FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 147 



lar cases in which it is the whole process. Particulars alone are capable 

 of being subjected to observation; and all knowledge which is derived 

 from observation, begins, therefore, of necessity, in particulars ; but our 

 knowledge may, in cases of certain descriptions, be conceived as coming to 

 us from other sources than observation. It may present itself as coming 

 from testimony, which, on the occasion and for the purpose in hand, is ac- 

 cepted as of an authoritative character: and the information thus commu- 

 nicated, may be conceived to comprise not only particular facts but general 

 propositions, as when a scientific doctrine is accepted without examination 

 on the authority of writers, or a theological doctrine on that of Scripture. 

 Or the generalization may not be, in the ordinary sense, an assertion at all, 

 but a command ; a law, not in the philosophical, but in the moral and po- 

 litical sense of the term : an expression of the desire of a superior, that we, 

 or any number of other persons, shall conform our conduct to certain gen- 

 eral instructions. So far as this asserts a fact, namely, a volition of the 

 legislator, that fact is an individual fact, and the proposition, therefore, is 

 not a general proposition. But the description therein contained of the 

 conduct which it is the will of the legislator that his subjects should ob- 

 serve, is general. The proposition asserts, not that all men are any thing, 

 but that all men shall do something. 



In both these cases the generalities are the original data, and the partic- 

 ulars are elicited from them by a process which correctly resolves itself 

 into a series of syllogisms. The real nature, however, of the supposed de- 

 ductive process, is evident enough. The only point to be determined is, 

 whether the authority which declared the general proposition, intended to 

 include this case in it; and whether the legislator intended his command 

 to apply to the present case among others, or not. This is ascertained by 

 examining whether the case possesses the marks by which, as those author- 

 ities have signified, the cases which they meant to certify or to influence 

 may be known. The object of the inquiry is to make out the witness's or 

 the legislator's intention, through the indication given by their words. 

 This is a question, as the Germans express it, of hermeneutics. The opera- 

 tion is not a process of inference, but a process of interj^retation. 



In this last phrase we have obtained an expression which appears to me 

 to characterize, more aptly than any other, the functions of the syllogism\ 

 in all cases. When the premises are given by authority, the function of \ 

 Reasoning is to ascertain the testimony of a witness, or the will of a \ 

 legislator, by interpreting the signs in which the one has intimated his as- I 

 sertion and the other his command. In like manner, when the premises 1 

 are derived from observation, the function of Reasoning is to ascertain I 

 what we (or our predecessors) formerly thought might be inferred from i 

 the observed facts, and to do this by interpreting a memorandum of ours, 

 or of theirs. The memorandum reminds us, that from evidence, more or 

 less carefully weighed, it formerly appeared that a certain attribute might 

 be inferred wherever we perceive a certain mark. The proposition. All 

 men are mortal (for instance) shows that we have had experience from 

 which we thought it followed that the attributes connoted by the term man, | 

 are a mark of mortality. But when we conclude that the Duke of Wei- tf 

 lington is mortal, we do not infer this from the memorandum, but f rorak " 

 the former experience. All that we infer from the memorandum is ouri 

 own previous belief, (or that of those who transmitted to us the proposi-| 

 tion), concerning the inferences which that lormer experience would war- J 

 rant. \ «i 



