EATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 135 



been called, an instrument of thought ; but it is one thing to be the instru- 

 ment, and another to be the exclusive subject upon which the instrument 

 is exercised. We think, indeed, to a considerable extent, by means of 

 names, but what we think of, are the things called by those names ; and 

 there can not be a greater error than to imagine that thought can be car- 

 ried on with nothing in our mind but names, or that we can make the 

 names think for us. 



§ 3. Those who considered the dictum de omni as the foundation of the 

 syllogism, looked upon arguments in a manner corresponding to the erro- 

 neous view which Hobbes took of propositions. Because there are some 

 propositions which are merely verbal, Hobbes, in order apparently that his 

 definition might be rigoi'ously universal, defined a proposition as if no 

 propositions declared any thing except the meaning of words. If Hobbes 

 was right ; if no further account than this could be given of the import of 

 propositions ; no theory could be given but the commonly received one, 

 of the combination of propositions in a syllogism. If the minor premise 

 asserted nothing more than that something belongs to a class, and if the 

 major premise asserted nothing of tliat class except that it is included in 

 another class, the conclusion would only be that what was included in the 

 lower class is included in the higher, and the result, therefore, nothing ex- 

 cept that the classification is consistent with itself. But we have seen that 

 it is no sufiicient account of the meaning of a proposition, to say that it 

 refers something to, or excludes something from, a class. Every proposi- 

 tion which conveys real information asserts a matter of fact, dependent on 

 the laws of natui-e, and not on classification. It asserts that a given object 

 does or does not possess a given attribute; or it asserts that two attri- 

 butes, or sets of attributes, do or do not (constantly or occasionally) co-ex- 

 ist. Since such is the purport of all propositions which convey any real 

 knowledge, and since ratiocination is a mode of acquiring real knowledge, 

 any theory of ratiocination which does not recognize this import of propo- 

 sitions, can not, we may be sure, be the true one. 



Applying this view of propositions to the two premises of a syllogism, 

 we obtain the following results. The major premise, which, as already 

 remarked, is always universal, asserts, that all things which have a certain 

 attribute (or attributes) have or have not along with it, a certain other at- 

 tribute (or attributes). The minor premise asserts that the thing or set 

 of things which are the subject of that premise, have the first-mentioned 

 attribute ; and the conclusion is, that they have (or that they have not), the 

 second. Thus in our former example. 



All men are mortal, 

 Socrates is a man, 



therefore 

 Socrates is mortal, 



the subject and predicate of the major premise are connotative terms, de- 

 noting objects and connoting attributes. The assertion in the major prem- 

 ise is, that along with one of the two sets of attributes, we always find 

 the other : that the attributes connoted by " man " never exist unless con- 

 joined with the attribute called mortality. The assertion in the minor prem- 

 ise is that the individual named Socrates possesses the former attributes; 

 and it is concluded that he possesses also the attribute mortality. Or, if 

 both the premises are general propositions, as / 



