Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/153

Rh It is more evident in the ordinary treatment of inductive logic than in the case of deductive, that the subject is descriptive in character, with its data taken from the work of scientific investigators and discoverers, and its purpose to set forth the approved ways of thinking. Nevertheless, more might be done to anticipate a first impression, not at all uncommon with students, that the subject matter of inductive logic is abstract and quite removed from daily human interests. There is no danger of over-emphasizing the relation of what is taught in the class room to the realities of life, by way of showing that the content of logic is not the invention of text-book writers, and is not esoteric in its nature and use; that the methods described and analyzed in treatises on logic may be said to have their primitive forms in the uncultivated state of the human mind whether in savage or in civilized society. What is scientifically known as the uniformity of nature and the method of difference are but the tendencies of the human mind to expect similar coexistences and sequences under similar conditions, and to regard the new antecedent as the cause of the new phenomenon, tendencies as strong in the savage as in the civilized mind. In brief, we should show the student that the difference between the principles and methods of common life, and those studied in logic, is the difference between spontaneous and attentive observation; between rash and rationally guided theorizing; between verification that is heedless and insufficient, and that which is exact and exhaustive.

Induction should be understood in its proper connotation. To conceive it as simply the reverse process of deduction, to regard it as identical with case-counting, or mere generalization based upon facts, is to remain ignorant of the complex and varied nature of scientific method, in which generalization plays but one part. A logical analysis of inductive method should be so complete as to make it unmistakably evident that to be a scientific investigator is to be more than a collector of facts and a propounder of theories. Darwin once remarked that any fool could generalize and speculate. The verification of theories by appeal to facts and known laws is the step in inductive procedure quite frequently overlooked or hastily taken. And yet the importance of it is emphasized by what has been said of eminent scientific investigators, namely, that the process of deduction has played a more important part in their work than induction; that their days were spent in verifying their theories and establishing the further consequences of them.

The failure to understand the complex nature of inductive method appears now and then in another form. It finds expression in the opinions of those who profess to speak authoritatively upon the study of science from the pedagogical point of view. According to this view, the distinction between the observational and the experimental