ictions are often salutary.
Not every advice is a safe one.
All that glitters is not gold.
Rivers generally[3] run into the sea.

Often, however, it is really uncertain from the form of common speech
whether it is intended to express a universal or a particular. The
quantity is not formally expressed. This is especially the case
with proverbs and loose floating sayings of a general tendency. For
example:--

Haste makes waste.
Knowledge is power.
Light come, light go.
Left-handed men are awkward antagonists.
Veteran soldiers are the steadiest in fight.

Such sayings are in actual speech for the most part delivered as
universals.[4] It is a useful exercise of the Socratic kind to decide
whether they are really so. This can only be determined by a survey of
facts. The best method of conducting such a survey is probably (1)
to pick out the concrete subject, "hasty actions," "men possessed of
knowledge," "things lightly acquired"; (2) to fix the attribute or
attributes predicated; (3) to run over the individuals of the subject
class and settle whether the attribute is as a matter of fact meant to
be predicated of each and every one.

This is the operation of INDUCTION. If one individual can be found of
whom the attribute is not meant to be predicated, the proposition is
not intended as Universal.

Mark the difference between settling what is intended and settling
what is true. The conditions of truth and the errors incident to the
attempt to determine it, are the business of the Logic of Rational
Belief, commonly entitled Inductive Logic. The kind of "induction"
here contemplated has for its aim merely to determine the quantity of
a proposition in common acceptation, which can be done by considering
in what cases the proposition would generally be alleged. This
corresponds nearly as we shall see to Aristotelian Induction, the
acceptance of a universal statement when no instance to the contrary
is alleged.

It is to be observed that for this operation we do not practically use
the syllogistic form All S is P. We do not raise the question Is All
S, P? That is, we do not constitute in thought a class P: the class in
our minds is S, and what we ask is whether an attribute predicated of
this class is truly predicated of every individual of it.

Suppose we indicate by _p_ the attribute, knot of attributes, or
concept on which the class P is constituted, then All S is P is
equivalent to "All S has _p_":