The Theory of InferenceKegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Company Limited, 1894 - 256 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract according appears apprehension argument ascer ascertain assent bability cause and effect cause or effect certainty chapter circumstances common conception of causation concrete consequent contained deductive inference definite dependence Duke of Wellington effect or cause ence event evidence exist experience fact field of history field of natural followed formal cause generalisations ground idea illation illative inference individual induction instances invariable antecedent investigation kinds of cause kinds of inference knowledge known laws of nature logic look major premise matter means men are mortal mental process method of agreement method of difference Mill Mill's mind mind's mortal natural law notion object observed person pheno phenomena phenomenon precisely similar present principle of causation principle of uniformity probability proceed produced propositions question reason recognise regarded relation of causation resemblance seems sense sequence similar causes similar effects supposed syllogism things tion true truth unconditional uniformity in nature
Popular passages
Page 72 - If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common, while two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that circumstance; the circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances...
Page 69 - If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon.
Page 68 - The business of Inductive Logic is to provide rules and models (such as the Syllogism and its rules are for ratiocination) to which if inductive arguments conform, those arguments are conclusive, and not otherwise. This is what the Four Methods profess to be, and what I believe they are universally considered to be by experimental philosophers, who had practised all of them long before any one sought to reduce the practice to theory.
Page 29 - Invariable sequence, therefore, is not synonymous with causation, unless the sequence, besides being invariable, is unconditional. There are sequences, as uniform in past experience as any others whatever, which yet we do not regard as cases of causation, but as conjunctions, in some sort accidental. Such to a philosopher is that of day and night.
Page 79 - Methods depends on the assumption that every event, or the beginning of every phenomenon, must have some cause; some antecedent, on the existence of which it is invariably and unconditionally consequent.
Page 28 - When we define the cause of anything (in the only sense in which the present inquiry has any concern with causes) to be "the antecedent which it invariably follows," we do not use this phrase as exactly synonymous with " the antecedent which it invariably has followed in our past experience.
Page 78 - Whatever be the most proper mode of expressing it, the proposition that the course of nature is uniform, is the fundamental principle, or general axiom, of Induction. It would yet be a great error to offer this large generalization as any explanation of the inductive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself an instance of induction, and induction by no means of the most obvious kind.
Page 169 - This freedom from action and question at the suit of an individual is given by the law to the judges, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of the public, and for the advancement of justice, that being free from actions they may be free in thought, and independent in judgment, as all who are to administer justice ought to be.
Page 27 - certain facts always do, and, as we believe, will continue to, " succeed. The invariable antecedent is termed the cause ; " the invariable consequent, the effect.
Page 65 - When, therefore, we conclude from the death of John and Thomas, and every other person we ever heard of in whose case the experiment had been fairly tried, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal like the rest ; we may, indeed, pass through the generalization, All men are mortal...