generali- 

 zations by adducing negative instances Lord Bacon alludes to 

 in the Novum Organ um (I, CV), as the only previous example 

 of the use of his method. " We must analyze Nature," he 

 writes, " by proper rejections and exclusions, and then after a 

 sufficient number of negatives come to a conclusion on the 

 affirmative instances, which has not yet been done or even 

 attempted save only by Plato, who does indeed employ this form 



