§ 3. His task at first might be conceived to be a slow and tedious one. It would consist of a gradual accumulation of individual instances, as marked out from one another by various points of distinction, and connected with one another by points of resemblance. These would have to be respectively distinguished and associated in the mind, and the consequent results would then be summed up in general propositions, from which inferences could afterwards be drawn. These inferences could, of course, contain no new facts, they would only be repetitions of what he or others had previously observed. All that we should have so far done would have been to make our classifications of things and then to appeal to them again. We should therefore be keeping well within the province of ordinary logic, the processes of which (whatever their ultimate explanation) may of course always be expressed, in accordance with Aristotle's Dictum, as ways of determining whether or not we can show that one given class is included wholly or partly within another, or excluded from it, as the case may be.
§ 4. But a very short course of observation would suggest the possibility of a wide extension of his information. Experience itself would soon detect that events were connected together in a regular way; he would ascertain that there are ‘laws of nature.’ Coming with no à priori necessity of believing in them, he would soon find that as a matter of fact they do exist, though he could not feel any certainty as to the extent of their prevalence. The discovery of this arrangement in nature would at once alter the plan of his proceedings, and set the tone to the whole range of his methods of investigation. His main work now would be to find out by what means he could best discover these laws of nature.
An illustration may assist. Suppose I were engaged in breaking up a vast piece of rock, say slate, into small pieces. I should begin by wearily working through it inch by inch. But I should soon find the process completely changed owing to the existence of cleavage. By this arrangement of things a very few blows would do the work—not, as I might possibly have at first supposed, to the extent of a few inches—but right through the whole mass. In other words, by the process itself of cutting, as shown in experience, and by nothing else, a constitution would be detected in the things that would make that process vastly more easy and extensive. Such a discovery would of course change our tactics. Our principal object would thenceforth be to ascertain the extent and direction of this cleavage.
Something resembling this is found in Induction. The discovery of laws of nature enables the mind to dart with its inferences from a few facts completely through a whole class of objects, and thus to acquire results the successive individual attainment of which would have involved long and wearisome investigation, and would indeed in multitudes of instances have been out of the question. We have no demonstrative proof that this state of things is universal; but having found it prevail extensively, we go on with the resolution at least to try for it everywhere else, and we are not disappointed. From propositions obtained in this way, or rather from the original facts on which these propositions rest, we can make new inferences, not indeed with absolute certainty, but with a degree of conviction that is of the utmost practical use. We have gained the great step of being able to make trustworthy generalizations. We conclude, for instance, not merely that John and Henry die, but that all men die.
§ 5. The above brief investigation contains, it is hoped, a tolerably correct outline of the nature of the Inductive inference, as it presents itself in Material or Scientific Logic. It involves the distinction drawn by Mill, and with which the reader of his System of Logic will be familiar, between an inference drawn according to a formula and one drawn from a formula. We do in reality make our inference from the data afforded by experience directly to the conclusion; it is a mere arrangement of convenience to do so by passing through the generalization. But it is one of such extreme convenience, and one so necessarily forced upon us when we are appealing to our own past experience or to that of others for the grounds of our conclusion, that practically we find it the best plan to divide the process of inference into two parts. The first part is concerned with establishing the generalization; the second (which contains the rules of ordinary logic) determines what conclusions can be drawn from this generalization.
§ 6. We may now see our way to ascertaining the province of Probability and its relation to kindred sciences. Inductive Logic gives rules for discovering such generalizations as those spoken of above, and for testing their correctness. If they are expressed in universal propositions it is the part of ordinary logic to determine what inferences can be made from and by them; if, on the other hand, they are expressed in proportional propositions, that is, propositions of the kind described in our first chapter, they are handed over to Probability. We find, for example, that three infants out of ten die in their first four years. It belongs to Induction to say whether we are justified in generalizing our observation into the assertion, All infants die in that proportion. When such a proposition is obtained, whatever may be the value to be assigned to it, we recognize in it a series of a familiar kind, and it is at once claimed by Probability.
In this latter case the division into two parts, the inductive and the ratiocinative, seems decidedly more than one of convenience; it is indeed imperatively necessary for clearness of thought and cogency of treatment. It is true that in almost every example that can be selected we shall find both of the above elements existing together and combining to determine the degree of our conviction, but when we come to examine them closely it appears to me that the grounds of their cogency, the kind of conviction they produce, and consequently the rules which they give rise to, are so entirely distinct that they cannot possibly be harmonized into a single consistent system.
The opinion therefore according to which certain Inductive formulæ are regarded as composing a portion of Probability, and which finds utterance in the Rule of Succession criticised in our last chapter, cannot, I think, be maintained. It would be more correct to say, as stated above, that Induction is quite distinct from Probability, yet co-operates in almost all its inferences. By Induction we determine, for example, whether, and how far, we can safely generalize the proposition that four men in ten live to be fifty-six; supposing such a proposition to be safely generalized, we hand it over to Probability to say what sort of inferences can be deduced from it.
§ 7. So much then for the opinion which tends to regard pure Induction as a subdivision of Probability. By the majority of philosophical and logical writers a widely different view has of course been entertained. They are mostly disposed to distinguish these sciences very sharply from, not to say to contrast them with, one another; the one being accepted as philosophical or logical, and the other rejected as mathematical. This may without offence be termed the popular prejudice against Probability.
A somewhat different view, however, must be noticed here, which, by a sort of reaction against the latter, seems even to go beyond the former; and which occasionally finds expression in the statement that all inductive reasoning of every kind is merely a matter of Probability. Two examples of this may be given.