114 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. [CIIAP. 



two minutes of manipulation. And not only are those 

 conclusions easily reached, but they are demonstratively 

 true, because every step of the process involves nothing 

 more obscure than the three fundamental Laws of Thought. 



The Order of Premises. 



Before quitting the subject of deductive reasoning, I 

 may remark that the order in which the premises of an 

 argument are placed is a matter of logical indifference. 

 Much discussion has taken place at various times con- 

 cerning the arrangement of the premises of a syllogism ; 

 and it has been generally held, in accordance with the 

 opinion of Aristotle, that the so-called major premise, 

 containing the major term, or the predicate of the con- 

 clusion, should stand first. This distinction however falls 

 to the ground in our system, since the proposition is 

 reduced to an identical form, in which there is no distinc- 

 tion of subject and predicate. In a strictly logical point 

 of view the order of statement is wholly devoid of 

 significance. The premises are simultaneously coexistent, 

 and are not related to each other according to the properties 

 of space and time. Just as the qualities of the same 

 object are neither before nor after each other in nature 

 (P- 33)> an d ar e only thought of in some one order owing 

 to the limited capacity of mind, so the premises of an 

 argument are neither before nor after each other, and are 

 only thought of in succession because the mind cannot 

 grasp many ideas at once. The combinations of the 

 logical alphabet are exactly the same in whatever order 

 the premises be treated on the logical slate or machine. 

 Some difference may doubtless exist as regards convenience 

 to human memory. The mind may take in the results 

 of an argument more easily in one mode of statement 

 than another, although there is no real difference in the 

 logical results. But in this point of view I think that 

 Aristotle and the old logicians were clearly wrong. It is 

 more easy to gather the conclusion that " all A's are C's " 

 from " all A's are B's and all B's are C's," than from the 

 same propositions in inverted order, " all B's are C's and 

 all A's are B's. 



