terms; but, while on the one hand Aristotle did not, like Wundt, confuse
it with the third figure, on the other hand Wundt does not, like
Aristotle, suppose it to be practicable to get inductive data so wide as
the convertible premise, "All S is M, and all M is S," which would at
once establish the conclusion, "All M is P." Wundt's point is that the
conclusion of the inductive syllogism is neither so much as all, nor so
little as some, but rather the indeterminate "M and P are connected."
The question therefore arises, how we are to discover "All M is P," and
this question Wundt answers by adding an inductive method, which
involves inverting the inductive syllogism in the style of Aristotle
into a deductive syllogism from a hypothesis in the style of Jevons,
thus:--
(1) (2)
S is P. | Every M is P.
S is M. | S is M.
:. M and P are connected. | :. S is P.
He agrees with Jevons in calling this second syllogism analytical
deduction, and with Jevons and Sigwart in calling it hypothetical
deduction. It is, in fact, a common point of Jevons, Sigwart and Wundt
that the universal is not really a conclusion inferred from given
particulars, but a hypothetical major premise from which given
particulars are inferred, and that this major contains presuppositions
of causation not contained in the particulars.
It is noticeable that Wundt quotes Newton's discovery of the centripetal
force of the planets to the sun as an instance of this supposed
hypothetical, analytic, inductive method; as if Newton's analysis were a
hypothesis of the centripetal force to the sun, a deduction of the given
facts of planetary motion, and a verification of the hypothesis by the
given facts, and as if such a process of hypothetical deduction could be
identical with either analysis or induction. The abuse of this instance
of Newtonian analysis betrays the whole origin of the current confusion
of induction with deduction. One confusion has led to another. Mill
confused Newton's analytical deduction with hypothetical deduction; and
thereupon Jevons confused induction with both. The result is that both
Sigwart and Wundt transform the inductive process of adducing particular
examples to induce a universal law into a deductive process of
presupposing a universal law as a ground to deduce particular
consequences. But we can easily extricate ourselves from these
confusions by comparing induction with different kinds of deduction. The
point about induction is that it starts from experience, and that,
though in most classes we can experience only some particulars
individually, yet we infer all. Hence induction cannot be reduced to
Aristotle's inductive syllogism, because experience cannot give the
convertible premise, "Every S is M, and every M is S"; that "All A, B, C
are magnets" is, but that "All magnets are A, B, C" is not, a fact of
experience. For the same reason induction cannot be reduced to
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