In ecclesiastical law. Induction is the ceremony by which an incumbent who has been instituted to a benefice is vested with full possession of all the profits belonging to the church, so that he becomes seised of the temporalities of the church, and is then complete incumbent. It is performed by virtue of a mandate of induction directed by the bishop to the archdeacon, who either performs it in person, or directs his precept to one or more other clergymen to do it. Phillim. Ecc. Law, 477.