vidence we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not one
iota is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition." We
not only may, according to Mr. Mill, reason from some particular
instances to others, but we frequently do so. As, however, the
instances which are sufficient to prove one fresh instance must be
sufficient to prove a general proposition, it is most convenient to
at once infer that general proposition, which then becomes a formula
according to which (but not from which) any number of particular
inferences may be made. The work of deduction is the interpretation of
these formulas, and therefore, strictly speaking, is not inferential
at all. The real inference was accomplished when the universal
proposition was arrived at.

It will easily be seen that this explanation of the deductive process
completely turns the tables on the transcendental school. All
reasoning is shown to be at bottom inductive. Inductions and their
interpretation make up the whole of logic; and to induction
accordingly Mr. Mill devoted his chief attention. For the first time
induction was treated as the _opus magnum_ of logic, and the
fundamental principles of science traced to their inductive origin. It
was this, taken with his theory of the syllogism, which worked the
great change. Both his "System of Logic" and his "Examination of Sir
William Hamilton's Philosophy" are for the most part devoted to
fortifying this position, and demolishing beliefs inconsistent with
it. As a systematic psychologist Mr. Mill has not done so much as
either Professor Bain or Mr. Herbert Spencer. The perfection of his
method, its application, and the uprooting of prejudices which stood
in its way,--this was the task to which Mr. Mill applied himself with
an ability and success rarely matched and never surpassed.

The biggest lion in the path was the doctrine of so-called "necessary
truth." This doctrine was especially obnoxious to him, as it set up a
purely subjective standard of truth, and a standard--as he was easily
able to show--varying according to the psychological history of the
individual. Such thinkers as Dr. Whewell and Mr. Herbert Spencer had
to be met in intellectual combat. Dr. Whewell held, not that the
inconceivability of the contradictory of a proposition is a proof of
its truth co-equal with experience, but that its value transcends
experience. Experience may tell us what _is_; but it is by the
impossibility of conc