For greater clearness, I subjoin an analysis of the demonstration. Euclid, it will be remembered, demonstrates his fifth proposition by means of the fourth. This it is not allowable for us to do, because we are undertaking to trace deductive truths not to prior deductions, but to their original inductive foundation. We must, therefore, use the premises of the fourth proposition instead of its conclusion, and prove the fifth directly from first principles. To do so requires six formulas. (We presuppose an equilateral triangle, whose vertices are A, D, E, with point B on the side AD, and point C on the side AE, such that BC is parallel to DE. We must begin, as in Euclid, by prolonging the equal sides AB, AC, to equal distances, and joining the extremities BE, DC.)
First Formula.—The sums of equals are equal.
AD and AE are sums of equals by the supposition. Having that mark of equality, they are concluded by this formula to be equal.
Second Formula.—Equal straight lines or angles, being applied to one another, coincide.
AC, AB, are within this formula by supposition; AD, AE, have been brought within it by the preceding step. The angle at A considered as an angle of the triangle ABE, and the same angle considered as an angle of the triangle ACD, are of course within the formula. All these pairs, therefore, possess the property which, according to the second formula, is a mark that when applied to one another they will coincide. Conceive them, then, applied to one another, by turning over the triangle ABE, and laying it on the triangle ACD in such a manner that AB of the one shall lie upon AC of the other. Then, by the equality of the angles, AE will lie on AD. But AB and AC, AE and AD are equals; therefore they will coincide altogether, and of course at their extremities, D, E, and B, C.
Third Formula.—Straight lines, having their extremities coincident, coincide.
BE and CD have been brought within this formula by the preceding induction; they will, therefore, coincide.
Fourth Formula.—Angles, having their sides coincident, coincide.
The third induction having shown that BE and CD coincide, and the second that AB, AC, coincide, the angles ABE and ACD are thereby brought within the fourth formula, and accordingly coincide.
Fifth Formula.—Things which coincide are equal.
The angles ABE and ACD are brought within this formula by the induction immediately preceding. This train of reasoning being also applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the angles EBC, DCB, these also are brought within the fifth formula. And, finally,
Sixth Formula.—The differences of equals are equal.
The angle ABC being the difference of ABE, CBE, and the angle ACB being the difference of ACD, DCB; which have been proved to be equals; ABC and ACB are brought within the last formula by the whole of the previous process.
The difficulty here encountered is chiefly that of figuring to ourselves the two angles at the base of the triangle ABC as remainders made by cutting one pair of angles out of another, while each pair shall be corresponding angles of triangles which have two sides and the intervening angle equal. It is by this happy contrivance that so many different inductions are brought to bear upon the same particular case. And this not being at all an obvious thought, it may be seen from an example so near the threshold of mathematics, how much scope there may well be for scientific dexterity in the higher branches of that and other sciences, in order so to combine a few simple inductions, as to bring within each of them innumerable cases which are not obviously included in it; and how long, and numerous, and complicated may be the processes necessary for bringing the inductions together, even when each induction may itself be very easy and simple. All the inductions involved in all geometry are comprised in those simple ones, the formulæ of which are the Axioms, and a few of the so-called Definitions. The remainder of the science is made up of the processes employed for bringing unforeseen cases within these inductions; or (in syllogistic language) for proving the minors necessary to complete the syllogisms; the majors being the definitions and axioms. In those definitions and axioms are laid down the whole of the marks, by an artful combination of which it has been found possible to discover and prove all that is proved in geometry. The marks being so few, and the inductions which furnish them being so obvious and familiar; the connecting of several of them together, which constitutes Deductions, or Trains of Reasoning, forms the whole difficulty of the science, and, with a trifling exception, its whole bulk; and hence Geometry is a Deductive Science.
§ 5. It will be seen hereafter[67] that there are weighty scientific reasons for giving to every science as much of the character of a Deductive Science as possible; for endeavoring to construct the science from the fewest and the simplest possible inductions, and to make these, by any combinations however complicated, suffice for proving even such truths, relating to complex cases, as could be proved, if we chose, by inductions from specific experience. Every branch of natural philosophy was originally experimental; each generalization rested on a special induction, and was derived from its own distinct set of observations and experiments. From being sciences of pure experiment, as the phrase is, or, to speak more correctly, sciences in which the reasonings mostly consist of no more than one step, and are expressed by single syllogisms, all these sciences have become to some extent, and some of them in nearly the whole of their extent, sciences of pure reasoning; whereby multitudes of truths, already known by induction from as many different sets of experiments, have come to be exhibited as deductions or corollaries from inductive propositions of a simpler and more universal character. Thus mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, acoustics, thermology, have successively been rendered mathematical; and astronomy was brought by Newton within the laws of general mechanics. Why it is that the substitution of this circuitous mode of proceeding for a process apparently much easier and more natural, is held, and justly, to be the greatest triumph of the investigation of nature, we are not, in this stage of our inquiry, prepared to examine. But it is necessary to remark, that although, by this progressive transformation, all sciences tend to become more and more Deductive, they are not, therefore, the less Inductive; every step in the Deduction is still an Induction. The opposition is not between the terms Deductive and Inductive, but between Deductive and Experimental. A science is experimental, in proportion as every new case, which presents any peculiar features, stands in need of a new set of observations and experiments—a fresh induction. It is deductive, in proportion as it can draw conclusions, respecting cases of a new kind, by processes which bring those cases under old inductions; by ascertaining that cases which can not be observed to have the requisite marks, have, however, marks of those marks.