The Metaphysical Foundation of Buddhism and Modern Science

Section XIV. The main method of philosophy in dealing with its evidence
is that of descriptive generalization. Social institutions exemplify a
welter of chraracteristics. No fact is merely suc
h-and-such. It exemplifies many characters at once, all rooted in the
specialities of its epoch. Philosophic generalization seizes on those
characters of abiding importance, dismissing the trivial and the
evanescent. There is an ascent from a particular fact, or from a species,
to the genus exemplified.
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It is to be noted that the converse procedure is impossible. There can be
no descent from a mere genus to a particular fact, or to a species. For
facts and species are the product of the mingling of genera. No genus in
own essence indicates the other genera with which it is compatible. For
example, the notion of a backbone does not indicate the notions of
suckling the young or of swimming in water. Thus no contemplation of the
genus vertebrate, taken by itself, can suggest mammals or fishes, even as
abstract possibilities. Neither the species nor the instance are to be
discovered by the genus alone, since both include forms not 'given' by
the genus. A species is a potencial mingling of genera, and an individual
instance involves, among other things, an actual mingling of many species.
A syllogism i a scheme for demontration of ways of mingling.
Thus the business of Logic is not the analysis of generalities but their
mingling. [Cf. Plato's Sophist, 253 ]
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