The reviewer comes much nearer to the gist of the question, when he objects that the formula in which the major is left out—“A, B, C, &c., were mortal, therefore the Duke of Wellington is mortal,” does not express all the steps of the mental process, but omits one of the most essential, that which consists in recognising the cases A, B, C, as _sufficient evidence_ of what is true of the Duke of Wellington. This recognition of the sufficiency of the induction he calls an “inference,” and says, that its result must be interpolated between the cases A, B, C, and the case of the Duke of Wellington; and that “our final conclusion is from what is thus interpolated, and not directly from the individual facts that A, B, C, &c. were mortal.” On this it may first be observed, that the formula does express all that takes place in ordinary unscientific reasoning. Mankind in general conclude at once from experience of death in past cases, to the expectation of it in future, without testing the experience by any principles of induction, or passing through any general proposition. This is not safe reasoning, but it is reasoning; and the syllogism, therefore, is not the universal type of reasoning, but only a form in which it is _desirable_ that we should reason. But, in the second place, suppose that the enquirer does logically satisfy himself that the conditions of legitimate induction are realized in the cases A, B, C. It is still obvious, that if he knows the Duke of Wellington to be a man, he is as much justified in concluding at once that the Duke of Wellington is mortal, as in concluding that all men are mortal. The general conclusion is not legitimate, unless the particular one would be so too; and in no sense, intelligible to me, can the particular conclusion be said to be drawn _from_ the general one.(36) That the process of testing the sufficiency of an inductive inference is an operation of a general character, I readily concede to the reviewer; I had myself said as much, by laying down as a fundamental law, that whenever there is ground for drawing any conclusion at all from particular instances, there is ground for a _general_ conclusion. But that this general conclusion should be actually drawn, however useful, cannot be an indispensable condition of the validity of the inference in the particular case. A man gives away sixpence by the same power by which he disposes of his whole fortune; but it is not necessary to the lawfulness of his doing the one, that he should formally assert, even to himself, his right to do the other.