452 w. WUNDT'S LOGIK, n. reader a notion of the general scope and plan of the author are, perhaps, The History and The Philosophy of the Inductive Scif> by Whewell ; but it must be admitted that these stand a very long way second in respect of catholicity of comprehension and minuteness and accuracy of treatment. As the reader may already infer, any attempt to give a detailed critical examination of such a work is out of the question. Of the only two remaining alternatives, viz., that of singling out a few of the leading ideas for examination, or of giving, without criticism, a brief summary of the main details of treatment adopted by the author, the latter, though less attractive, will probably be far more convenient to the reader. The work begins with an examination into the foundations of Induction and Deduction. The question raised here is as to the elementary methods of which these operations are the outcome. These methods are found to be Analysis and Synthesis, each of which exists in three different stages : e.g., the former, in that of the merely elementary analysis of common life, the causal analysis of a phenomenon into its necessary sequences, and what may be termed logical analysis. The first of these stages (as explained in the earlier volume which dealt with the more formal part of the subject) leads naturally to the common disjunctive proposi- tion ; it merely separates the complex data of nature into their more obviously constituent elements. The second covers the ground of comparatively systematic or scientific thought, its practical application being found in the recognised experimental methods of science. The third takes a wider view, aiming at the discovery of all the determining conditions, but seldom completely succeeding except where, as in the fields of Mathematics and of Law, the concepts with which we deal are wholly or in great part our own mental construction, so that we can, so to say, get to the real bottom of them. These general methods are then regarded in their principal logical applications, viz., Abstrac- tion and Determination, Deduction and Induction. Of these processes the second and fourth are respectively regarded as the inverse of the first and third. Abstraction is a process of elimina- tion, and is divided into what are termed respectively isolat'tiiy and generalising abstraction. (This, it may be remarked, is the solution given by Prof. Wundt to the question sometimes raised in our text-books as to whether it is possible that there should be abstraction without generalisation : his answer in effect is that the two processes are really quite distinct). Determina- tion, again, is the inverse of abstraction, and yields the two subdivisions of Colligation and Specification. This colligation, it should be observed, is not used in Whewell's sense, but signifies the artificial reintroduction into a phenomenon of those modifica- tions which had been laid aside from consideration during the previous process of abstraction. Specification is used more in its ordinary sense, of proceeding from a genus to the species or the individuals, by the addition of limiting attributes or concepts.
