ollows the deductive method._

=Induction and Deduction.=--The distinction between inductive and
deductive processes of thinking is very simple and is known to all: it
is based upon the _direction_ of the train of thought. When we think
inductively, we reason from the particular to the general; and when we
think deductively, the process proceeds in the reverse direction and
we reason from the general to the particular. In our ordinary
conversation, we speak inductively when we first mention a number of
specific facts and then draw from them some general inference; and we
speak deductively when we first express a general opinion and then
elucidate it by adducing specific illustrations. That old dichotomy of
the psychologists which divides all men, according to their habits of
thought, into Platonists and Aristotelians (or, to substitute a modern
nomenclature, into Cartesians and Baconians) is merely an assertion
that every man, in the prevailing direction of his thinking, is either
deductive or inductive. Most of the great ethical philosophers have
had inductive minds; from the basis of admitted facts of experience
they have reasoned out their laws of conduct. Most of the great
religious teachers have had deductive minds: from the basis of certain
sublime assumptions they have asserted their commandments. Most of the
great scientists have thought inductively: they have reasoned from
specific facts to general truths, as Newton reasoned from the fall of
an apple to the law of gravitation. Most of the great poets have
thought deductively: they have reasoned from general truths to
specific facts, as Dante reasoned from a general moral conception of
cosmogony to the particular appropriate details of every circle in
hell and purgatory and paradise. Now is not the thesis tenable that it
is in just this way that realism differs from romance? In their
endeavor to exhibit certain truths of human life, do not the realists
work inductively and the romantics deductively?

=The Inductive Method of the Realist.=--In order to bring to our
knowledge the law of life which he wishes to make clear, the realist
first leads us through a series of imagined facts as similar as
possible to the details of actual life which he studied in order to
arrive at his general conception. He elaborately imitates the facts of
actual life, so that he may say to us finally, "This is the sort of
thing that I have seen in the world, and from this I have learne