one proposition and others, is recognized as an essential part, but
is no longer tolerated as an independent whole.[74]
[Footnote 72: See his Discussions on Philosophy, p. 139, seq.;
Lectures on Logic, vol. i. p. 27.]
[Footnote 73: See the remarkable paragraph at the close of the
Sophistici Elenchi, already quoted (supra, p. 140, note).]
[Footnote 74: Mr. John Stuart Mill says (Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 3):
**"Induction is inferring a proposition from premisses _less general_
than itself, and Ratiocination is inferring a proposition from
premisses _equally or more general_." Again in another passage: "We
have found that all Inference, consequently all Proof, and all
discovery of truths not self-evident, consists of inductions, and the
interpretation of inductions; that all our knowledge, not intuitive,
comes to us exclusively from that source. What Induction is,
therefore, and what conditions render it legitimate, cannot but be
deemed the main question of logic--the question which includes all
others. It is however one which professed writers on logic have
almost entirely passed over. The generalities of the subject, indeed,
have not been altogether neglected by metaphysicians; but, for want
of sufficient acquaintance with the processes by which science has
actually succeeded in establishing general truths, their analysis of
the inductive operation, even when unexceptionable as to correctness,
has not been specific enough to be made the foundation of practical
rules, which might be for Induction itself what the rules of the
Syllogism are for interpretation of Induction" (Bk. III. ch. i. s. 1.
p. 313.)--"The business of Inductive Logic is to provide rules and
models (such as the Syllogism and its rules are for ratiocination) to
which if inductive arguments conform, those arguments are conclusive,
and not otherwise. This is what the Four Methods profess to be, and
what I believe they are universally considered to be by experimental
philosophers, who had practised all of them long before any one
sought to reduce the practice to theory" (Bk. III. ch. ix. s. 5, p.
471, 5th ed.)--See also the same point of view more copiously set
forth, in Mr. Mill's later work, 'Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philosophy' (ch. xx. pp. 454-462, 3rd ed.): "It is only as a means to
material truth that the formal (or to speak more clearly, the
conditional) validity of an operation of thought is of any value; and
even that value is only negative: we have not made the smallest
positive advance towards right thinking, by merely keeping ourselves
consistent in what is perhaps systematic error. This by no means
implies that Formal Logic, even in its narrowest sense, is not of
very great, though purely negative value."--"Not only however is it
indispensable that the larger Logic, which embraces all the general
conditions of the ascertainment of truth, should be studied in
addition to the smaller Logic, which only concerns itself with the
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