NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF INFERENCE 39$ 



Of course, we can lay down no principle &quot; in the form of a general law &quot; to regu 

 late the cumulative effect of these inferences upon the mind that makes them. 

 But every single inference connecting each separate &quot; circumstance &quot; with 

 the suspected conclusion may be shown to have a universal axiom under 

 lying it. Furthermore, these inferences appear to be for the most part 

 syllogistic ; to be a series of deductions from the hypothesis that the accused 

 is guilty. 1 For example : &quot; If A.B. were guilty he would leave footprints 

 of a certain size and shape in the vicinity of the crime ; there are such 

 footprints there ; hence he is probably guilty &quot;. And so of every other cir 

 cumstance. The force of each circumstance may, likewise, be expressed by an 

 Aristotelean enthymeme in the second figure. For example : &quot; There was 

 evidently a struggle in which the murderer s clothes would have been blood 

 stained. A.B. s clothes are blood-stained. Therefore probably, etc.&quot; a 



194. ERRORS ON THE FUNCTION OF THE UNIVERSAL JUDG 

 MENT IN THE PROCESS OF INFERENCE : THE &quot; PARADOX &quot; OF 

 INFERENCE. The contention that all mediate reasoning involves 

 universal truths, suggests a number of questions about the origin 

 and function of these latter as axioms and premisses in mediate 

 reasoning. We reach our knowledge of conclusions through and 

 from our knowledge of premisses. Where and how do we get our 

 knowledge of these premisses, especially of universal premisses, and 

 of the universal axioms of mediate reasoning? Do we not derive 

 these somehow or other from our knowledge of \he particular facts 

 of our sense experience ? Does not all our knowledge ultimately 

 originate in sense experience according to the maxim : Nihil est 

 in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu ? And does not this 

 experience bring us into contact with particular facts alone, not with 

 universal truths ? In which case, all our reasoning processes would 

 inevitably originate in a knowledge of &quot; particular&quot; facts, from 

 which, then, our &quot; universal &quot; truths would be &quot; inferred &quot; ? 



These questions, which will be answered in due course, mark 

 the transition of our investigation from the more formal to the 

 more material aspect of our thinking processes. We suggest 

 them here only in order to call attention to certain erroneous 

 views of the empiricist school of philosophers on the nature of 

 the universal judgment, its origin, its function in reasoning, and, 

 consequently, on the nature of the mental process of reasoning 

 itself. Those errors, originating with Locke and Hume, were 

 disseminated widely by John Stuart Mill in his well-known work 

 on Logic : more particularly in a chapter on The Functions and 

 Logical Value of the Syllogism* where he writes as follows: 



1 Cf. WELTON, Logic, ii., p. 84. - Cf. infra, 262, b. 



6 Logic bk. ii., chap, in., 4. 



