Mr. Mill altered all this. He demonstrated that the general type of
reasoning is neither from generals to particulars, nor from
particulars to generals, but from particulars to particulars. "If from
our experience of John, Thomas, &c., who once were living, but are now
dead, we are entitled to conclude that all human beings are mortal, we
might surely, without any logical inconsequence, have concluded at
once from those instances, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal. The
mortality of John, Thomas, and others is, after all, the whole
evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not one
iota is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition." We
not only may, according to Mr. Mill, reason from some particular
instances to others, but we frequently do so. As, however, the
instances which are sufficient to prove one fresh instance must be
sufficient to prove a general proposition, it is most convenient to
at once infer that general proposition, which then becomes a formula
according to which (but not from which) any number of particular
inferences may be made. The work of deduction is the interpretation of
these formulas, and therefore, strictly speaking, is not inferential
at all.
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