System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive

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Excerpt from System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Vol. 2 of 2: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation § 1. The preceding considerations have led us to recognise a distinction between two kinds of laws, or observed uniformities in nature: ultimate laws, and what may be termed derivative laws. Derivative laws are such as are deducible from, and may, in any of the modes which we have pointed out, be resolved into, other and more general ones. Ultimate laws are those which cannot. We are not sure that any of the uniformities with which we are yet acquainted are ultimate laws ; but we know that there must be ultimate laws; and that every resolution of a derivative law into more general laws, brings us nearer to them. Since we are continually discovering that uniformities, not previously known to be other than ultimate, are derivative, and resolvable into more general laws ; since (in other words) we arc continually discovering the explanation of some sequence which was previously known only as a fact; it becomes an interesting question whether there arc any necessary limits to this philosophical operation, or whether it may proceed until all the uniform sequences in nature are resolved into some one universal law. For this seems, at first sight, to be the ultimatum towards which the progress of induction, by the Deductive Method resting on a basis of observation and experiment, is tending. Projects of this kind were universal in the infancy of philosophy; any speculations which held out a less brilliant prospect, being in those early times deemed not worth pursuing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.