Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/114

 judicial bench; the progress they make in the practice of surgery and medicine,—afford an earnest of their future achievements in any science to which they may devote themselves.

You are probably aware that deductive reasoning, whether derived from mathematics or from logic, in both of which the people of India have always evinced much aptitude, will never by itself supply the needs of the Native intellect. This may truly be said of us all, but more particularly is it to be said of you. The thing most wanted for you all, is instruction in inductive reasoning. As you will recollect, deductive reasoning is the drawing of conclusions from given premises. But induction is the reverse, process. It consists of reasoning from particulars to general propositions. By it various phenomena have to be observed; their complex combinations have to be separated by analytical processes, the relations of their different qualities have to be determined. In deduction the law is given, and the effects are required to be found; that is a comparatively easy task in which you will readily excel. But in induction, on the contrary, the effects are given and the law is required to be found ; that is a hard task, in which you often fail, but in which you must, and will, learn to excel. A recent writer (Stanley Jevons) has given an illustration of the difference between deduction and induction, which is peculiarly applicable to you. When you enter a labyrinth, you move about hither and thither easily. This is like deduction. But when you wish to return and make your exit from the labyrinth, then doubt and difficulty begin; then you must trust to the accuracy of your observation of the way by which you entered, or make an exhaustive trial of all possible ways. This is like induction. Hence it is that inductive reasoning is the all-important subject to be pressed upon the Native mind. Our students should be drilled by its procedure and disciplined by its system. They should be exercised in it backwards and forwards, so that they cannot answer its question by exertion of memory, but must solve its problems by their self-acting reason alone. They will immediately find that they cannot succeed in this, unless their observations are correct. And the necessity, thus imposed upon them, of observing correctly, will remedy some of the mental faults to which 1 have been alluding. Mill's work on Logic prescribed for you by the University as a text-book, has been regarded as a landmark in the progress of general studies, and especially of scientific inquiry. Take up his chapters on induction and causation. In this work on Political Economy, read the opening chapter explaining the origin of wealth,