FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OP THE SYLLOGISM. 153 



ponsable part of the premises will be as follows : " My father, and my fa- 

 tliei 's father, A, B, C, and an indefinite number of other persons, were mor- 

 tal;" which is only an expression in different words of the observed fact 

 that they have died. This is the major premise divested of the petitio 

 iyrincipii, and cut down to as much as is really known by direct evidence. 

 In order to connect this proposition with the conclusion Socrates is mor- 

 tal, the additional link necessary is such a proposition as the following : 

 ••Socrates resembles my father, and my father's father, and the other indi- 

 viduals specified." This proposition we assert when we say that Socrates 

 is a man. By saying so we likewise assert in what respect he resembles 

 them, namely, in the attributes connoted by the woi'd man. And we con- 

 clude that he further resembles them in the attribute mortality. 



§ 7. We have thus obtained what we were seeking, a universal type of 

 the reasoning process. We find it resolvable in all cases into the follow- 

 ing elements : Certain individuals have a given attribute ; an individual or 

 individuals resemble the former in certain other attributes ; therefore they 

 resemble them also in the given attribute. This type of ratiocination does 

 not claim, like the syllogism, to be conclusive from the mere form of the 

 expression ; nor can it possibly be so. That one proposition does or does 

 not assert the very fact which was already asserted in another, may appear 

 from the form of the expression, that is, from a comparison of the lan- 

 guage; but when the two propositions assert facts which are bona fide 

 different, whether the one fact proves the other or not can never appear 

 from the language, but must depend on other considerations. Whether, 

 from the attributes in which Socrates resembles those men who have here- 

 tofore died, it is allowable to infer that he resembles them also in being 

 mortal, is a question of Induction ; and is to be decided by the principles 

 or canons which we shall hereafter recognize as tests of the correct per- 

 formance of that great mental operation. 



Meanwhile, however, it is certain, as before remarked, that if this infer- 

 ence can be drawn as to Socrates, it can be drawn as to all others who re- 

 semble the observed individuals in the same attributes in which he resem- 

 bles them; that is (to express the thing concisely) of all mankind. If, 

 therefore, the argument be admissible in the case of Socrates, we are at lib- 

 erty, once for all, to treat the possession of the attributes of man as a mark, 

 or satisfactory evidence, of the attribute of mortality. This we do by lay- 

 ing down the universal proposition, All men are mortal, and interpreting 

 this, as occasion arises, in its application to Socrates and others. By this 

 means we establish a very convenient division of the entire logical opera- 

 tion into two steps ; first, that of ascertaining what attributes are marks 

 of mortality; and, secondly, whether any given individuals possess those 

 marks. And it will generally be advisable, in our speculations on the rea- 

 soning process, to consider this double operation as in fact taking place, 

 and all reasoning as carried on in the form into which it must necessai'ily 

 be thrown to enable us to apply to it any test of its correct perfoi'mance. 



Although, therefore, all processes of thought in which the ultimate prem- 

 ises are particulars, whether we conclude from particulars to a general for- 

 mula, or from particulars to other particulars according to that formula, are 

 equally Induction ; we shall yet, conformably to usage, consider the name 

 Induction as more peculiarly belonging to the process of establishing the 

 general proposition, and the remaining operation, which is substantially 

 that of interpreting the general proposition, we shall call by its usual name, 



