its causes, inference itself in its conclusions causes many more
judgments and conceptions. Finally, inference is an extension, not of
ideas, but of beliefs, at first about existing things, afterwards about
ideas, and even about words; about anything in short about which we
think, in what is too fancifully called "the universe of discourse."
Formal logic has arisen out of the narrowness of conceptual logic. The
science of inference no doubt has to deal primarily with formal truth or
the consistency of premises and conclusion. But as all truth, real as
well as formal, is consistent, formal rules of consistency become real
rules of truth, when the premises are true and the consistent conclusion
is therefore true. The science of inference again rightly emphasizes the
formal thinking of the syllogism in which the combination of premises
involves the conclusion. But the combinations of premises in analogical
and inductive inference, although the combination does not involve the
conclusion, yet causes us to infer it, and in so similar a way that the
science of inference is not complete without investigating all the
combinations which characterize different kinds of inference. The
question of logic is how we infer in fact, as well as perfectly; and we
cannot understand inference unless we consider inferences of probability
of all kinds. Moreover, the study of analogical and inductive inference
is necessary to that of the syllogism itself, because they discover the
premises of syllogism. The formal thinking of syllogism alone is merely
necessary consequence; but when its premises are necessary principles,
its conclusions are not only necessary consequents but also necessary
truths. Hence the manner in which induction aided by identification
discovers necessary principles must be studied by the logician in order
to decide when the syllogism can really arrive at necessary conclusions.
Again, the science of inference has for its subject the form, or
processes, of thought, but not its matter or objects. But it does not
follow that it can investigate the former without the latter. Formal
logicians say that, if they had to consider the matter, they must either
consider all things, which would be impossible, or select some, which
would be arbitrary. But there is an intermediate alternative, which is
neither impossible nor arbitrary; namely, to consider the general
distinctions and principles of all things; and without this general
consideration of the matter the logician cannot know the form of
thought, which consists in drawing inferences about things on these
general principles. Lastly, the science of inference is not indeed the
science of sensation, memory and experience, but at the same time it is
the science of using those mental operations as data of inference; and,
if logic does not show how analogical and inductive inferences directly,
and deductive inferences indirectly, arise from experience, it becomes a
science of mere thinking without knowledge.
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