PART III. 

 REASONING AND SYLLOGISMS. 



CHAPTER I. 



NATURE, STRUCTURE, AND AXIOMS OF THE PURE 

 SYLLOGISM. 



147. MEDIATE AND IMMEDIATE INFERENCES. We have 

 already distinguished (116) between the process of Immediate 

 Inference by which we draw out the various implications of a 

 single judgment, without having recourse to the &quot;medium&quot; of a 

 second judgment and the process of Mediate Inference, or Reason 

 ing proper. Mediate inference is so called because the conclusion 

 is reached by comparing each of the terms of the latter, 5 and P, 

 alternately, with a third, intermediate or middle term, M. The 

 two propositions in which M is compared with P and S, re 

 spectively, are called Premisses [pramissce, &quot;sent before&quot;] or, 

 both together, the Antecedent, or Reason, or Ground ; the third or 

 inferred proposition is called the Conclusion or Consequent or, if 

 stated first, the Question or Thesis. The mental process itself 

 is called Reasoning \Ratiocinatio or Argumentatio\ ; the mental 

 product or result is also called a Reasoning [Ratiocinium] ; the 

 verbal expression of the mental process or result is called an 

 Argument \_Argumentum\. 



We see, then, that while immediate inference starts from a 

 single proposition, mediate inference starts from two. We might, 

 therefore, perhaps, define Mediate Inference as a reasoning pro 

 cess or argument in which two judgments are seen to be so related 

 that a third necessarily follows from them. This definition, how 

 ever, while emphasizing the necessary sequence which constitutes 

 the for.mal aspect of all inference, gives us no insight into the 

 ground or reason for this necessity. 



It is practically Aristotle s definition of the Syllogism (SvAAo^toTior) : 

 Aoyor ei&amp;gt; w T(0(vra&amp;gt;v TIV&V fTfpov n ra&amp;gt;i&amp;gt; Kfipfvatv e dvdyKrjs crv/i/SatVet ro&amp;gt; ravra 



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