About This Book
A systematic account of the principles and methods of evidence and scientific investigation, organized into treatments of language, reasoning, induction, and auxiliary procedures. It begins with analysis of names, propositions, classification, and definition to clarify the import of assertions. It then examines inference and the syllogism, addressing deduction, demonstration, and the limits of purely deductive reasoning. The central portion develops a theory of induction, discussing causation, laws of nature, observation and experiment, the four methods of experimental inquiry, elimination of chance, probability, analogy, and the role of hypotheses. The work concludes by treating abstraction, description, naming, philosophical language, and the applicability of these methods to moral and social phenomena.