Does experience furnish any probable reason for inferring that immortality is a fact?
A deduction is often like an induction, in inferring from particulars; the difference is that deduction combines a law in the major with the particulars in the minor premise, and infers syllogistically that the particulars of the minor have the predicate of the major premise, whereas induction uses the particulars simply as instances to generalize a law.
According to both, induction, instead of inferring from A, B, C magnets the conclusion " Therefore all magnets attract iron," infers from the hypothesis, " Let every magnet attract iron," to A, B, C magnets, whose given attraction verifies the hypothesis.
But we know also that the patents were so numerous as to be oppressive, and we can scarcely avoid inferring that Bacon more readily saw the advantages to the government than the disadvantages to the people.
The principle of similarity is used, not assumed by the inferring mind, which in accordance with the similarity of things and the parity of inference spontaneously concludes in the form that similars are similarly determined (" similia similibus convenire ").
