§3. I have to complain, in the second place, that all kinds oi combination are called association. But association surely implies that the elements which are joined might not have been joined. And should be proved, or at all events made probable, before co-existei is assumed to be mere association.
84 It may be replied, "Even if the things are connected, yet, as we perceive them, their union for us must be chance conjunction, and therefore association." But this again should in no case be asserted without some ground. It is not always self-evident that the mind co^ have had one element without the other. And where you fail show that this is the case, you cannot talk of association.
§ 5. I shall be answered, " What we prove is that in certain cases mere chance association has produced necessary connection; and we argue from this that it may be fairly suspected of doing so in all. The possibility is proved and the possibility is enough." I can not enter here into the merits of this argument which I shall hereafter show is logically vicious (vid. Bk. III. II. Chap. III. §22)14; but sup pose that for the present we admit it. What conclusion follows? That we are fallible men? We knew that before. That we are to trust to anything else? Then what else? Admit for argument's sake the possibility that all our beliefs are baseless, what then? Why nothing. If we mean to go on living and thinking, we dismiss this possibility as idle. Suppose we all are victimized by chance con junction, are we not right to be so victimized?
§6. Association implies other conditions. It implies contingent circumstances. When a chance conjunction is taken by an error for a necessary connection, the mistake really consists in defective analysis. The remedy is found in the progress of analysis, assisted probably by fresh fact. Where this remedy is impracticable, no remedy can be applied. For no other is possible.
§ 7. Apart from mental chemistry, which we shall consider pre sently, a connection of ideas could not continue to be necessary when it demonstrably has arisen from association. And this is quite ob vious. For the connection of ideas supposes a content which is ideally inseparable, and the knowledge of the association involves this ideal separation. The experience which shows the fact of the association, is at the same time the analysis which loosens its bond.
§8. This however is a minor point. To the objection that possibly all truth may be nothing but chance association, we reply (as above) that, supposing this for argument's sake to be true, we can not trouble ourselves with idle possibilities. But if you wish to go beyond this idle possibility, you must show cases where unreasoning chance conjunction has produced false belief -without confusion. You must show, that is, that the belief in the connection was wholly false; that it was not a true belief in a real fact made false simply by a confusion between the relevant and irrelevant elements in the connec tion. But this, I think, has never been shown.
§9. If association rests on conjunction in perception, then that is a valid ground for belief. It is deceptive merely so far as it is unanalyzed, and confuses the irrelevant with the relevant. Otherwise it is a proof of necessary connection. But then this latter is not mere association. For it is not every conjunction in presentation which can be called an association, but only those conjunctions which result from chance. And chance disappears before analysis.
§ 10. I will now turn to the doctrine of mental chemistry. Ele ments by virtue of repeated chance conjunction are said to cohere in such a way that they form a third product which has the qualities of neither. But this in the first place would not be association, since that term implies that the individuals continue. In a chemical union l5 the molecules of the substances cease to be molecules of either sub stance. It is therefore nonsense to say that they are associated.
§11. This of course may be said to be a question of words. But the fact of such union in the case of ideas has, at least in my knowledge, never yet been shown. It can not be called impossible, nor should I at least have said that it was even improbable, but I have never seen any certain instance of it.
§ 12. In the case of emotions this " chemical union " does seem to take place. But even here there might be doubt if the emotion should properly be considered as an " union." It might rather be a new reaction on a fresh compound material.16 But, however that be, it is true that the emotional product often can not be analyzed.17 It can only be reconstructed perhaps in part hypothetically. And again if we take intellectual functions, there is no doubt that in the process of mental development " faculties " are produced which are different in kind from what went before.18 But then again these functions are hardly unions of ideas. When you strictly keep to mental objects, I think you must say that no instance of what looks like chemical combination has yet been found.
§ 13. It is of course mere waste of time to bring forward as evi dence cases where the fact of the association is not admitted. It is for example a mere circle to instance the idea of visual extension, since visual sensations without extension are the merest hypothesis. Not only can this alleged fact not be observed, but there are very strong reasons for rejecting it wholly.* It is not less idle to bring forward a product, such as the sensation of white, and then roundly assert that it is the fusion of different sensations. Perhaps it is, but you would have to show the existence of these sensations in the particular case, and give some reason for your belief that they were transformed. It is finally ridiculous to adduce, as a chemical product, an idea which can be separated at once and with ease into its component parts. J. S. Mill when hard pressed seems to play as his trump card the idea of infinity (Hamilton, Note to Chapter XV.). But infinity, as he understands it, hardly calls for analysis. < it falls apart into its elements, for it is a mere mechanical union.
The conclusion must be that the chemistry of ideas is no more than a hypothesis. I do not think in any case it would be the right way to state the fact. But the fact itself has not been clearly shown to exist.19 In the second place, were we convinced that mere chance conjunction was able to lead to it, then nothing would follow except what we know, viz. that there is some general antecedent probability that any conviction is false. This result makes no difference either to theory or to practice.
*Vid. Stumpf, Raumvorstellung.
1The length of this Chapter was, I think, justified by the general state of psychology in England in 1883. The reader is asked to bear in mind that perhaps the greater part of it was written at a particular time, and for a special purpose, and hence should now be superfluous. This remark does not, however, apply to the doctrine that Association holds only between universals. This doctrine, as I have long ago mentioned (in Mind N. S., No. 20, p. 472, and, I think, elsewhere) — I owe to Hegel (Encyk. §§452 foil.). For my indebtedness to him in psychology otherwise see on Bk. III. I. VII. I may add here that, so far as I remember, in 1883 I had not yet made the acquaintance of Herbart, with Drobisch and Volkmann, or even of Waitz or of Lotze's Medicinische Psychologic. I had, however, read most of Steinthal's Sprachwissenschaft, I.
2 "If the condition is known." It would be better to say "is taken to fall within the subject," and for "where the condition is unknown" to write " where you can not specify the condition."
3 " Analytical." Cf. Bk. III. I. VI. § 10.
4 " When they are dead, etc." I should certainly have used other language here with reference to "survival," if I had been better ac quainted with the excellent work done in psychology by Herbartian writers. The doctrine that every mental state still survives and is active below the conscious level, was, and is, as a working hypothesis, not to be treated with contempt.
5 "What is left behind is a mental result." Cf. §26. We have here the problem of Dispositions. This, I should say, is in the end insoluble, if you ask for anything beyond an empirical Law or Laws. Cf. Mind (O. S.), No. 47, p. 363, No. 13 (N. S.), p. 25, and No. 33, p. 9.
6 " Logical." Cf. Bk. III. I. III. §§ 20 and 23. Association becomes logical by its use for, and subordination to, a logical end; where, that is, it is controlled, for the purpose of truth, by the identity and indi viduality of an object. Cf. Mind (O. S.), No. 47, pp. 381-2, and Essays, pp. 362 foil.
7 " They all have content." Cf. §§ 30 and 31. The point here is that you do not anywhere have a psychical fact which is purely simple and in this sense unique. Everything given, we must remember, is always in some sense itself qualified by its context. See T. E. V.
8 "This is not merely an assertion I have chosen to make." Prof Sully on the other hand, in The Human Mind, I, 331 (1892), says (I understand) that it is so. While directing the reader to this criticism I may add that I neither saw nor see any need to reply to it. The reader who can not deal with it for himself will, I think, have read this Chapter in vain.
9 " Primitive Credulity." Cf. Bk. III. I. VI. § 32, and Essays, p. 377.
10 " This is a result." See Note 5.
11 " In Professor Bain's account, etc." Though the temptation was irresistible, I am sorry that I treated Bain, here and elsewhere, with so little respect. Let me say now that, so far as I know, he was the only writer of his time and school who made an original con tribution to psychology. Though one may find him at times to be absurd, one seldom finds that he has not at least made an instructive effort to see the facts for himself.
12 " And it is much worse in psychology." The reader here must not forget that I was pointing to psychology as it was in England, still at least in the main, in 1883. To use such language now would be absurd and even monstrous.
13 " Mythology." Cf. my Appearance and Essays, and, in particular on psychology, see Mind, Vol. IX, N. S., No. 33. It is hardly neces sary, I hope, for me to inform the reader that this view of truth, as being more or less mythological everywhere outside metaphysics, came to me from Plato and again still more from Hegel.
14 Cf. here Appearance, p. 620.
15 " Chemical union." I am of course here not endorsing but merely adopting the view offered me as to the real nature of chemical union.
This, I presume, might be the place to discuss the doctrine of Fusion— whether of one sensation with another or with ideas and Dispositions— or again of these two last, each with themselves or with one another. But I can not venture upon such a difficult subject here.
is "It might rather...material." This seems certainly 1 better view. No psychical state, as a unity, can be wholly resolved into the mere compounding of units— even " chemically."
" " Often can not be analyzed." The meaning here is that there are some emotions, to."analyze" which, except quite inadequately, you must have recourse to what you believe is their origin.
is " Functions " and " faculties." This statement of course will apply to much of what are called "instincts."
19 "But the fact itself...exist." By "the fact itself I mean the appearance of a complex psychical state, in which the elements, as such, have become indistinguishable, and which can nevertheless be taken as the mere product of their union. There are but few psychologists, I should think, who would now accept such a fact However that may be, we can and must, I should say, maintain that new products have been developed, but certainly not by chemical union of ideas. Every new mental product is rather a fresh reaction from the individual totality; and, to explain, we.must seek.to find the Laws by which Dispositions are formed, and by which the result former experience meets and more or less transforms the incoming stimulus.
THE ARGUMENT FROM PARTICULARS TO PARTICULARS1 § i. At the point which we have reached a discussion of this subject may seem inexcusable. If we have shown that no association is possible except between universals, and that in the very lowest stages of mind universals are used, we may fairly be reproached by the reader who is anxious to learn something new, if we linger over errors the root of which has long since been torn up. For supposing that the results we have attained to are sound, the question is settled. To reason directly from particulars to particulars is wholly im possible. It must be at most a desire of the mind which this world can not gratify, a postulate a priori given by an intuition, that disappears before analysis and is rejected by experience.
§ 2. But since it is possible that the reader of this Chapter has not accepted the conclusions we obtained, since it is not unlikely that he has passed them over, let us try once again if we can not do something to turn the light into this refuge of darkness. We must not expect to persuade the disciple of the Experience Philosophy. It is not for anything we are likely to offer, that he will desert the fashionable and easy creed in which he has been reared. But at least we shall have tried not to leave him an excuse. He must not say that we have been afraid to look his idol in the face.
There is however one thing we will not do for his sake. We decline to supply a direct examination of the well-known chapter in J. S. Mill's Logic. It would require much more space to set out the ambiguities inherent in that chapter,2 than we can give to the discussion of the question itself; a dis cussion to which, I may remind the reader, I consider that at this stage he has no right.
§3. Why should we not reason from mere particulars? Do our reasonings never rest upon fact? And what are facts if they are not particulars? Either then we never, starting CHAP. II THE ARGUMENT FROM PARTICULARS 349 from fact, conclude to fact, or else we infer particulars from particulars. This result may so be deduced from first prin ciples. And common experience supports the result. From cases we have known we go to fresh cases without an appeal to any general principle. We have seen something happen and, given a new instance, we argue at once that it will hap pen again. But we have no reason other than this fact to give for our conclusion. We thus in the second place have proved our thesis a posteriori, as before we proved it a priori. And now we add an indirect proof. If for reasoning were wanted major premises, then the lower animals could not reason. But they do reason, and therefore the thesis is proved. § 4. How shall we escape from this array of proofs? Are they not unanswerable? To me they seem unanswerable, and I have not the smallest wish to escape them. I admit them and embrace them; but I ask a question, What is it that they prove?
They prove first that, when we go from experience of facts, this experience is the foundation of our inference. They prove again that we do not always go from an explicit major premise, and that therefore another way of reasoning is pos sible. And in defence of these results I am as zealous as any of my readers can be. If he likes to say beside that a syllogism in extension is a petitio principii and no argument at all, he will urge what long ago I have endorsed. But let us come to the conclusion. If you mean to argue to no more than this, that experience of particulars is a basis of inference, and that no explicit major is required, I am ready to support you. But if you mean to conclude, Therefore we reason from particulars as such direct to particulars, I object at once. The conclusion does not follow from the premises, and it also is wholly contrary to experience.
§ 5. We have in fact to do here with a common-place logical blunder. The thesis to be proved is that an inference is made direct from particulars, as such, to other particulars. The conclusion which is proved is that from experience of particulars we somehow get a particular conclusion. Not to see the enormous difference of these assertions is to fall into a gross ignoratio elenchi. To prove the thesis in dispute it is necessary to assume that either we go direct from particulars to particulars, or else advance through an explicit syllogism (perhaps even an explicit syllogism in extension). No sort of evidence is offered to show that this alternative exhausts the possibilities; and it disappears the moment we confront it with facts.
§ 6. In reply to the assertion that we are able to argue from particulars to particulars, I would ask in the first place what particulars are meant. Am I to understand that the past experiences in their particularity are the premises used in this supposed inference? If I am told this is so, of course I reply that we have here a mere psychological fiction. Par ticular images of past occurrences, which retain the special marks of the originals, are not available. The doctrine that each perished perception leaves an unblurred unabridged counterpart of itself, is a preposterous invention (cf. pp. 35-7, and Book II. II. Chap. I.).
§ 7. It is again a mere error which sees in the lowest form of inference the presence of one or more images of the past, together with a fact which they are used to qualify. When a present perception is modified by the suggestions of past ex perience, these suggestions do not come from particular images of perished events. This theory is a second pure invention (cf. ibid.).
§ 8. In the third place when, at a higher stage of develop ment, the past event is as such called to mind, and when we do argue from a particular image, yet even then we do not argue from its particularity, from its psychological environ ment and temporary colouring. We argue from the content, the idea which can exist in different times and under diverse psychological conditions. And once more, and in the fourth place, this idea itself need not be used as a whole, but we may argue from one part of it.
§9. A child has come to know that, when the dog is pleased, he wags his tail. On this he argues that, when the cat wags its tail, it must be pleased. What is it he proceeds from? The error we are considering actually supposes that one or more images of foregone occasions, presenting the dog pleased and with his tail in motion, come before the mind, and that, on this, the perception of the cat now moving its tail directly gives rise to the conclusion, The cat is pleased. But the CHAP. II THE ARGUMENT FROM PARTICULARS 351 question arises, How is it that one attribute is taken from the dog-images and given to the cat, without the rest going with it? Does not this use of one part of the dog-images, and the neglect of the rest, show that something happens to the images in question, and that, however it has come about, the inference is not drawn from the whole of any one of them? Suppose again that they differ among themselves, do we argue direct from the whole of all of them? But if not, from what else?
§ 10. The facts, I should have thought, would have left little doubt that the result of experience is a connection of attributes, where the differences of their particular subjects are blurred — a confused universal, which may appear to the mind in a particular imagery, but is used without any regard to that. I confess I should have thought that it was very clear that, in the special cases where we argue from recollection, we use the past event as a type or instance. And since both this past event and the present perception come to us as instances, we neglect some of the differences that exist between them. We do not know the principle, but we feel " it is the same thing " in both cases. But, if so, the premise from which the conclusion directly comes, is not the particular. It is an universal extract, what we call a " general impression."
§ ii. Reasoning from a particular to a particular is obvi ously an argument from analogy. In this we all know that we do not use the whole of that particular from which we argue. It was an inference by analogy which deceived the child (§9). He took from the dog a relation of qualities and transferred it to the cat. What he argued from was this general relation, and it was a false analogy, just because it was a bad generalization. Again, why do we object to false analogies? Is it not because in them we treat some fact as another instance of a rule, when there is no common rule and the facts are not instances? And is not this a hint that in true analogy we use a principle though we can not state it?
§ 12. This leads us to put another question. Suppose that per impossible we did have before our minds a number of particular images, and did argue from them directly; would not this inference be a very bad one? If I say " A, B, and C are a, and there is no difference between D and A, B, and^C, therefore D is a"— is not this a circle— a frivolous prtitiof Again if I say " A, B, and C are a, and D is different from A, B, and C, therefore D is a" — is not this a bad argument, so glaringly bad that no child and no beast could be got to use it?
But if we amend this semblance of reasoning, and bring it to the form of a real inference — if we say " A, B, and C are a,, and therefore D, which resembles them, is a" we are no longer arguing from mere particulars. We are arguing from the resemblance, from a point or points which D has in common with A, B, and C. It is not because A, B, and C are a, but it is because in them some element $ is a, and because again we find /? in D, that we argue " therefore D is a." For whenever we reason from resemblance we reason from identity, from that which is the same in several particulars and is itself not a particular. And is it not obvious that, in arguing from par ticular cases, we leave out some of the differences, and that we could not argue if we did not leave them out? Is it not then palpable that, when the differences are disregarded, the residue is an universal? Is it not once more clear that, in vicious inferences by analogy, the fault can be found in a wrong generalization?
§ 13. I will conclude with an appeal to common experience. We all know very well that in our daily life we reason habitu ally from the results of past experience, although we may be wholly unable to give one single particular fact in support of our conclusion. We know again that there are persons, whose memory is so good that they recall past details in a way which to us is quite impossible, and who yet can not draw the conclusions which we draw, since they have never gone beyond the reproduction of these details. It is not the collection of particular facts, it is the general impression one gets from these facts which is really the sine qua non of reasoning; and it is that from which we really go to our result.
If you begin the discussion of a question, such as this, with a vicious disjunction, you can not go right. As a preliminary to discussion you have excluded the truth. From the alterna tive — either an explicit syllogism or an inference from particu lars to particulars — you can hardly fail to get a false result. You may infer — The syllogism in extension is no argument, and therefore we go from particulars to particulars. You may CHAP. II THE ARGUMENT FROM PARTICULARS 353 infer — It is not possible to argue from particulars, and there fore we reason always in syllogisms, explicit and (if you like) also extensional. But to me it is nothing which conclusion you adopt. For both are errors, and both at bottom are one and the same error. They are twin branches from one root of inveterate prejudice and false assumption.
§ 14. The present chapter has been so short that I take this opportunity to deliver my mind from a weight that oppresses it. I intend to be guilty of what some readers may think an unpardonable omission. It is true that I do not undertake to criticize every theory from which I dissent; but there is one of those theories which I propose to pass over, that may seem to call for recognition and enquiry. Mr. Spencer, in his Psychology, has developed a view of the nature of inference, which, despite its ingenuity, despite its perception of some of those truths which the syllogism has forgotten, I am obliged to consider fundamentally mistaken. It has always seemed to me so arbitrary and so forced, so far away in the end from the real facts, that I can not believe a discussion of it here would tend to throw any light on the problems of logic.3 More than once, I admit, Mr. Spencer's position in English philosophy induced me to think that I had no right to omit all notice of his peculiar views. The sacrifice of space, the chance that I had failed to follow the process which had brought him his results, did not weigh against the danger that I might have seemed to avoid confronting my own doctrines with those of an established master in the subject. But there came to my mind another consideration, which decided the result and fixed my purpose to omit the examination, late Mr Mill and Professor Bain have both written systematic treatises on logic. They have entertained a view of Mr. Spen cer's powers and philosophical performances which is not mine. Mr. Mill especially has expressed his conviction in such terms, that beside it those praises, I should otherwise have felt were due to Mr. Spencer, would sound like detrac too* Both must have been aware that Mr. Spencer has ^more than once published what appears to be a novel theory of reasomng And yet neither (so far as I know) has examined the 1 peculiar and salient assertions of that theory.
And I thought that I might venture on a humble imitation of their common silence. Did they fail to follow Mr. Spencer's demonstrations, did they even think them an unprofitable sub ject, in either case I claim the protection of their authority. But, if neither is the truth and they considered Mr. Spencer to be of one mind with themselves, and to say the same thing in a different form, then once again they unite in excusing me. I surely am not wrong if I too omit all criticism, or at least delay it till I have seen some cause to think that it is wanted.
1 On the argument from particulars, beside the references given, cf. also Bk. III. I. VII. § 8 and III. II. I. § 5.
2 " The ambiguities inherent in that chapter." These are such that apparently (given sufficient good will) the chapter can mean that we never do or can argue directly from particulars (see Appearance, p. 596, note). With regard to J. S. Mill the questions to be answered, if any one thinks them worth answering, are these, (i) Had J. S. Mill any new view to offer? (ii) If so, what was it? (iii) What is the view logically required by his general position? But I must be forgiven if I go on to add " Let the dead bury their dead."
3 With regard to Mr. Spencer's view I would suggest, as a possi bility, that it never was taken from the facts, but was a development of or from something about Comparison which he found in Hamilton. Reading so few books, Mr. Spencer was naturally more at the mercy of those that he did read.
THE INDUCTIVE METHODS OF PROOF § I. We have seen that in reality there is no such thing as an inference from the particular to a fresh particular In this chapter we approach a cognate superstition. In England at least if we go with the fashion,1 we all have to believe in an Inductive Logic, which, starting from particular given facts goes on to prove universal truths. Its processes, exact as the strictest syllogism, surrender themselves to the direction of Canons, reputed no less severe than Barbara and believed with reason to be far more fertile. I am afraid I may lose the reader's sympathy when I advise him to doubt the union of these qualities.
§ 2. To question the existence or deny the efficacy of those methods of reasoning (whatever they may be), by which modern science has made its conquests, would of course be absurd. To succeed on a great scale is to prove one's title. And it is not within the scope of this work to investigate either the nature of the processes which science employs, or the amount of evidence which it accepts as proof. What I wish to assert is that, starting from particular perceptions of sense, there is no way of going to universal truths by a process of demonstration perfectly exact, and in all its steps theoretically accurate. The induction of logicians, so far as it professes to make that attempt, I shall try to show will not stand criticism.
§ 3. We need not discuss at any great length the Method which is called Complete Induction.2 To examine a number of individuals and to say of all what you say of each, is in the first place no inference to an universal truth. A collective term, if taken collectively, is no more universal than if taken distributively (p. 82); and the inference, if admitted, does not reach the conclusion which we have in view. But in the second place, the inference itself is inadmissible. In other words, if you start from each and end with each, there is no process; but if you predicate of the collection what is true of each member, there is palpable error. The Induction by way of Complete Enumeration must be rejected as either tautologous or false (cf. Book II. I. Chap. II. § 5).
Or again if we take the Induction in another sense, it changes its character. If first by counting you arrive at all, and then from all pass on to any, that is not a process which need be false or need merely repeat the fact it began with; but then it is not based simply upon the particular data. If a flock of sheep have all had medicine, I know that, within the given enclosure, any sheep has been dosed, and I connect the attributes without thinking of the individuals. The conclusion is valid and is really universal; but it implies a process which goes beyond counting. " This sheep and that sheep and the others are dosed; " that is the first premise; but a second is wanted. We may write it " This sheep and that sheep and the others are every sheep that is within this fold," or again " The fold does not contain any sheep but these which we have counted." It is on the strength of this premise that we go on to conclude, "If any sheep is now within the fold he must have been dosed." We seem to argue from " all " to " any," but the " all " has ceased to be the mere collection.
We have first the assurance that the whole field has been surveyed, and that we have not neglected any relevant matter. Counting is the way in which we attempt to obtain this assur ance. But the enumeration, if it is to be complete, must be qualified by the privative judgment, Nothing in this fold can have been uncounted. The collection is thus identified with every possible sheep that comes under the condition of being in the fold. This is one side of our process. The other side consists in an act of abstraction, and in the selective perception of one connection of attributes throughout our whole subject matter. Then, given an individual possessing the condition of belonging to our fold, we pass at once to the other connected attribute.
Now the procedure by which we get this general connection is in a sense " inductive "; and assuredly once more it has employed counting. But then the counting by itself is not the induction, and is not by itself a generalization. The discrimi native analysis, that goes with the counting, is the real agent which procures the universal, and which contains the " induc tion " (cf. Book III.). It is this which generalizes from the facts. But it does not go beyond one single case,3 since its validity depends on the privative judgment by which any folded sheep must be one case with the sheep observed.
To repeat, if you confine yourself to mere counting, you get no general result. If you attempt to advance from the basis of mere counting your ground is unsafe. If you proceed from a complete Enumeration, then the warrant of complete ness falls outside the counting. What generalizes is the selec tive perception which isolates and secures the connection of adjectives. But the conclusion depen'ds on the guarantee of completeness. It is valid because the connection is found in a whole, which is warranted to anticipate every possible case of a certain kind.
§ 4. But induction by way of Enumeration is not the method we are asked to believe in.* In the treatise which, partly from merits of its own and partly also from other causes, has threatened to fasten itself on us as a text book, we find the so-called Canons of Induction, collected and de veloped from other writers, and formulated with a show of rigorous accuracy. It is the illusory nature of these selfstyled proofs that I wish to point out in the present chapter. We must not be afraid of the shadow of authority. The balance of authority among modern logicians is, I think, against the claim of the inductive proofs, and is not on their side. And perhaps already, from experience we have had, we may be prepared to find that Mr. Mill may at times be mistaken. § 5. We must remember above all things throughout this discussion that the question is not, Can discoveries be made by the use of the Methods? They may be as efficacious in actual practice as is asserted by some, or as practically inadequate and unsuited for work as is affirmed by others. That is not the issue which we have before us. The question we have to answer here is, Are they valid ways of proof, by which we can go from facts to universals?
For that is the claim which the Canons set up. " The * The reader of Mill's Logic will remember, on the other hand, that with him the whole inductive process is taken to stand or fall with a proof by way of incomplete Enumeration.