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

350 THE PROBLEMS wnicii WE HAVE RAISED.
8. To illustrate the observation made at the close
of the previous section, we shall consider the relation
between Deductive and Inductive reasoning.
English writers on Logic have usually been content
to say that Deduction reasons from general principles
to particular facts, Induction from particular facts to
general principles. Before we can estimate the value
of this statement of the distinction, we must be clear
as to one point. Deduction and Induction are not
two different and independent kinds of reasoning.
The
real process of thinking is the same in both i.e., to find
a place for some fact as a detail within a system.
In
the case of syllogistic deductive reasoning (ch. V.) our
"
"
system is partly known beforehand, in the form of a
general law under which the fact or detail is brought
(ch. V. 2, 6- ch. VIII. i). We start, having in
our hands the common thread which unites the various
facts. But in Inductive reasoning we have to find the
common thread. We start with certain kinds of facts
which occur together in our experience. We assume
that there is some principle which unites them (ch.
VIII. 6) ; and our object is to read out of these par
ticular details the general law of their connection, and,
if possible, to explain this connection by further con
necting
and laws into a systematic whole.
Thus the traditional English mode of distinguishing
it with other laws : and this is to connect facts
Induction and Deduction must at least be qualified by
remembering that in both "kinds" of reasoning we
have the essential function of thought at work i.e., to
show the way in which details are connected together
into a system or whole. The difference lies in the
starting-point being different in the two cases. We have
seen that both modes of inference are required together