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REASONING. 



the ascertainment of reasoned or inferred truth. Formal 

 Logic, therefore, which Sir William Hamilton from his own 

 point of view, and Archbishop Whately from his, have re 

 presented as the whole of Logic properly so called, is really a 

 very subordinate part of it, not being directly concerned with 

 the process of Seasoning or Inference in the sense in which 

 that process is a part of the Investigation of Truth. What, 

 then, is Formal Logic ? The name seems to be properly 

 applied to all that portion of doctrine which relates to the 

 equivalence of different modes of expression ; the rules for 

 determining when assertions in a given form imply or suppose 

 the truth or falsity of. other assertions. This includes the 

 theory of the Import of Propositions, and of their Conver- 



an assertion, which is afterwards to be employed in proving a part of itself. 

 I can conceive only one way out of this difficulty, viz. that what really forms 

 the proof is the other part of the assertion ; the portion of it, the truth of which 

 lias been ascertained previously : and that the unproved part is bound up in one 

 formula with the proved part in mere anticipation, and as a memorandum of 

 the nature of the conclusions which we are prepared to prove. 



With respect to the minor premise in its formal shape, the minor as it 

 stands in the syllogism, predicating of Socrates a definite class name, I readily 

 admit that it is no more a necessary part of reasoning than the major. When 

 there is a major, doing its work by means of a class name, minors are needed 

 to interpret it : but reasoning can be carried on without either the one or the 

 other. They are not the conditions of reasoning, but a precaution against 

 erroneous reasoning. The only minor premise necessary to reasoning in the 

 example under consideration, is, Socrates is like A, B, C, and the other indi 

 viduals who are known to have died. And this is the only universal type of 

 that step in the reasoning process which is represented by the minor. Expe 

 rience, however, of the uncertainty of this loose mode of inference, teaches the 

 expediency of determining beforehand what kind of likeness to the cases 

 observed, is necessary to bring an unobserved case within the same predicate ; 

 and the answer to this question is the major. Thus the syllogistic major and the 

 syllogistic minor start into existence together, and are called forth by the same 

 exigency. When we conclude from personal experience without referring to 

 any record to any general theorems, either written, or traditional, or mentally 

 registered by ourselves as conclusions of our own drawing, we do not use, in 

 our thoughts, either a major or a minor, such as the syllogism puts into words- 

 When, however, we revise this rough inference from particulars to particulars, 

 and substitute a careful one, the revision consists in selecting two syllogistic 

 premises. But this neither alters nor adds to the evidence we had before ; 

 it only puts us in a better position for judging whether our inference from 

 particulars to particulars is well grounded. 



