FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 225 



spoken of, and not to the things themselves ; I must yet 

 observe, that the idea of man, as an universal idea, the 

 common property of all rational creatures, cannot involve 

 anything but what is strictly implied in the name. If any one 

 includes in his own private idea of man, as no doubt is always 

 the case, some other attributes, such for instance as mortality, 

 he does so only as the consequence of experience, after having 

 satisfied himself that all men possess that attribute : so that 

 whatever the idea contains, in any person's mind, beyond what 

 is included in the conventional signification of the word, has 

 been added to it as the result of assent to a proposition ; 

 while Dr. Brown's theory requires us to suppose, on the con- 

 trary, that assent to the proposition is produced by evolving, 

 through an analytic process, this very element out of the 

 idea. This theory, therefore, may be considered as sufficiently 

 refuted; and the minor premise must be regarded as totally 

 insufficient to prove the conclusion, except with the assistance 

 of the major, or of that which the major represents, namely, 

 the various singular propositions expressive of the series of 

 observations, of which the generalization called the major 

 premise is the result 



In the argument, then, which proves that Socrates is 

 mortal, one indispensable part of the premises will be as 

 follows : " My father, and my father's father, A, B, C, and 

 an indefinite number of other persons, were mortal ;" which 

 is only an expression in different words of the observed fact 

 that they have died. This is the major premise divested of 

 the petitio principii, and cut down to as much as is really 

 known by direct evidence. 



In order to connect this proposition with the conclusion 

 Socrates is mortal, the additional link necessary is such a pro- 

 position as the following : " Socrates resembles my father, and 

 my father's father, and the other individuals specified." This 

 proposition we assert when we say that Socrates is a man. 

 By saying so we likewise assert in what respect he resembles 

 them, namely, in the attributes connoted by the word man. 

 And we conclude that he further resembles them in the attri- 

 bute mortality. 



VOL. i. 15 



