Inductive Logic Defined.- “The inductive Method in Logic is the scientific method that proceeds by induction. It requires (1) *exact observation; (2) *correct interpretation of the observed facts with a view to understanding them in relation to each other and to their causes; (3) *rational explanation of the facts by referring them to their real case or law; and (4) *scientific construction; putting the facts in such co-ordination that the system reached shall agree with the reality.”
“The search for the cause of anything may proceed according to any one of four methods: (1) the *method of agreement, in which a condition uniformly present is assumed to be probably a cause; (2) the *method of difference, in which the happening of an event when a condition is present, and its failure when a condition is absent, lead to the assumption of that condition as a cause; (3) the *method of concomitant variations, in which the simultaneous variation in similar degree of condition and event establishes a casual relation; and (4) the *method of residues or of residual variations, where after subtracting from a phenomenon the part due to causes already established the remainder is held due to some other unascertained cause or to the known remaining causes.” (F. &. W. Standard Dictionary.)
Before Lord Bacon’s time, logic was used principally as an instrument for argument and disputation. Little or no attention was given to facts. Direct and systematic investigation of nature was unknown or ignored. Opinions, speculations and theories were used as the material for constructing more opinions and theories. The search for truth ended nowhere.
Lord Bacon called upon men to cease speculating and go direct to nature in their search for truth. He demolished innumerable false systems and resorted logic to its true place as the guide to truth.
“There are and can exist,” says Bacon, “but two ways of investigating and discovering truth. The one hurries on rapidly from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms; and from them as principles and their supposed indisputable truth derives and discovers the intermediate axioms. This is the way now in use. The other constructs its axioms from the senses and particulars, by ascending continually and gradually, till it finally arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true but unattempted way.” (Nov. Org. Axiom 19.)
As induction in the antonym of deduction it has been supposed that the two processes are in some way antagonistic, This is an error. They are simply opposite ways of arriving at the same conclusions; two modes of using the same general process, namely : inference, or inferring.
All reasoning is inference, and in the last analysis all reasoning is deductive. By inductive reasoning we ascertain what is true of many different things our senses tell us what happen around us and by proper reasoning we may discover the laws of nature, in consequence of which they happen.
In deductive reasoning we do the opposite and infer what will happen in consequence of the laws.
Reasoning *a priori and *a posteriori are not different modes of reasoning, but arguments differing in the character of one of the premises. It is merely a difference of viewpoint. In one we reason from antecedents, in the other from consequents.
True says: “Logic is the science of inference; it teaches how one judgment may be inferred from other judgments. To reason is to infer, hence it is usually called the science of reasoning.”
“It assumes that every mind conceives intuitively some ideas or judgments which are at once primary and certain; otherwise we could have no foundation for inference; and to infer one idea or judgment from others would give no certainty.”
“These ideas are called first truths. They are given by the senses, the consciousness and the reason, and they are innumerable. *I exist. *There is an external world. *This body is solid, extended, round, red, warm or cold, are first truths.
“At first these ideas are particular, but afterward the mind unites those which are similar, or which agree in some respect, into classes. This is called generalization. To express this we no longer say this or that body; but body not coat shirt, trousers, etc.; but clothes.”
To test their qualifications in this respect, I once give a senior class of medical students a list of garments and asked them to generalize it: Only one man in a class of about thirty, was able, off-hand, to reply correctly-“clothes!”
To show that all reasoning is, in the last analysis, deductive, True uses the following illustrations : “I infer that heat in such a degree as will cause the mercury in the thermometer to rise to the point marked two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit *will always cause water to boil; in other words, it is proved by induction to be a law of nature that two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit will cause water to boil.
“Now the conclusion is not drawn from any number of instances of the boiling of water, but with a few instances combined with the principle *that like causes will produce like effects; if this principle were not true, then forty thousand instance of water boiling would not prove that another case would happen. But now I know like like causes will produce like effects, and I know by observation that two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit did once or twice cause water to boil. Admit the premises and the conclusion is unavoidable; and to do this is simply to affirm something of a class, then to refer the individual to that class, and then to affirm the same thing of the individual.” ” Now the first premise is the *general principle, *which is intuitively true. The only question is about the second premise; namely: whether two hundred and twelve degrees was the cause of the boiling in the instances observed.”
“The proposition that all reasoning is deductive may be proved by a similar argument using another intuitive principle;- no event happen without a cause.
“Every case of induction proper proceeds upon the same grounds and in the same way. It is. therefore, evident that induction is no exception to the rule that *inference is always from generals to particulars, and not from particulars to generals.
“Reasoning by analogy proceeds in the same way; the differences is only in the character of the first premise, which is, that similar causes *are likely to produce similar effects, or that things that agree in certain attributes or relations are likely to agree in certain other attributes or relations.”
It is evident that, in order to reason, the mind must have some general ideas and judgments that are conceived intuitively, and not formed by mere addition or generalization; for nothing is gained by making a class of individuals or particulars and then drawing one or more out gain.
Some of the earliest are: Everybody is in space. No event happens without a cause. Like material causes produce like effects.
“It is the province of psychology to explain under what circumstances these primary ideas are given by the sense, the consciousness and the reason; but logic assumes their existence as the indispensable basis of inference, and its appropriate office is to explain in what way we infer one judgment from another.
*”The process of reasoning, when completed is found to be simply this: Something is predicated, that is, affirmed or denied of a class; an individual is affirmed to belong to this class, and then, of course the same thing can be affirmed or denied of that individual.”
When the student perceives that the foundation of homoeopathy is solid, *concrete, composed of the broken rock of hard facts, united by the *cement of a great natural principle, he has grasped one important phase of the subject. But when he raises his eyes to the superstructure and sees that it is joined to the foundation and held together in all its parts by a *framework of logic, he has grained possession of the key that not only admits him to the edifice, but unlocks the door of every room in it.
Jevons truly says: – “It is true that we cannot use our eyes or ears without getting some kind of knowledge, and the brute animals can do the same. *But what gives power is the deeper knowledge called Science. People may see, and hear, and feel all their lives without really learning the nature of the things they see. But reason is the mind’s eye and enables us to see why things are, and when and how events may be made to happen or not to happen.The logician endeavors to learn exactly what this reason is which makes the power of men. We all must reason well, or ill, but logic is the science of reasoning and enables us to distinguish between the good reasoning that leads to the truth, and to bad reasoning which every day betrays people into error and misfortune.”
Hence the value and need to the physician of the study of inductive logic as a distinct science.
Analysis of the *Organon of Hahnemann, as well as of the history of homoeopathy and the life of its founder, shows clearly that homoeopathy is a product of inductive logic applied to the subject of medicine, It is, in fact the first as well as one of the most brilliant examples of the application of the inductive method to the solution of one of the greatest problems of humanity; namely, the treatment and cure of disease.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.