The point of the whole matter is that from the observation of a large number of cases, we may establish the probable truth of a proposition, but emphasis needs to be laid upon the probability.  We cannot be sure.  Not all crows are black, though you may never have seen a white one.  The sun may not rise to-morrow, though it has never failed up to this time.  Still it is by this observation of many individual cases that the truth of the propositions that men do believe has been established.  We realize that our inductions are often imperfect, but the general truths so established will be found to underlie every process of reasoning, and will be either directly or indirectly the basis upon which we build up all argument.

We may then redefine inductive reasoning as the process by which from many individual cases we establish the probable truth of a general proposition.

EXERCISES

Notice in the following selections that the truth of the conclusion is shown by giving particular examples:—­

1.  It is curious enough that we always remember people by their worst points, and still more curious that we always suppose that we ourselves are remembered by our best.  I once knew a hunchback who had a well-shaped hand, and was continually showing it.  He never believed that anybody noticed his hump, but lived and died in the conviction that the whole town spoke of him no otherwise than as the man with the beautiful hand, whereas, in fact, they only looked at his hump, and never so much as noticed whether he had a hand at all.  This young lady, so pretty and so clever, is simply the girl who had that awkward history with So-and-so; that man, who has some of the very greatest qualities, is nothing more than the one who behaved so badly on such an occasion.  It is a terrible thing to think that we are all always at watch one upon the other, to catch the false step in order that we may have the grateful satisfaction of holding our neighbor for one who cannot walk straight.  No regard is paid to the better qualities and acts, however numerous; all the attention is fixed upon the worst, however slight.  If St. Peter were alive he would be known as the man who denied his Master; St. Paul would be the man who stoned Stephen; and St. Thomas would never be mentioned in any decent society without allusions to that unfortunate request for further evidence.  Probably this may be the reason why we all have so much greater a contempt for and distrust of each other than would be warranted by a correct balance between the good and the evil that are in each.

—­Thomas Gibson Bowles:  Flotsam and Jetsam.