Bibliography

A Logical Criticism of the Articles of Religious Belief

By Deduction, or mathematical reasoning, I mean any reasoning which will render its conclusion as certain as its Premisses, however certain these may be.

By Induction, I mean a reasoning which provisionally concludes something to be true of every member of a collection, or, more frequently, of whatever there may be of a definite general kind, for no other reason than that firstly, the same thing has been found to be true of a part of that collection, or a finite collection of things of that kind, and secondly, that the manner in which this partial collection has come to be known to have the character which is concluded to belong to the whole, compels, or at least authorises, us to regard it, provisionally, approximately, and probably, as an image of that whole.

Probable Deduction is a Deduction which concludes that a definite state of things has a given Probability because this is substantially asserted in the Copulate Premiss.

…using the word “real” to signify something which is as it is independently of its being so represented in any individual mind or minds, even though it be not independent of all that may be in some individual mind or minds…

By Retroduction I mean that kind of reasoning by which, upon finding ourselves confronted by a state of things that, taken by itself, seems almost or quite incomprehensible, or extremely complicated if not very irregular, or at least surprising; we are led to suppose that perhaps there is, in fact, another definite state of things, because, though we do not perceive any unequivocal evidence of it, nor even of a part of it, (or independently of such evidence if it does exist,) we yet perceive that this supposed state of things would shed a light of reason upon that state of facts with which we are confronted, rendering it comprehensible, likely (if not certain,) or comparatively simple and natural.