§ 429. Strictly speaking, the term inference, as applied to a product of thought, includes both the antecedent and consequent: but it is often used for the consequent to the exclusion of the antecedent. Thus, when we have stated our premisses, we say quite naturally, 'And the inference I draw is so and so.' § 430. Inferences are either Inductive or Deductive. In induction we proceed from the less to the more general; in deduction from the more to the less general, or, at all events, to a truth of not greater generality than the one from which we started. In the former we work up to general principles; in the latter we work down from them, and elicit the particulars which they contain. § 431. Hence induction is a real process from the known to the unknown, whereas deduction is no more than the application of previously existing knowledge; or, to put the same thing more technically, in an inductive inference the consequent is not contained in the antecedent, in a deductive inference it is. § 432. When, after observing that gold, silver, lead, and other metals, are capable of being reduced to a liquid state by the application of heat, the mind leaps to the conclusion that the same will hold true of some other metal, as platinum, or of all metals, we have then an inductive inference, in which the conclusion, or consequent, is a new proposition, which was not contained in those that went before. We are led to this conclusion, not by reason, but by an instinct which teaches us to expect like results, under like circumstances. Experience can tell us only of the past: but we allow it to affect our notions of the future through a blind belief that 'the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.' Take away this conviction, and the bridge is cut which connects the known with the unknown, the past with the future. The commonest acts of daily life would fail to be performed, were it not for this assumption, which is itself no product of the reason. Thus man's intellect, like his faculties generally, rests upon a basis of instinct. He walks by faith, not by sight.