RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 189 



apparent at the first glance in those figures, than when reduced 



to the first. Thus, if the proposition were that pagans may be 



virtuous, and the evidence to prove it were the example of 



Aristides ; a syllogism in the third figure, 



Aristides was virtuous, 



Aristides was a pagan, 



therefore 



Some pagan was virtuous, 



would be a more natural mode of stating the argument, and 

 would carry conviction more instantly home, than the same 

 ratiocination strained into the first figure, thus 

 Aristides was virtuous, 

 Some pagan was Aristides, 



therefore 



Some pagan was virtuous. 



A German philosopher, Lambert, whose Neues Organon 

 (published in the year 1764) contains among other things 

 one of the most elaborate and complete expositions which had 

 ever been made of the syllogistic doctrine, has expressly ex- 

 amined what sort of arguments fall most naturally and suitably 

 into each of the four figures ; and his investigation is charac- 

 terized by great ingenuity and clearness of thought.* The 

 argument, however, is one and the same, in whichever figure 

 it is expressed ; since, as we have already seen, the premises 

 of a syllogism in the second, third, or fourth figure, and those 

 of the syllogism in the first figure to which it may he reduced, 

 are the same premises in everything except language, or, at 

 least, as much of them as contributes to the proof of the con- 



* His conclusions are, " The first figure is suited to the discovery or proof 

 of the properties of a thing ; the second to the discovery or proof of the dis- 

 tinctions between things ; the third to the discovery or proof of instances and 

 exceptions ; the fourth to the discovery, or exclusion, of the different species of 

 a genus." The reference of syllogisms in the last three figures to the dictum 

 de omni et nullo is, in Lambert's opinion, strained and unnatural : to each of 

 the three belongs, according to him, a separate axiom, co-ordinate and of equal 

 authority with that dictum, and to which he gives the names of dictum de 

 diverso for the second figure, dictum de exemplo for the third, and dictum de 

 reciproco for the fourth. See part i. or Dianoiologie, chap. iv. 229 et seqq. 

 Mr. Bailey, (Theory of Reasoning, 2nd ed. pp. 70-74) takes a similar view of the 

 subject. 



