Strange as may now appear, it is a fact that until a comparatively recent period in the history of man, it was held by philosophers that the only way to arrive at all knowledge was by means of Deductive Reasoning, by the use of the Syllogism. The influence of Aristotle was great and men preferred to pursue artificial and complicated methods of Deductive Reasoning, rather than to reach the truth by obtaining the facts from Nature herself, at first hand, and then inferring general principle from the facts so gathered. The rise of modern scientific methods of reasoning, along the lines of Inductive Inference, dates from about 1225-1300. Roger Bacon was one of the first to teach that we must arrive at scientific truth by a process of observation and experimentation on the natural objects to be found on all sides. He made many discoveries by following this process. He was ably seconded by Galileo who lived some three hundred years later, and who also taught that many great general truths might be gained by careful observation and intelligent inference. Lord Francis Bacon, who lived about the same time as Galileo, presented in his _Novum Organum_ many excellent observations and facts regarding the process of Inductive Reasoning and scientific thought. As Jevons says: "Inductive logic inquires by what manner of reasoning we can gather the laws of nature from the facts and events observed. Such reasoning is called induction, or inductive inquiry, and, as it has actually been practiced by all the great discoverers in science, it consists in four steps." The _Four Steps in Inductive Reasoning_, as stated by Jevons, are as follows: _First Step._--Preliminary observation. _Second Step._--The making of hypotheses. _Third Step._--Deductive reasoning. _Fourth Step._--Verification. It will be seen that the process of Inductive Reasoning is essentially _a synthetic process_, because it operates in the direction of combining and uniting particular facts or truths into general truths or laws which comprehend, embrace and include them all. As Brooks says: "The particular facts are united by the mind into the general law; the general law embraces the particular facts and binds them together into a unity of principle and thought. Induction is thus a process of thought from the parts to the whole--a synthetic process." It will also be seen that the process of Inductive Reasoning is essentially _an ascending process_, because it ascends from particular facts to general laws; particular truths to universal truths; from the lower to the higher, the narrower to the broader, the smaller to the greater.