192 



REASONING. 



proposition in which a predicate is affirmed or denied of an 

 entire class ; that is, in which some attribute, or the negation 

 of some attribute, is asserted of an indefinite number of objects 

 distinguished by a common characteristic, and designated in 

 consequence, by a common name. 



The other premise is always affirmative, and asserts that 

 something (which may be either an individual, a class, or part 



" The reduction of all the General Laws of Categorical Syllogisms to a single 

 Canon. 



" The evolution from that one canon of all the Species and varieties of Syl- 

 logisms. 



" The abrogation of all the Special Laws of Syllogism. 



" A demonstration of the exclusive possibility of Three syllogistic Figures ; 

 and (on new grounds) the scientific and final abolition of the Fourth. 



"A manifestation that Figure is an unessential variation in syllogistic form ; 

 and the consequent absurdity of Reducing the syllogisms of the other figures to 

 the first. 



" An enouncement of one Organic Principle for each Figure. 



"A determination of the true number of the Legitimate Moods ; with 



" Their amplification in number (thirty-six) ; 



"Their numerical equality under all the figures ; and 



" Their relative equivalence, or virtual identity, throughout every schematic 

 difference. 



" That, in the second and third figures, the extremes holding both the same 

 relation to the middle term, there is not, as in the first, an opposition and sub- 

 ordination between a term major and a term minor, mutually containing and 

 contained, in the counter wholes of Extension and Comprehension. 



"Consequently, in the second and third figures, there is no determinate 

 major and minor premise, and there are two indifferent conclusions : whereas 

 in the first the premises are determinate, and there is a single proximate con- 

 clusion." 



This doctrine, like that of Mr. De Morgan previously noticed, is a real 

 addition to the syllogistic theory ; and has moreover this advantage over Mr. 

 De Morgan's " numerically definite Syllogism," that the forms it supplies are 

 really available as a test of the correctness of ratiocination ; since propositions 

 in the common form may always have their predicates quantified, and so be 

 made amenable to Sir W. Hamilton's rules. Considered however as a con- 

 tribution to the Science of Logic, that is, to the analysis of the mental pro- 

 cesses concerned in reasoning, the new doctrine appears to me, I confess, not 

 merely superfluous, but erroneous ; since the form in which it clothes proposi- 

 tions does not, like the ordinary form, express what is in the mind of the 

 speaker when he enunciates the proposition. I cannot think Sir William 

 Hamilton right in maintaining that the quantity of the predicate is "always 

 understood in thought." It is implied, but is not present to the mind of the 

 person who asserts the proposition. The quantification of the predicate, instead 



