No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The True Theory of Induction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2018
Extract
Having thus pointed out the difference between the singular and the general relative to the Law of Similarity, we may understand with greater clearness how Induction, though coming in common with every other mental process under this same law, nevertheless at the outset, namely, in the whole of comprehension, is never concerned with the comparison of similars, that is, two or more individual chains of identity, and cannot therefore, in its origin, be generalization from experience.
- Type
- Part I.—Original Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1888
References
*
“Logic,”
People's Edition, p. 206. “Whoever,” continues Mill, “can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of logic than the wisest of the ancients, and has solved the problem of Induction.”
Google Scholar
*
We may picture him as so existing, but we cannot believe that he can live were his head cut off. We picture, in the imagination, a centaur or a mermaid, but we believe in the existence of neither.Google Scholar
*
To guard against a misunderstanding of the statement made in the text it has to be borne in mind that, in necessary connection, as that between block 50 and those below it, there is a relation between two things, and since the conception of one term of a relation involves that of the other, then, if an instance of necessary connection be expressed in a proposition, as, for instance, “Block 50 is necessarily sustained in its position by the blocks below it,” conversely, “the blocks below must be sustaining block 50;” if “A causes B,” conversely, “B must be caused by A.” But, on the other hand, i.e., as set forth in the text, while block 50 could not maintain its position were the other blocks removed, they can maintain their position though block 50 were hurled to the ground. Animal nature presupposes vegetable nature, and whenever this relation exists in fact, conversely, vegetable nature must be presupposed by animal nature. But while, to animal nature, this relation is a sine qua non, to vegetable nature it is simply an addendum, for it may, and does, exist without sustaining animals in many and many an instance.Google Scholar
*
A remarkable violation of Rule 2 has lately come to our notice. Mr. C. S. Read, at a late meeting of the Farmers' Club, declared “That in Norfolk recently 5 cwt. of superphosphate per acre grew 2 tons less than no manure at all.” Now, unless the land manured with the superphosphate and that which “had no manure at all” were previously tested and proved to be virtually as one, the induction here intended is quite invalid, and proves nothing. Evidently the land that had “no manure at all” possessed, as proved by the crop, more vegetable protoplasm suitable to the same than the other land, even when manured as described.Google Scholar
*
Of course, our sole outlet to Being is Knowing, even as regards physiology. No Knowing, no physiology, or anything else.Google Scholar
*
We think it would conduce much to clearness were the term “inconceivable” confined to what cannot be realized as a conception, or picture or image, namely, that which a term expresses; and that the term “unbelievable” should be used of propositions that assert what is in opposition to beliefs either direct or indirect, i.e., reasoned. The term “conception” would then have as its related adjectives conceivable and inconceivable, and the term “belief” (judgment) believable and unbelievable.Google Scholar
eLetters
No eLetters have been published for this article.