the particular instances of the future. If the exhaustion of particular instances were necessary to establish the truth of a universal proposition, no universal proposition could ever be established. And this, we can hardly think, was Aristotle's view. Is not his doctrine of the Inductive Syllogism an attempt to show how to establish a universal proposition with absolute certainty? Whewell adds this consideration: "Aristotle says, 'We must conceive that C consists of a collection of all the particular cases; for induction is applied to all the cases.' We must conceive (νοεῖν ) that C in the major, consists of all the cases, in order that the conclusion may be true of all the cases; but we cannot observe all the cases."[1] A third consideration is metaphysical. According to Aristotle, to know a concrete individual is to know it as embodying a universal. We perceive Kallias in virtue of the fact that he is a concrete individual embodying the universal 'man.' If, then, Kallias is bileless, so will all other individual men be on the assumption either that there is a real connection between bilelessness and what we are pleased to regard as the connotation of man or that bilelessness is itself part of that connotation. If Kallias is lame, so will all other individual men be—this does not follow either because there is no real connection between lameness and the connotation of man or because lameness is not part of that connotation. Aristotle, however, has not shown us when we are entitled to assume that what is true of Kallias is true of all other individual men. He has not shown us under what conditions we are entitled to assume "that the nature of each species of beast might be judged from the single specimen dissected."[2]
Aristotle, then, did not teach the necessity of exhaustion of particular instances in connection with his Inductive Syllogism. He taught the necessity of the exhaustion of types or species. And, with the qualifications just noted, the examination of one individual of a species was sufficient.
To Aristotle science consisted in the discovery of the causes of things. For this reason we may assume that the Inductive Syllogism was an attempt to discover causal connections. Aris-
- ↑ Whewell, Philosophy of Discovery, 1860. Appendix D, p. 453.
- ↑ Joseph, Introduction to Logic, 1906, p. 351.
