SECT. 23.] Modality. 317 



cians exercised themselves. Whether, with one premise 

 certain, and the other probable, a certain conclusion may be 

 inferred : Whether, from the impossible, the necessary can 

 be inferred ; Whether, with one premise necessary and the 

 other de inesse, the conclusion is necessary , and so on, 

 endlessly. 



22. On the Kantian view of modality the discussion 

 of such kinds of syllogisms becomes at once decidedly more- 

 simple (for here but three modes are recognized), arid also 

 somewhat more closely connected with strict Probability, (for 

 the modes are more nearly of the nature of gradations of 

 conviction). But, on the other hand, there is less justification 

 for their introduction, as logicians might really be expected 

 to know that what they are aiming to effect by their clumsy 

 contrivances is the very thing which Probability can carry 

 out to the highest desired degree of accuracy. The former 

 methods are as coarse and inaccurate, compared with the 

 latter, as were the roughest measurements of Babylonian 

 night-watchers compared with^the refined calculations of the 

 modern astronomer. It is indeed only some of the general 

 adherents of the Kantian Logic who enter upon any such 

 considerations as these ; some, such as Hamilton and Mansel, 

 entirely reject them, as we have seen. By those who do 

 treat of the subject, such conclusions as the following are laid 

 down ; that when both premises are apodeictic the conclusion 

 will be the same ; so when both are assertory or problematic. 

 If one is apodeictic and the other assertory, . the latter, or 

 weaker, is all that is to be admitted for the conclusion ; 

 and so on. The English reader will find some account of 

 these rules in Ueberweg s Logic 1 . 



23. But although those modals, regarded as instru 

 ments of accurate thought, have been thus superseded by the 

 1 Translation by T. M. Lindsay, p. 439. 



