222 



REASONING. 



or as their record became too bulky for reference, is retained 

 in a commodious and immediately available shape by means 

 of general language. 



Against this advantage is to be set the countervailing 

 inconvenience, that inferences originally made on insufficient 

 evidence, become consecrated, and, as it were, hardened into 

 general maxims ; and the mind cleaves to them from habit, 

 after it has outgrown any liability to be misled by similar 

 fallacious appearances if they were now for the first time pre- 

 sented ; but having forgotten the particulars, it does not 

 think of revising its own former decision. An inevitable 

 drawback, which, however considerable in itself, forms evi- 

 dently but a small set-off against the immense benefits of 

 general language. 



The use of the syllogism is in truth no other than the use 

 of general propositions in reasoning. We can reason with- 

 out them ; in simple and obvious cases we habitually do so ; 

 minds of great sagacity can do it in cases not simple and 

 obvious, provided their experience supplies them with in- 

 stances essentially similar to every combination of circum- 

 stances likely to arise. But other minds, and the same minds 

 where they have not the same pre-eminent advantages of per- 

 sonal experience, are quite helpless without the aid of general 

 propositions, wherever the case presents the smallest complica- 

 tion ; and if we made no general propositions, few persons 

 would get much beyond those simple inferences which are 

 drawn by the more intelligent of the brutes. Though not 

 necessary to reasoning, general propositions are necessary to 

 any considerable progress in reasoning. It is, therefore, 

 natural and indispensable to separate the process of investiga- 

 tion into two parts ; and obtain general forrnulse for determin- 

 ing what inferences may be drawn, before the occasion arises 

 for drawing the inferences. The work of drawing them is 

 then that of applying the formula ; and the rules of syllo- 

 gism are a system of securities for the correctness of the 

 application. 



6. To complete the series of considerations connected 



