Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/369

HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE SUBJECTIVE NOTION. 353 render them like or unlike one another. If we find two qualities together in several cases, we have a tendency to expect one whenever we see the other, and we find that this tendency, when we take certain precautions, is so often right as to be of great assistance to us. Indeed life would be impossible except for it. But the general propositions thus formed are mere creations of our minds, and have nothing corresponding to them in the objective world, which consists of nothing but particular facts. We have seen that this view is untenable, since it in- volves the ultimate validity of Judgments dealing with Individuals as such. But it may be worth while to consider it from another standpoint and to show that the process of Induction cannot lead to any valid conclusions whatever, except on the hypothesis that some Universal Judgments have objective validity, and that the purpose of Induction is to discover, and not to create, those Judgments. All Induction can be reduced to this typical formula, This is A and B, that is A, therefore that is B. All the elaborate devices of science are based 011 this, that the presence of one quality in a thing is a ground for expressing the presence of another quality, which has on other occa- sions been found in company with the first. Now if we assume that there are objective Universal Judgments, that one quality is objectively connected with another then the presence, in any case, of two qualities in the same thing, gives some -reason for supposing that they are connected, and will therefore be found together elsewhere. The mere occurrence in a single case would, indeed, be a very slight ground for such a conclusion, but one which might be inde- finitely strengthened if several other instances were ex- amined, and also found to possess both qualities, and if these instances were such as to render a mere chance coin- cidence improbable. In this way an Induction may be strengthened till it reaches almost complete certainty. But on the hypothesis we are now considering there is no objective connexion of Universals which we can presuppose only a subjective connexion, which is merely the result of the Induction, and cannot therefore be assumed in making the Induction. It 'therefore follows, that, in making the In- duction, we have not the least right to assume even the slightest probability of A being really connected with B, in the first of the two cases. The fact that each of the two cases is A must be struck out as irrelevant. Our formula then becomes This is B, therefore that is B, which is plainly absurd, since, if it had any validity, it would enable 23