"Deductive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we may establish a truth by showing that it comes within an established and recognized principle. This process is known as deductive reasoning. The principle on which deductive reasoning depends is the self-evident truth that "whatever is true of the whole is true of the parts." Starting from the general truth that all men are mortal, we may conclude that A, B, and C ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... "Nowhere for deductive certainty. Nor, if the things themselves are not worth remembering, or worthy of influencing us, is there any good in enquiring concerning them? Shall I mind a thing that is not worth minding, because it came to me in a dream, or was told me by a ghost? It is the quality of a thing, not ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... conception. Far from undertaking any general discussion of evolution, several even of Mr. Darwin's writings have not been noticed, and topics which have been much discussed elsewhere are not here adverted to. This applies especially to what may be called deductive evolution—a subject which lay beyond the writer's immediate scope, and to which neither the bent of his mind nor the line of his studies has fitted him to do justice. If these papers are useful at all, it will be as showing how these new views of our day are regarded by a practical ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... all intellectual discipline, arises from a prior or pre-existent knowledge. This is evident, if we survey them all; for both mathematical sciences, and also each of the arts, are obtained in this manner. The same holds true in the case of reasonings, whether through [deductive] Syllogism or through Induction, for both accomplish the instruction they afford from information previously known—the former (syllogistic reasoning) receiving it, as it were, from the traditions of the intelligent, the latter (inductive reasoning) manifesting the universal through the light ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... splendid destiny. Luther was the iconoclast whose giant strokes demolished the castle doors of Romish superstition, and broke to fragments the images of Mariolatry. The practical induction of Bacon, Earl of Verulam, was the death-warrant of the fruitless deductive philosophy which had culminated in the vagaries of Scholasticism. The Declaration of Independence and the Federation of the States were the iconoclast which slew the phantom of the divine necessity of kings. It is thus evident that iconoclasm abounds, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Apparently this "young god" is an invention of Brinton. The purely inductive and descriptive study of the manuscripts does not prove the existence of such a personage, and we must decline to admit him as the result of deductive reasoning. In this so-called "young god", we miss, first of all, a characteristic mark, a distinct peculiarity such as belongs to all the figures of gods in the manuscripts without exception and by which he could be recognized. Except his so-called youthfulness, however, ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... typed on the white paper whole sentences and paragraphs that I could read again and marvel at ere the vision faded. In passing, I call attention to the fact that at the time I noted that the process of reasoning employed in these dream speeches was invariably deductive. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... this society he met young men—and older men too, for several of the Dons were members—who were rationalists, materialists, and definitely sceptical. It dawned on his mind for the first time that, while all other sciences were of a deductive kind, endeavouring to approach principles from the observation and classification of phenomena, from the scrutiny of evidence, that theology was a science based on intuitions, and dependent on assumptions which it was impossible to test scientifically. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... late Professor Jevons's Elementary Lessons in Logic. Two other books, which I feel bound to mention with special emphasis, are Hansel's edition of Aldrich and McCosh's Laws of Discursive Thought. If there be added to the foregoing Watts's Logic, Thomson's Outlines of the Laws of Thought, Bain's Deductive Logic, Jevons's Studies in Deductive Logic and Principles of Science, Bradley's Principles of Logic, Abbott's Elements of Logic, Walker's edition of Murray, Ray's Text-book of Deductive Logic, and Weatherley's Rudiments of ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... 'ideas' than Schiller, but he had not the same fondness for abstract reasoning from mental premises. His starting-point was always the external fact, and he regarded ideas as possessing a sort of objective reality. His homage was paid to nature and the five senses; Schiller's to the deductive reason. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Norgate spared no pains to acquit herself of her obligation, and to discharge her debt at Ashpound. Ashpound was a much more exhilarating residence than Newton-le-Moor. At Newton-le-Moor the desolation of prodigality and immorality was objective and deductive. At Ashpound the desolation was subjective and inductive, a plague-spot within; and although the flush of decay was visible, Gervase would struggle against it to the last. He would make an effort to preserve the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... convinced that the guard had given him the title merely out of politeness. The guard placed the traps inside of one of the many vehicles stationed at the street exit of the terminus. He was an intelligent and deductive servant. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... from the Holy Scriptures. Or it was inferred from another law so authenticated. The elaboration of every law was thus connected with a very complicated process of thought, requiring both inductive and deductive reasoning, and uniting juridical interpretation with the refinements of casuistry. This legislation was the beginning of Talmudic science, which from that time on, for many centuries, growing with the ages, claimed ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... their deductive powers were far from perfect. They saw in Jan a leader who could not hide the soreness and stiffness caused by his many wounds. They, for their part, were feeling rather like indiscreet workmen after a public holiday that has been too recklessly enjoyed. They had no headache, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... reappearance of the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit in order to keep the villagers away from the place where the stolen money was hidden. Mr. Cromering had been much impressed—he said so—with the logical skill and masterly deductive powers by which Colwyn had reconstructed the hidden events of the night of the murder, like an Owen reconstructing the extinct moa from a single bone, but he was loath to accept that part of the theory which seemed ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... of Mr. Douglass, that his descriptive and declamatory powers, admitted to be of the very highest order, take precedence of his logical force. Whilst the schools might have trained him to the exhibition of the formulas of deductive{16} logic, nature and circumstances forced him into the exercise of the higher faculties required by induction. The first ninety pages of this "Life in Bondage," afford specimens of observing, comparing, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... into which mathematics is divided have each been viewed as a logical whole, as a natural growth from the propositions which constitute their principles, the learner will be able to understand the fundamental science which unifies and systematises the whole of deductive reasoning. This is symbolic logic—a study which, though it owes its inception to Aristotle, is yet, in its wider developments, a product, almost wholly, of the nineteenth century, and is indeed, in the present day, still growing ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... proper sense, is the highest form of proof, and gives the most absolute certainty, but can not be applied outside of pure mathematics or other strictly deductive reasoning; there can be proof and certainty, however, in matters that do not admit of demonstration. A conclusion is the absolute and necessary result of the admission of certain premises; an inference is a probable conclusion toward which known facts, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... One neither finds nor expects much a priori knowledge, whether in man or beast; but one does find some little in the beginnings of, and throughout the development of, every habit, at the commencement of which, and on every successive improvement in which, deductive and inductive methods are, as it were, fused. Thus the effect, where we can best watch its causes, seems mainly produced by a desire for a definite object—in some cases a serious and sensible desire, in others an idle one, in others, again, a mistaken ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... abstract science, just as statics and dynamics are deductive sciences. And in consequence, it deals with an unreal and imaginary subject, ... not with the entire real man as we know him in fact, but with a ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... was the perfect realization of the highest mission of Method. Powerfully deductive in the structure of his intellect, nourished on the divine bread of Plato and the Mystics, he yet united to these a Baconian breadth of practical power. Years before the publication of the "Novum Organum," he gave, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate, the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian, carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says of imagination: Cette faculte trompeuse, qui semble nous etre donnee expres pour nous ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... have proceeded inductively, in conformity with established usage; but it seems to us that much may be done in this and other departments of biologic inquiry by pursuing the deductive method. The generalizations at present constituting the science of physiology, both general and special, have been reached a posteriori; but certain fundamental data have now been discovered, starting ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... Paper 'On the nature of the light in the two rays of Quartz' was communicated to the Philosophical Society: a capital piece of deductive optics. On Mar. 2nd I went to London, I suppose to attend the Board of Visitors (which met frequently, for the proposed reform of Pond's Observations, &c.). As I returned on the outside of the coach there occurred to me a very remarkable ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... each clew quickly yet painstakingly until he had a foundation of fact upon which to operate. His theory was that the simplest way is always the best way and so he never befogged the main issue with any elaborate system of deductive reasoning based on guesswork. Burton never guessed. He assumed that it was his business to KNOW, nor was he on any case long before he did know. He was employed now to find Abigail Prim. Each of the several crimes committed the previous night might or might not prove ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... my dear Major, as far as information goes. If I did not use these arguments before, it was because it seemed to me an impertinence to offer what, after all, are no more than the conclusions of my own constructive and deductive reasoning to one so well versed in strategy ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... propositions except Professor Giblet, who accepted all three saving and excepting the term "synthetical" as applied to Rabelais' mind. "For," said he, "you must not be so deceived by an early use of the Inducto-Deductive method as to believe that a sixteenth-century man could be, in any true sense, synthetical." And this judgment the Professor emphasized by raising his voice suddenly by one octave. His position and that of Mrs. Whirtle were based upon that thorough ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... sensation, to the exclusion of any other principle, that, in short, everything has its source in sensation: man is nothing but what he has acquired.—Translator's Note.) My twenty-year-old mind, full of faith in syllogisms, loved to follow the deductive jugglery of the abbe-philosopher: I saw, or seemed to see, the statue take life in that action of the nostrils, acquiring attention, memory, judgment and all the psychological paraphernalia, even as still waters are aroused and rippled by the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... "transformist." All this is a chain of highly logical deductions, and it hangs together with a certain air of reality, such as we like to look for in a host of "transformist" arguments which are put forward as irrefutable. Well, I make a present of my deductive theory to whosoever desires it, and without the least regret; I do not believe a single word of it, and I confess my profound ignorance of the origin of the twofold system ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical acquaintance with the process of scientific investigation is denied them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr. Mill's admirable chapter "On the Deductive Method," that there are multitudes of scientific inquiries in which the method of pure induction helps the investigator ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley |
