NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF INFERENCE 409 



principle announced in the major is abstract : &quot; M as such is P &quot;. 

 It has then to ^formally universalized, to &quot;All M s are P,&quot; 

 a process which is easy enough, being an almost spontaneous 

 mental consequence of the formation of the abstract judgment 

 &quot; M as such is P n . But, furthermore, it has to be universalized 

 materially^ by discovering among the actual and possible data of 

 human knowledge all the things or events which are instances of 

 that law, all the S s that partake of the nature of M, and that 

 can, therefore, be brought into the class M. Now, this very pro 

 cess of recognizing in something (5), beneath a whole mass of 

 irrelevant or differentiating details, the essential attributes which 

 make it M, and the possession of which enables us to bring it 

 into the class M, and thereby to predicate P of it also this very 

 process is one which, no less than the establishment of the 

 abstract law itself, calls for mental energy, ability, and often 

 genius of the highest order (197). The world had to wait a long 

 time for Franklin to enrich it with this piece of reasoning, which, 

 like all great things, appears so simple : &quot; The sort of spark 

 produced by the electrical machine is due to electricity ; a 

 flash of lightning perhaps is a spark of the same sort. Therefore 

 lightning is, perhaps, due to electricity.&quot; So, too, the general 

 abstract truth that &quot; The force of expanding steam (M) is capable 

 of causing motion (P)&quot; was long enough known before the 

 genius of Papin and Watt led to the invention of a special 

 instance of the force of expanding steam, namely, the steam- 

 engine (S), for the purpose of obtaining motion (P) from it. 2 



Again, the general elementary axioms of the mathematical 

 sciences the sciences of magnitude and multitude are the 

 common endowment of all ordinary minds ; and yet, what pro 

 longed and intense application it has cost the keenest of minds 

 to bring to light the more and more complex thought-objects 

 the new &quot; S s &quot; involved in the original, elementary concepts : 

 and to establish, between these, new relations, which, nevertheless, 

 were virtually contained in the simpler primary ones. 



We must be careful, then, not to confound two distinct 

 states or conditions in which we may regard the premisses of 

 any mediate inference. We may look at them in the remoter 

 state of unformed materials concepts lying unanalysed and un- 

 compared in a mind that holds them passively. These materials, 



1 C/. MAHER, Psychology, pp. 295-6, note 4 (4th edition). 



2 C/. MERCIER, Logique, p. 193. 



