Note 77 — Chapter VIII · ANALYTICA POSTERIORA II.

Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, Vol. III. Lect. xix. p. 380, says:— “In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an original dogma of the Platonic School, and an early dogma of the Peripatetic, that philosophy (science strictly so-called) was only conversant with, and was exclusively contained in, universals; and the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught that all our general knowledge is only an induction from an observation of particulars, was too easily forgotten or perverted by his followers. It thus obtained almost the force of an acknowledged principle, that everything to be known must be known under some general form or notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attributed to definition and deductions, it not being considered that we only take out of a general notion what we had previously placed therein, and that the amplification of our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but from below, — not from speculation about abstract generalities, but from the observation of concrete particulars. But however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had its day and influence, and it perhaps determined, as one of its effects, the total neglect of one half, and that not the least important half, of the reasoning process. For while men thought only of looking upward to the more extensive notions, as the only objects and the only media of science, they took little heed of the more comprehensive notions, and absolutely contemned individuals, as objects which could neither be scientifically known in themselves nor supply the conditions of scientifically knowing aught besides. The Logic of Comprehension and of Induction was therefore neglected or ignored, — the Logic of Extension and Deduction exclusively cultivated, as alone affording the rules by which we might evolve higher notions into their subordinate concepts.”

(Hamilton, in this passage, considers the Logic of Induction to be the same as the Logic of Comprehension.)