Inductive Logic

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Ginn, 1896 - 174 pages

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Page 133 - It happened one day about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand.
Page 149 - The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would.' For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Page 9 - MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
Page 104 - Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents.
Page 150 - But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.
Page 84 - The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth that invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded It...
Page 140 - A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards his past experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event. In other cases, he proceeds with more caution : He weighs the opposite experiments : He considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments : to that side he inclines, with doubt and hesitation ; and when at last...
Page 39 - Why is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a complete induction, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, without a single exception known or presumed, go such a very little way toward establishing a universal proposition ? Whoever can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of logic than the wisest of the ancients, and has solved the problem of induction.
Page 80 - The state of the whole universe at any instant we believe to be the consequence of its state at the previous instant ; insomuch that one who knew all the agents which exist at the present moment, their collocation in space, and all their properties, iu other words, the laws of their agency, could predict the whole subsequent history of the universe, at least unless some new volition of a power capable of controlling the universe should supervene...
Page 146 - There are four classes of idols which beset men's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names,— calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Marketplace; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

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