RATIOCINATION, OB SYLLOGISM. 197 



that what was included in the lower class is included in the 

 higher, and the result, therefore, nothing except that the classi- 

 fication is consistent with itself. But we have seen that it 

 is no sufficient account of the meaning of a proposition, to say 

 that it refers something to, or excludes something from, a class. 

 Every proposition which conveys real information asserts a 

 matter of fact, dependent on the laws of nature, and not 

 on classification. It asserts that a given object does or 

 does not possess a given attribute; or it asserts that two 

 attributes, or sets of attributes, do or do not (constantly 

 or occasionally) coexist. Since such is the purport of all 

 propositions which convey any real knowledge, and since 

 ratiocination is a mode of acquiring real knowledge, any 

 theory of ratiocination which does not recognise this 

 import of propositions, cannot, we may be sure, be the true 

 one. 



Applying this view of propositions to the two premises of 

 a syllogism, we obtain the following results. The major pre- 

 mise, which, as already remarked, is always universal, asserts, 

 that all things which have a certain attribute (or attributes) 

 have or have not along with it, a certain other attribute 

 (or attributes). The minor premise asserts that the thing 

 or set of things which are the subject of that premise, have 

 the first-mentioned attribute ; and the conclusion is, that they 

 have (or that they have not) the second. Thus in our former 

 example, 



All men are mortal, 



Socrates is a man, 

 therefore 



Socrates is mortal, 



the subject and predicate of the major premise are connotative 

 terms, denoting objects and connoting attributes. The asser- 

 tion in the major premise is, that along with one of the two 

 sets of attributes, we always find the other : that the attri- 

 butes connoted by "man" never exist unless conjoined with 

 the attribute called mortality. The assertion in the minor 

 premise is that the individual named Socrates possesses the 

 former attributes ; and it is concluded that he possesses also the 



