176 REASONING. 



negative, of those phenomena or those powers, is always 

 either Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time, Causation, 

 or Resemblance. This, then, is the theory of the Import of 

 Propositions, reduced to its ultimate elements : but there is 

 another and a less abstruse expression for it, which, though 

 stopping short in an earlier stage of the analysis, is suffi 

 ciently scientific for many of the purposes for which such a 

 general expression is required. This expression recognises 

 the commonly received distinction between Subject and Attri 

 bute, and gives the following as the analysis of the meaning 

 of propositions : Every Proposition asserts, that some given 

 subject does or does not possess some attribute; or that some 

 attribute is or is not (either in all or in some portion of the 

 subjects in which it is met with) conjoined with some other 

 attribute. 



We shall now for the present take our leave of this portion 

 of our inquiry, and proceed to the peculiar problem of the 

 Science of Logic, namely, how the assertions, of which we 

 have analysed the import, are proved or disproved ; such of 

 them, at least, as, not being amenable to direct consciousness 

 or intuition, are appropriate subjects of proof. 



We say of a fact or statement, that it is proved, when we 

 believe its truth by reason of some other fact or statement 

 from which it is said to follow. Most of the propositions, 

 whether affirmative or negative, universal, particular, or 

 singular, which we believe, are not believed on their own 

 evidence, but on the ground of something previously assented 

 to, from which they are said to be inferred. To infer a 

 proposition from a previous proposition or propositions; to 

 give credence to it, or claim credence for it, as a conclusion 

 from something else ; is to reason, in the most extensive sense 

 of the term. There is a narrower sense, in which the name 

 reasoning is confined to the form of inference which is termed 

 ratiocination, and of which the syllogism is the general type. 

 The reasons for not conforming to this restricted use of the 

 term were stated in an earlier stage of our inquiry, and addi 

 tional motives will be suggested by the considerations on 

 which we are now about to enter. 



