CHAPTER VI. 

 ABRIDGED AND CONJOINED SYLLOGISMS. 



1 86. THE ENTHYMEME. In the present chapter we shall 

 examine abridged and conjoined syllogisms. These are irregular 

 in the sense that they are not fully and explicitly stated in the 

 recognized logical form of major, minor, and conclusion. It is 

 these, nevertheless, rather than the logically stereotyped forms, 

 that we usually find in any ordinary piece of argumentative dis 

 course. The most common of them, perhaps, is the syllogism in 

 which one of the constituent propositions is omitted for the sake of 

 brevity. To this abridged form of syllogism modern logicians 

 have given a name which Aristotle used in quite a different sense 

 to denote a sort of probable argument, the Enthymeme. A 

 weak, or merely probable, argument is often given an appearance of 

 strength by suppressing or keeping in the background the weaker 

 premiss. This fact, together with a mistaken etymology tracing 

 the name to the suppressed premiss (eV OV/AM), may account for 

 the employment of the Aristotelean term to denote any syllogism 

 in which one of the propositions is suppressed. 



A very common form of enthymeme is that in which the 

 conclusion is stated first, and one of the premisses joined on as a 

 reason for it by the words &quot; because&quot; &quot;for,&quot; or &quot;since &quot;. 



Logicians distinguish three orders of enthymeme : 



The First Order in which the major premiss is omitted ; 



The Second Order in which the minor premiss is omitted ; 



The Third Order in which the conclusion is omitted. 



A simple example in the first order would be &quot;John is intel 

 ligent, for he is successful&quot; ; in the second, &quot;John is intelligent, 

 for all successful men are intelligent&quot; ; in the third, &quot;John is 

 successful and all successful men are intelligent &quot;. 



When an enthymeme belongs to the third order, the position 

 of the middle term shows at once whether the syllogism belongs 

 to the second or to the third figure. If the middle term be once 



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