213 



previous development, and which it can actually realize. Policy {la poUtique) is, then, 

 the science which, upon a historic basis, and in the measure of existing forces, expounds 

 the totality of the conditions and of the means proper to assure continued progress, and 

 to realize the reforms immediately demanded of the social state." — Ahreu's Cours de 

 Droit Naturel, § 2. 



(6) There can be no doubt that the present age is as distinctly unlogical, as the age prior 

 to that of Bacon was unscientific, and that in political and social science, and in the sci- 

 ence of human nature generally — in the investigation of which logic must always be an 

 indispensable instrument— the great demand of the times is the revival of the use of 

 logic, and our motto here, as elsewhere, should be, "Back to Aristotle." 



"We .... live in an age," says De Morgan, "in which formal logic has long been 

 nearly banished from education ; entirely we may say from the education of the habits. 

 The students of all our universities (Cambridge excepted) may have heard lectures and 

 learned the forms of syllogism to this day ; but the practice has been small ; and out of 

 the universities (and too often in themi the very name of logic is a by-word. 



" The philosophers, who made the discovery (or what has been allowed to pass for one), 

 that Bacon invented a new species of logic which is to supersede that of Aristotle, and 

 their followers have succeeded by false history and falser theory in driving out from our 

 system all study cf the connection between thought and language. The growth of inac- 

 curate expression which this has produced gives us swarms of legislators, preachers and 

 teachers of all kinds who can only deal with their own meaning as bad spellers deal 

 with a hard word— put together letters which give a certain resemblance, more or less, as 

 the case may be. Hence, what have been aptly called the slipshod judgments and crip- 

 pled arguments which every-day talkers are content to use. Offenses against the laws of 

 syllogism (which are all laws of common sense) are as common as any species of fallacy ; 

 not that they are always oflFenses in the speaker's or writer's mind, but that they fre- 

 quently originate in his attempt to speak his mind. And the excuse is that he meant 

 differently from what he said ; which is received because no one can thiow the tirst stone 

 at him ; but which, in the Middle Ages, would have been regarded as a plea of guilty." 

 — Formal Logic, pp. 2-40, 241. 



"The above," continues the author, after treating of the several fallacies, "were the 

 forms of fallacy laid down as most essential to be studied by those who were in the habit 

 of appealing to principles supposed to be universally admitted, and of throwing all de- 

 duction into syllogistic form. Modern discussions, more favorable, in several points, to 

 the discovery of truth, are conducted without any conventional authority which can 

 compel precision of statement : and the neglect of formal logic occasions the frequent 

 occurrence of these offenses against mere rules which the old enumeration of fallacies 

 seems to have considered as sufficiently guarded against by the rules themselves, and 

 sufficiently described under one head, the fallacia conscquentis. For example, it would 

 have been a childish mistake, under the old system, to have asserted the universal pro- 

 position, meaning the particular one, because the thing is true in most cases. The rule 

 ■was imperative : ' not all ' must be ' some,' and even ' all,' when not known to be ' all,'' was 

 ' some.' But in our day nothing is more common than to hear and read assertions made 

 in all the form, and intended to have all the power, of universals, of which nothing can 

 be said except that most of the cases are true. If a contradiction be asserted and 

 proved in an instance, the answer is : 'Oh ! that is an extreme case.' But the assertion 

 had been made of all cases. It turns out that it was meant only for ordinary cases. Why 

 it was not so stated must be referred to one of three causes— a mind which wants the 

 habit of precision which formal logic has a tendency to foster, a desire to give more 

 strength to a conclusion than honestly belongs to it, or a fallacy intended to have its 

 chance of reception. 



"The application of the extreme case is very often the only test by which an ambiguous 

 assumption can be dealt with : no wonder that the assumer should dread and protest 

 against a process which is as powerful as the sign of the cross was once believed to be 

 against evil spirits. Where anything is asserted which is true with exception, there is 

 often great difficulty in forcing the assertor to attempt to lay down a canon by which to 

 distinguish the rule from the exception. Everything depends upon it ; for the question 



PUOC. AMER. PUILOS. SOC. XXXIV. 148. 2 B. PRINTED AUG 21, 1895. 



