204 REASONING. 



though unable to dispute it, have usually exhibited a strong 

 disposition to explain it away, this was not because they could 

 discover any flaw in the argument itself, but because the 

 contrary opinion seemed to rest on arguments equally indis- 

 putable. Tn the syllogism last referred to, for example, or 

 in any of those which we previously constructed, is it not 

 evident that the conclusion may, to the person to whom the 

 syllogism is presented, be actually and bond fide a new truth ? 

 Is it not matter of daily experience that truths previously 

 unthought of, facts which have not been, and cannot be, 

 directly observed, are arrived at by way of general reason- 

 ing? We believe that the Duke of Wellington is mortal. 

 We do not know this by direct observation, so long as he is 

 not yet dead. If we were asked how, this being the case, we 

 know the duke to be mortal, we should probably answer, 

 Because all men are so. Here, therefore, we arrive at the 

 knowledge of a truth not (as yet) susceptible of observation, by 

 a reasoning which admits of being exhibited in the following 

 syllogism : 



All men are mortal, 



The Duke of Wellington is a man, 

 therefore 



The Duke of Wellington is mortal. 



And since a large portion of our knowledge is thus acquired, 

 logicians have persisted in representing the syllogism as a 

 process of inference or proof; though none of them has cleared 

 up the difficulty which arises from the inconsistency between 

 that assertion, and the principle, that if there be anything in 

 the conclusion which was not already asserted in the pre- 

 mises, the argument is vicious. For it is impossible to attach 

 any serious scientific value to such a mere salvo, as the dis- 

 tinction drawn between being involved by implication in the 

 premises, and being directly asserted in them. When Arch- 

 bishop Whately says* that the object of reasoning is " merely 

 to expand and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and 

 implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a person 



* Logic, p. 239 (9th ed.). 



