Page:Philosophical Review Volume 7.djvu/95

81 end, rather than at the beginning, of our efforts to know? The answer to these questions of course implies a complete theory of the nature of thought and reality.

Mr. Hobhouse's theory of induction or generalization is closely allied to that of Mill, though he is inclined to emphasize more than the latter the function of the universal. He follows Mill, however, in regarding resemblance as the principle upon which all inference depends, and also in maintaining that the proposition that nature is uniform is the fundamental axiom upon which all reasoning is based. In showing the unfairness of Mr. Bradley's criticism of Mill's theory that inference is from particular to particulars, the author's own position is very clearly stated. "Mill does not draw a clear enough line between the conscious process and its implications. The logic of the matter is really unvarying, and contains all the elements given by Mill always and without exception, however much or however little an individual thinker may realize of the matter. The distinction, then, of the 'two roads—' 'to the principles,' and 'from the principles' which Mill tends to minimize, is, for our view, cardinal and permanent. To arrive at the universal is already an inference; and the universal is a result interesting in itself. To apply the universal is a fresh inference. While lastly, we may, so far as our conscious thought goes, obliterate the distinction, and argue straight from particular to particular; but, logically, in so doing we have committed ourselves to the universal judgment. With these reservations we may accept Mill's account" (pp. 281-82).

The author's discussion of the nature and function of the various methods of induction is excellent. Indeed, this seems to me the most independent and valuable part of the work. The problem which thought has before it in this field is to find a body of judgments which mutually support and strengthen one another. "The isolated induction is never certain. It is a probable result which, combined with other independent probabilities, approximates step by step to certainty" (p. 401). Induction, then, attains to certainty not by means of any one method, but by piecing together independent inductions from various sources and finding that they agree. Negatively, these judgments must not conflict. "Positively, they must support one another. Such consilient or self-supporting results as are obtained thought takes as true" (p. 403). Certainty is thus obtained by the convergence of propositions to a common result. Similarly, the final test of the validity of all knowledge is to be found in the consilience of the results obtained from Apprehension, Analysis, Memory,