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Mr DE morgan, ON THE SYLLOGISM, No. IH, 



considered in a more complete system of logic. The cases in which A, simultaneous with B, 

 is either cause or effect according to the attribute considered, will be duly symbolised. For 

 instance, it is disputed whether men dive for pearls because pearls fetch a high price, or 

 whether pearls fetch a high price because men dive for them : it is one or the other, according 

 to the attribute of the actions held in view. Considered as volitions, the diver is willing to 

 dive because the lady is willing to pay dear for her necklace. As necessities, the lady must 

 pay dear because the diver must dive. The word because is the heading of a chapter in the 

 form of thought, of which many a complexity is yet unanalysed, simply because it is possible 

 to reduce relation to class, by throwing 'X has A-relation to Y' into the form ' X is in the 

 class of objects having A-relation to Y.' Hence, to the world at large, logic is neither the 

 form of their thought, nor the matter, nor the junction of both. The judgment of the 

 logician is only one of the judgments of mankind. 



When a common person says 'Achilles killed Hector,' his objects of thought are the two 

 heroes : his mode of thinking them is in the relation of slayer and slain in time past. The 

 logician demands that he shall think himself to be identifying by the verb 'is' — either Achilles 

 with the former slayer of Hector, or Hector with the former slain of Achilles, or slaughter 

 with the former action of Achilles on Hector, or time past with the date of that action. All 

 these forms are unquestionably coexistent and coextensive with the relation affirmed : out of 

 any one all the others may be evolved ; they are diflferent dichotomies and reintegrations of 

 a coexistence of four things. But neither reintegration represents the manner in which the 

 relation is held in thought. Each dichotomy makes it possible that a contradiction may step 

 in, which the reintegration denies : one of them shews a front to the assertion that Patroclus 

 killed Hector, another to the assertion that Achilles was Hector's defender, &c. And so it 

 always happens: a person who wants to signify that 'Achilles was the person who killed 

 Hector ' will take care, on the principle of not saying one thing when another is meant, to avoid 

 the phrase 'Achilles killed Hector,' or else to supply 'was the person who' by emphasis on 

 Achilles: unless it be a person who has been long in the hands of Giant* Maul. In all pro- 

 positions, existence is predicated of the terms in the fact of predication. When I say X is Y, 

 I do not mean ' if X exist and Y exist, then X is Y :' I mean that X and Y do exist, and that 

 they are the same. Accordingly, when I am told that 'Achilles is the former slayer of Hector,' 

 it is as if it could not be disputed that Hector was slain, so that the only question remaining 

 is. Who killed him .-' For the books of logic give no way of denying 'X is Y' except ' X is 

 not Y.' But should I be told 'Achilles killed Hector' I should not receive it in this way, nor 

 should I believe it was so intended. I should receive it as an equally balanced combination 

 of elements, in which the dichotomy is left to myself, to be made according to my own mode 

 of assent or denial, including a right given to me to preserve the existing balance. I see great 

 difference in the propositum between 'This house was built by Jack' and ' This is the [or even 

 a] house that Jack built.' Granting it true that either of the logician's forms will give as much 



• According to incomparable John Bunyan, this worthy 

 lived at the end of a dark valley and "did use to spoil young 

 pilgrims with sophistry." What was hinted at appears in this, 

 that Mr Greatheart and the giant settle the qucestio before they 



begin to fight, and the opponent objects to the respondent, 

 " These be but generals, man, come to particulars." Maul 

 was the most difficult giant to kill of Bunyan's whole troop. 



