Necessary principles, discovered by this
process of induction and identification, become premises of deductive
demonstration to conclusions which are not only necessary consequents on
the premises, but also equally necessary in reality. Induction thus is
the source of deduction, of its truth, of its probability, of its moral
certainty; and induction, combined with identification, is the origin of
the necessary principles of demonstration or deduction to necessary
conclusions.
Analogical inference in its turn is as closely allied with induction.
Like induction, it starts from a particular premise, containing one or
more examples or instances; but, as it is easier to infer a particular
than a universal conclusion, it supplies particular conclusions which in
their turn become further particular premises of induction. Its second
premise is indeed merely a particular apprehension that one particular
is similar to another, whereas the second premise of induction is a
universal apprehension that a whole number of particulars is similar to
those from which the inference starts; but at bottom these two
apprehensions of similarity are so alike as to suggest that the
universal premise of induction has arisen as a generalized analogy. It
seems likely that man has arrived at the apprehension of a whole
individual, e.g. a whole animal including all its parts, and thence has
inferred by analogy a whole number, or class, e.g. of animals including
all individual animals; and accordingly that the particular analogy of
one individual to another has given rise to the general analogy of every
to each individual in a class, or whole number of individuals, contained
in the second premise of induction. In this case, analogical inference
has led to induction, as induction to deduction. Further, analogical
inference from particular to particular suggests inductive-deductive
inference from particular through universal to particular.
Newton, according to Dr Pemberton, thought in 1666 that the moon moves
so like a falling body that it has a similar centripetal force to the
earth, 20 years before he demonstrated this conclusion from the laws of
motion in the _Principia_. In fact, analogical, inductive and deductive
inferences, though different processes of combining premises to cause
different conclusions, are so similar and related, so united in
principle and interdependent, so consolidated into a system of
inference, that they cannot be completely investigated apart, but
together constitute a single subject of science. This science of
inference in general is logic.
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