A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
John Stuart Mill · en
lines be drawn from that point to the circumference, then,” etc.
§ 4. The considerations now stated remove a serious difficulty from the
view we have taken of reasoning; which view might otherwise have seemed
not easily reconcilable with the fact that there are Deductive or
Ratiocinative Sciences. It might seem to follow, if all reasoning be
induction, that the difficulties of philosophical investigation must lie
in the inductions exclusively, and that when these were easy, and
susceptible of no doubt or hesitation, there could be no science, or, at
least, no difficulties in science. The existence, for example, of an
extensive Science of Mathematics, requiring the highest scientific genius
in those who contributed to its creation, and calling for a most continued
and vigorous exertion of intellect in order to appropriate it when
created, may seem hard to be accounted for on the foregoing theory. But
the considerations more recently adduced remove the mystery, by showing,
that even when the inductions themselves are obvious, there may be much
difficulty in finding whether the particular case which is the subject of
inquiry comes within them; and ample room for scientific ingenuity in so
combining various inductions, as, by means of one within which the case
evidently falls, to bring it within others in which it can not be directly
seen to be included.
When the more obvious of the inductions which can be made in any science
from direct observations, have been made, and general formulas have been
framed, determining the limits within which these inductions are
applicable; as often as a new case can be at once seen to come within one
of the formulas, the induction is applied to the new case, and the
business is ended. But new cases are continually arising, which do not
obviously come within any formula whereby the question we want solved in
respect of them could be answered. Let us take an instance from geometry:
and as it is taken only for illustration, let the reader concede to us for
the present, what we shall endeavor to prove in the next chapter, that the
first principles of geometry are results of induction. Our example shall
be the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid. The inquiry is, Are
the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle equal or unequal? The
first thing to be considered is, what inductions we have, from which we
can infer equality or inequality. For inferring equality we have the
following formulæ: Things which being applied to each other coincide, are
equals. Things which are equal to the same thing are equals. A whole and
the sum of its parts are equals. The sums of equal things are equals. The
differences of equal things are equals. There are no other original
formulæ to prove equality. For inferring inequality we have the following:
A whole and its parts are unequals. The sums of equal things and unequal
things are unequals. The differences of equal things and unequal things
are unequals. In all, eight formulæ.