142 EEASONING. 



tion is not a process of mere naming, it is also a process of inference. 

 From instances which we have observed, we feel warranted in concluding, 

 that what we found true in those instances, holds in all similar ones, past, 

 present, and future, however numerous they may be. We then, by that 

 valuable contrivance of language which enables us to speak of many as if 

 they were one, record all that we have observed, together with all that we 

 infer from our observations, in one concise expression ; and have thus only 

 one proposition, instead of an endless number, to remember or to commu- 

 nicate. The results of many observations and inferences, and instructions 

 for making innumerable inferences in unforeseen cases, are compressed 

 into one short sentence. 



When, therefore, we conclude from the death of John and Thomas, and 

 every other person we ever heard of in whose case the experiment had 

 been fairly tried, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal like the rest; we 

 may, indeed, pass through the generalization. All men are mortal, as an in- 

 termediate stage; but it is not in the latter half of the process, the de- 

 scent from all men to the Duke of Wellington, that the inference resides. 

 The inference is finished when we have asserted that all men are mortal. 

 What remains to be performed afterward is merely deciphering our own 

 notes. 



Archbishop Whately has contended that syllogizing, or reasoning from 

 generals to particulars, is not, agreeably to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode 

 of reasoning, but the philosophical analysis of the mode in which all men 

 reason, and must do so if they reason at all. With the deference due to so 

 high an authority, I can not help thinking that the vulgar notion is, in this 

 case, the more correct. If, from our experience of John, Thomas, etc., who 

 once were living, but are now dead, we are entitled to conclude that all hu- 

 man beings are mortal, we might surely without any logical inconsequence 

 have concluded at once from those instances, that the Duke of WelHngton 

 is mortal. The mortality of John, Thomas, and others is, after all, the 

 whole evidence we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not 

 one iota is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition. 

 Since the individual cases are all the evidence we can possess, evidence 

 which no logical form into which we choose to throw it can make greater 

 than it is; and since that evidence is either sufficient in itself, or, if insuf- 

 ficient for the one purpose, can not be sufficient for the other ; I am una- 

 ble to see why we should be forbidden to take the shortest cut from these 

 sufficient premises to the conclusion, and constrained to travel the " high 

 priori road," by the arbitrary fiat of logicians. I can not perceive why it 

 should be impossible to journey from one place to another unless we 

 "march up a hill, and then march down again." It may be the safest 

 road, and there may be a resting-place at the top of the hill, affording a 

 commanding view of the surrounding country; but for the mere purpose 

 of arriving at our journey's end, our taking that road is perfectly optional ; 

 it is a question of time, ti'ouble, and danger. 



Not only may we reason from particulars to particulars without passing 

 through generals, but we perpetually do so reason. All our earliest infer- 

 ences are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence we draw in- 

 ferences, but years elapse before Ave learn the xise of general language. 

 The child, who, having burned his fingers, avoids to thrust them again into 

 the fire, has reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the gen- 

 eral maxim. Fire burns. He knows from memory that he has been burn- 

 ed, and on this evidence believes, when he sees a candle, that if he puts his 



