Final answer:
Collecting historical data and forming general laws from specific instances involves inductive reasoning, which builds general principles from observations but does not equate to scientific laws that describe natural processes.
Step-by-step explanation:
When we collect data or events from the past in history, this typically involves inductive reasoning. This form of reasoning relies on observing specific instances and making generalizations from them. In the context of citing events and incidents from history to state laws or general principles, authors synthetize this historical data to form broader interpretations or laws.
However, these are not laws in the strict scientific sense. In science, a law is a concise description of natural processes that is supported by repeated empirical data. Hence, while we can reason from the past to the future, historical laws are heuristics or guidelines rather than inviolable scientific laws. They are useful for understanding human behavior and patterns in society, but they lack the empirical certainty of scientific laws.