Induction

Induction is the intuitive grasp of the universal in the particular; not itself a form of reasoning, it is the cognitive act on which all demonstration depends.

Induction, properly reformed, proceeds by systematic exclusion: tabulating presences, absences, and degrees to isolate the true cause of any phenomenon.

Against both Aristotelian demonstration and Baconian induction, genuine method requires intuition of simple natures and deduction: reason, not accumulated experience, is the source of certainty.

In experimental philosophy, propositions are to be gathered from phenomena by induction and made general only as far as the phenomena warrant; I frame no hypotheses.

Induction has no rational foundation: the inference from observed to unobserved cases is grounded in habit and custom, not in reason — and no justification for it has ever been given or can be given.

The principle of universal causation is not derived from experience but is a condition of the possibility of experience: this synthetic a priori truth answers Hume.

Induction is the master method of science; its five canons give the logical form of all causal inference from experience.

The validity of any inductive inference is its practical payoff: hypotheses earn their credentials by guiding successful action in the world.