3. THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION.
The problem of induction is much more complex than that of deduction because of these reasons: First. Deduction as a process of reasoning was the only kind discussed by the logicians for two thousand years. Aristotle is called the father of deductive logic and this Intellectual Giant, the greatest of ancient time and possibly of all time, so perfected the form of deductive reasoning that, up to the time of Francis Bacon, no scholar possessed the temerity to gainsay its supremacy in the field of logical reasoning. For twenty centuries Aristotle’s Deductive Logic was the Logicians’ Bible. On the other hand, inductive reasoning, though it was briefly discussed by Aristotle, received little attention till the versatile Francis Bacon placed it upon the stage of the thinking world. This makes deduction nearly two thousand years older than induction. Time, by eliminating the personal equation and exposing in various ways fallacious thinking, tends to unify and universalize truth. Hence, logicians are agreed so far as the fundamentals of deductive logic are concerned, but are still at odds over the true conception and use of inductive logic.
A second reason for this confused status in the fieldof inductive logic is the fact of its being more closely related to the events of every day living. Induction is the natural method of childhood; the popular method of the school room; and the most used method of common life. In consequence its ramifications are so varied and multitudinous, that it will take centuries of thinking to reduce the doctrine of induction to that uniformity and definiteness which so distinguishes deduction.