XXXIX.] mill's inductive logic. 167 



memory is the perception of tlie succession of feelings in tlie 

 mind. I do not say the succession of feelings, but the perception 

 of their succession. 



Mr. Mill, in his " Examination of Sir WiUiam Hamilton's Mill on 

 Philosophy," says that "the belief in the veracity of memory is the same, 

 evidently idtimate." If this is so, why may not other behefs 

 be ultimate as well 1 



NOTE B. 



mill's inductive logic. 



Mb. Mill, in his " System of Logic, Eatioci native and Induc- 

 tive," accepts the usual doctrine, that there are two kinds of 

 reasoning : the one, inductive or analytic, ascending from parti- Inductive 

 culars to generals ; the other, deductive or synthetic, descending ^ +■ 

 from generals to particulars. But he maintains also that the reasoning. 

 original and elementary form of reasoning is neither from parti- 

 culars to generals, nor from generals to particulars, but from Eeasoning 

 particulars to particulars ; as when a child, or a dog, infers that (.^1™.^ ^o ^" 



the fire which has burned it once may be expected to burn it parti- 

 culars, 

 again. 



As a mere statement of fact, this is perfectly true. It is true 

 that men reason, and reason correctly, from one fact to another, 

 before they learn either to infer one general truth from a number 

 of special facts by induction, or to apply one general truth so as 

 to prove other less general ones by deduction. But this is not a 

 rationale of the process. !Mr. Mill is well aware, and pointed 

 out long before the present work was thought of, that all reason- 

 ing concerning things involves the axiom that the course of 

 nature is uniform ; or, as I have purposely expressed it in less 

 scientific language, that what has been found true once will 

 probably be found true again. I quote his own words : " If Quotation 

 we throw the whole course of any inductive argument into a ™ ' 

 series of syllogisms, we shall arrive, by more or fewer steps, 

 at an ultimate syllogism which will have for its major premiss 

 the principle, or axiom, of the uniformity of the course of 

 nature. Having reached this point, we have the whole field of 

 induction laid out in syllogisms, and every instance of inference 



