FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 141 



implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a person to perceive 

 and acknowledge the full force of that which he has admitted," he does 

 not, I think, meet the real difficulty requiring to be explained, namely, how 

 it happens that a science, like geometry, can be all " wrapped up " in a 

 few definitions and axioms. Nor does this defense of the syllogism differ 

 much from what its assailants urge against it as an accusation, when they 

 charge it with being of no use except to those who seek to press the con- 

 sequences of an admission into which a person has been entrapped without 

 having considered and understood its full force. When you admitted the 

 major premise, you asserted the conclusion; but, says Archbishop Whate- 

 ly, you asserted it by implication merely : this, however, can here only 

 mean that you asserted it unconsciously ; that you did not know you were 

 asserting it ; but, if so, the difficulty revives in this shape — Ought you not 

 to have known? Were you warranted in asserting the general proposi- 

 tion without having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing which it 

 fairly includes? And if not, is not the syllogistic 2iY% prima facie what its 

 assailants affirm it to be, a contrivance for catching you in a trap, and hold- 

 ing you fast in it ?* 



§ 3. From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue. The propo- 

 sition that the Duke of Wellington is mortal, is evidently an inference ; it 

 is got at as a conclusion from something else ; but do we, in reality, con- 

 clude it from the proposition. All men are mortal? I answer, no. 



The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking the distinction be- 

 tween two parts of the process of philosophizing, the inferring part, and the 

 registering part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the former. 

 The mistake is that of referring a person to his own notes for the origin of 

 his knowledge. If a person is asked a question, and is at the moment una- 

 ble to answer it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum 

 which he carries about with him. But if he were asked, how the fact came 

 to his knowledge, he would scarcely answer, because it was set down in his 

 note-book : unless the book was written, like the Koran, with a quill from 

 the wing of the angel Gabriel. 



Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington is mortal, is 

 immediately an inference from the proposition. All men are mortal; whence 

 do we derive our knowledge of that general truth? Of course from ob- 

 servation. Now, all which man can observe are individual cases. From 

 these all general truths must be drawn, and into these they may be again 

 resolved ; for a general truth is but an aggregate of particular truths ; a 

 comprehensive expression, by which an indefinite number of individual 

 facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general proposition is not 

 merely a compendious form for recording and preserving in the memory a 

 number of particular facts, all of which have been observed. Generaliza- 



* It is hardly necessary to say, that I am not contending for any such absurdity as that we 

 actually "ought to have known" and considered the case of every individual man, past, pres- 

 ent, and future, before affirming that all men are mortal : although this interpretation has been, 

 strangely enough, put upon the preceding observations. There is no difference between me 

 and Archbishop Whately, or any other defender of the syllogism, on the pi*actical part of the 

 matter; I am only pointing out an inconsistency in the logical theory of it, as conceived by 

 almost all writers. I do not say that a person who affirmed, before the Duke of Wellington 

 was born, that all jpen are mortal, knew that the Duke of Wellington was mortal ; but I do 

 say that he asserted it ; and I ask for an explanation of the apparent logical fallacy, of ad- 

 ducing in proof of the Duke of Wellington's mortality, a general statement which presupposes 

 it. Finding no sufficient resolution of this difficulty in any of the writers on Logic, I have 

 attempted to supply one. 



