It may be allowed that the knowledge of future particular events is the main purpose of our investigations, and if there were any process of thought by which we could pass directly from event to event without ascending into general truths, this method would be sufficient, and certainly the briefest. It is true, also, that the laws of mental association lead the mind always to expect the like again in apparently like circumstances, and even animals of very low intelligence must have some trace of such powers of association, serving to guide them more or less correctly, in the absence of true reasoning faculties. But it is the purpose of logic, according to Mill, to ascertain whether inferences have been correctly drawn, rather than to discover them.[136] Even if we can, then, by habit, association, or any rude process of inference, infer the future directly from the past, it is the work of logic to analyse the conditions on which the correctness of this inference depends. Even Mill would admit that such analysis involves the consideration of general truths,[137] and in this, as in several other important points, we might controvert Mill’s own views by his own statements. It seems to me undesirable in a systematic work like this to enter into controversy at any length, or to attempt to refute the views of other logicians. But I shall feel bound to state, in a separate publication, my very deliberate opinion that many of Mill’s innovations in logical science, and especially his doctrine of reasoning from particulars to particulars, are entirely groundless and false. [136] *System of Logic.* Introduction, § 4. Fifth ed. pp. 8, 9. [137] Ibid. bk. II. chap. iii. § 5, pp. 225, &c. *The Grounds of Inductive Inference.*