An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

THE GENERAL NATURE OF INDUCTION. 251
element of
"
uncertainty." This is true, if we are care
ful to put the uncertainty in the right place. If there is
any uncertainty it arises not because we go beyond the
experience of our senses in stating a law, but because
that experience is liable to the double misinterpretation
of which we have spoken.
We may define induction, then, as the legitimate
inference of universal laws from individual cases.
This agrees with one of Dr Fowler s definitions : "the
legitimate inference of the general from the particular,"
for
"
"
particular is not here used in the rigid narrow
sense in which it is
1
objectionable. Another definition
Dr Fowler is based on one of Mill s views of
given by
induction, and is :
very misleading
"
legitimate inference
of the unknown from the known (of the future from the
past)." This is much better expressed by saying that
what we reach is a general proposition. And if the new
or "future" cases were strictly unknown we could not
apply the general principle to them. We can only do
this so far as we know the constitution of the new cases
in this respect they must contain the same conditions
as the one which was first examined. The cause dis
covered in the original case must be really operative in
the other cases. We can hardly speak of inferring from
the "known" to the "unknown" when we know that
there must be a complete identity between them in
certain respects.
6. It is true that there is an assumption involved in
induction. There is a principle which must be granted
if scientific investigation is to be possible, a necessary
1 The sense in which it means something that is only "here and
now," pointing to nothing beyond itself, unconnected with other
things. A in this "particular," sense, can never be known, for that
would destroy its isolation.