individual cases are all the evidence we can possess;
evidence which no logical form into which we choose to
throw it can make greater than it is; and since that
evidence is either sufficient in itself, or, if
insufficient for one purpose, cannot be sufficient for
the other; I am unable to see why we should be forbidden
to take the shortest cut from these sufficient premisses
to the conclusion, and constrained to travel the 'high
_priori_ road' by the arbitrary fiat of logicians. I
cannot perceive why it should be impossible to journey
from one place to another, unless 'we march up a hill
and then march down again.' It may be the safest road,
and there may be a resting-place at the top of the hill,
affording a commanding view of the surrounding country;
but for the mere purpose of arriving at our journey's
end, our taking that road is perfectly optional: it is a
question of time, trouble, and danger.

"Not only _may_ we reason from particulars to
particulars, without passing through generals, but we
perpetually do so reason. All our earliest inferences
are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence
we draw inferences; but years elapse before we learn the
use of general language. The child who, having burnt his
fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has
reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the
general maxim--fire burns. He knows from memory that he
has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he
sees a candle, that if he puts his finger into the flame
of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in every
case which happens to arise; but without looking, in
each instance, beyond the present case. He is not
generalizing; he is inferring a particular from
particulars.--Vol. I. p. 244.

"From the considerations now adduced, the following
conclusions seem to be established:--All inference is
from particulars to particulars: General propositions
are merely registers of such inferences already made,
and short formulae for making more: The major premiss of
a syllogism, consequently, is a formula of this
description; and the conclusion is not an inference
drawn _from_ the formula, but an inference drawn
_according to_ the formula: the real logical antecedent,
or premisses being _the particular facts from which