p Induction is an instance of reasoning from individual phenomena to general conclusions. Law, as we know, is general and is repeated in phenomena. But the general exists only in the individual. Since induction is a means of obtaining knowledge of the general from knowledge of the individual, it is an important method of cognising regularities, and causal relationships. Thus, on the basis of an infinite number of facts proving that one form of motion of matter turns into another form, and invariably without any loss of quantity physicists discovered the fundamental law of nature—the law of conservation and transformation of energy.

p Induction is a method of obtaining new knowledge because it helps to extend the already available knowledge to a range of new, still unstudied objects. But by extending knowledge about one class of objects to another and broader one, induction does not in the main alter the essence of knowledge. This attests to the limited nature of induction. Hence the need to supplement it -with analysis, synthesis, generalisation and other methods of investigation.

p Deduction is an instance of reasoning from the general to the individual. Given knowledge of a class of objects as a whole it is possible by means of deduction to extend this knowledge to any object of the same class. For instance, thanks to our knowledge of Mendeleyev’s periodic law of chemical elements we can assert that the properties of any elements, whether known or still undiscovered, depend on the positive charge of its atomic nucleus.

p Deduction is used as a means of formulating scientific theories. For example, contemporary science widely employs the axiomatic method when a scientific theory is built up in keeping with specific rules and laws drawn from the totality of axioms, i.e., propositions that are accepted without proof.

Induction and deduction, like analysis and synthesis, are 175 a unity. Indeed, in order to cognise the general it is necessary to know the particular, and vice versa. Using induction and deduction as one, a researcher cognises reality as a unity of the particular and the general.