"In his address to the Mathematical Section at the British Association Meeting of 1869 at Exeter, Professor J. J. Sylvester laid much stress upon the employment of inductive philosophy in mathematics. He said that he was aware that many who had not gone deeply into the principles of mathematical science believed that inductive philosophy, or the method of evolving new truths by induction, was reserved for the experimental sciences, and that the methods of investigation in mathematical science might all be classified as deductive. He went on to say that this opinion is not a correct one, and that many valuable results are obtained in mathematical science by induction, or reasoning from particulars to generals, which could not otherwise be obtained so easily. Although making a distinction between mathematical induction and the induction used in natural philosophy, De Morgan, in his article in the 'Penny Cyclopædia' on this subject, states that an instance of mathematical induction occurs in every equation of differences and in every recurring series. Taking the definition of induction as given by Dr. Whateley, namely, "a kind of argument which infers respecting a whole class what has been ascertained respecting one or more individuals of that class," it will be evident to any experimenter in chemical or physical science who is also acquainted with the use of induction in mathematical science, that mathematical induction is of a higher and more perfect kind than the induction used in the physical sciences, especially when it assumes the form of successive induction as De Morgan calls it, and as it is employed in recurring series. It is this high class of reasoning which is involved in the construction of series that recur according to a given law, that makes the use of recurring series so valuable in unitation."
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W. H. Walenn, "On Negative and Fractional Unitates," The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (1873) pp. 36-37
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction
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Mathematical induction
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