t in a way
we cannot resist? On the contrary, stated thus, the premises clearly do
_not_ warrant the conclusion that the motor-car will be enjoyable. Such
a statement of the premises is wholly formal and _ex post facto_. What,
then, is our actual mental process in the case? The truth is, I think,
that we simply--yes, "psychologically"--wish to try _that promised
unheard-of rate of speed_! That comes first and foremost. But we mean to
be reasonably prudent on the whole, although we are avowedly adventurous
just now in this particular direction! We, therefore, ransack our memory
for _other fast things_ we have known, to see whether they have
encouragement to give us. We try to supply ourselves with a major
premise because the new proposal in its own right interests us--instead
of having the major premise already there to coerce us by a purely
"logical" compulsion as soon as we invade its sphere of influence. And
confessedly, in point of "logic," there is no such compulsion in the
second figure: there is only a timid and vexatious neutrality, a mere
"not proven."

Why, then, do we in fact take the much admired "inductive leap," in
seeming defiance of strict logic? Why do we close our eyes to logic,
turn our back upon logic, behave as if logic were not and had never
been? In point of fact, we do nothing of the sort. The "inductive leap"
is no leap away from logic, but the impulsion of logic's mainspring seen
only in its legitimate event. Because we have not taken care to see the
impulse coming, it surprises us and we are frightened. And we look about
for an illusive assurance in some "law of thought," or some
question-begging "universal premise" of Nature's "uniformity." We do not
see that we were already conditionally committed to the "leap" by our
initial interest. Getting our premises together is no hurried forging of
a chain to save us from our own madness in the nick of time. We are only
hoping to rid ourselves of an excess of conservative ballast. To reason
by analogy is not to repress or to dispense with the interest in the
radically novel, but to give methodical and intelligent expression to
that interest.

[47] Aristotle's _Nicomachaean Ethics_ (Welldon's transl.), Book VIII.

[48] Cf. Aristotle's _Politics_ (Jowett's trans.) III. 9. Sec.6 ff. and
elsewhere; _Nicom. Ethics_, I, Chap. III (end).

[49] Cf. Veblen: _op. cit._

[50] W. McDougall in his _Social Psychology_ (Ed. 1912, pp. 358 ff.)
recognizes "incom