214 REASONING. 



being chosen as a specimen or paradigm of the whole class of 

 cases included in the theorem, there can be no ground for 

 making the assumption in that case which does not exist 

 in every other ; and to deny the assumption as a general 

 truth, is to deny the right of making it in the particular 

 instance. 



There are, undoubtedly, the most ample reasons for stating 

 both the principles and the theorems in their general form, 

 and these will be explained presently, so far as explanation is 

 requisite. But, that unpractised learners, even in making use 

 of one theorem to demonstrate another, reason rather from 

 particular to particular than from the general proposition, is 

 manifest from the difficulty they find in applying a theorem 

 to a case in which the configuration of the diagram is 

 extremely unlike that of the diagram by which the original 

 theorem was demonstrated. A difficulty which, except in 

 cases of unusual mental power, long practice can alone 

 remove, and removes chiefly by rendering us familiar with all 

 the configurations consistent with the general conditions of the 

 theorem. 



4. From the considerations now adduced, the following 

 conclusions seem to be established. All inference is from par- 

 ticulars to particulars : General propositions are merely regis- 

 ters of such inferences already made, and short formulae for 

 making more : The major premise of a syllogism, conse- 

 quently, is a formula of this description : and the conclusion 

 is not an inference drawn from the formula, but an inference 

 drawn according to the formula : the real logical antecedent, 

 or premise, being the particular facts from which the general 

 proposition was collected by induction. Those facts, and the 

 individual instances which supplied them, may have been for- 

 gotten ; but a record remains, not indeed descriptive of the 

 facts themselves, but showing how those cases may be distin- 

 guished, respecting which the facts, when known, were consi- 

 dered to warrant a given inference. According to the indica- 

 tions of this record we draw our conclusion ; which is, to all 

 intents and purposes, a conclusion from the forgotten facts. 



