RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 133 



cording as this is affirmative or negative, the conclusion is so too. All 

 ratiocination, therefore, starts from a general proposition, principle, or as- 

 sumption : a proposition in which a predicate is affirmed or denied of an 

 entire class; that is, in which some attribute, or the negation of some 

 attribute, is asserted of an indefinite number of objects distinguished 

 by a common characteristic, and designated, in consequence, by a common 

 name. 



The other premise is always affirmative, and asserts that something (which 

 may be either an individual, a class, or part of a class) belongs to, or is in- 

 cluded in, the class respecting which something was affirmed or denied in 

 the major premise. It follows that the attribute affirmed or denied of the 

 entire class may (if that affirmation or denial was correct) be affirmed or 

 denied of the object or objects alleged to be included in the class: and this 

 is precisely the assertion made in the conclusion. 



Whether or not the foregoing is an adequate account of the constituent 

 parts of the syllogism, will be presently considered ; but as far as it goes it 

 is a true account. It has accordingly been generalized, and erected into a 

 logical maxim, on which all ratiocination is said to be founded, insomuch 

 that to reason, and to apply the maxim, are supposed to be one and the 

 same thing. The maxim is, That whatever can be affirmed (or denied) of 

 a class, may be affirmed (or denied) of every thing included in the class. 

 This axiom, supposed to be the basis of the syllogistic theory, is termed by 

 ogicians the dictum de omni et nullo. 



This maxim, however, when considered as a principle of reasoning, ap- 

 pears suited to a system of metaphysics once indeed generally received, but 

 A'hich for the last two centuries has been considered as finally abandoned, 

 liough there have not been wanting in our own day attempts at its revival. 

 ■50 long as what are termed Universals were regarded as a peculiar kind of 

 nubstances, having an objective existence distinct from the individual ob 

 ; ects classed under them, the dictum de om7ii conveyed an important mean- 

 ing; because it expressed the intercommunity of nature, which it was nec- 

 essary on that theory that we should suppose to exist between those gen- 

 < ral substances and the particular substances which were subordinated to 

 liiem. That every thing predicable of the universal was predicable of the 

 ^ arious individuals contained under it, was then no identical proposition, 

 I'Ut a statement of Avhat was conceived as a fundamental law of the uni- 

 A erse. The assertion that the entire nature and properties of the sicbstan- 

 t'a secujida formed part of the nature and properties of each of the indi- 

 ^ idual substances called by the same name ; that the properties of Man, for 

 c xample, were properties of all men ; was a proposition of real significance 

 ■^ hen man did not mean all men, but something inherent in men, and vast- 

 1 r superior to them in dignity. Now, however, when it is known that a 

 c ass, a universal, a genus or species, is not an entity per se, but neither 

 T lore nor less than the individual substances themselves which are placed 

 i I the class, and that there is nothing real in the matter except those objects, 

 a common name given to them, and common attributes indicated by the 

 r ime; what, I should be glad to know, do we learn by being told, that 

 \ hatever can be affirmed of a class, may be affirmed of every object con- 

 t lined in the class? The class is nothing but the objects contained in it: 

 a id the dictum de omni merely amounts to the identical proposition, that 

 V hatever is true of certain objects, is true of each of those objects. If all 

 r itiocination were no more than the application of this maxim to particular 

 c ises, the syllogism would indeed be, what it has so often been declared to 



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