FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 155 



they have been correctly performed; but logicians do not add a third 

 premise to the syllogism, to express this act of recognition. A careful 

 copyist verifies his transcript by collating it with the original ; and if no 

 error appears, he recognizes that the transcript has been correctly made. 

 But we do not call the examination of the copy a part of the act of copying. 



The conclusion in an induction is inferred from the evidence itself, and 

 not from a recognition of the sufficiency of the evidence ; as I infer that 

 my friend is walking toward me because I see him, and not because I rec- 

 ognize that my eyes are open, and that eyesight is a means of knowledge. 

 In all operations which require care, it is good to assure ourselves that 

 the process has been performed accurately; but the testing of the proc- 

 ess is not the process itself; and, besides, may have been omitted alto- 

 gether, and yet the process be correct. It is precisely because that opera- 

 tion is omitted in ordinary unscientific reasoning, that there is any thing 

 gained in certainty by throwing reasoning into the syllogistic form. To 

 make sure, as far as possible, that it shall not be omitted, we make the test- 

 ing operation a part of the reasoning process itself. We insist that the 

 inference from particulars to particulars shall pass through a general propo- 

 sition. But this is a security for good reasoning, not a condition of all rea- 

 soning; and in some cases not even a security. Our most familiar infer- 

 ences are all made before we learn the use of general propositions ; and a 

 person of untutored sagacity will skillfully apply his acquired experience 

 to adjacent cases, though he would bungle grievously in fixing the limits 

 of the appropriate; general theorem. But though he may conclude i-ightly, 

 he never, pi-operly speaking, knows whether he has done so or not; he has 

 not tested his reasoning. Now, this is precisely what forms of reasoning 

 do for us. We do hbt need them to enable us to reason, but to enable us 

 to know whether we reason correctly. 



In still further answer to the objection, it may be added that — even when 

 the test has been applied, and the sufficiency of the evidence recognized — 

 if it is sufficient to support the general proposition, it is sufficient also to 

 support an inference from particulars to particulars without passing 

 through the general proposition. The inquirer who has logically satisfied 

 himself that the conditions of legitimate induction were realized in the 

 cases A, B, C, would be as much justified in concluding directly to the 

 Duke of Wellington as in concluding to all men. The general conclusion 

 is never legitimate, unless the particular one would be so too ; and in no 

 sense, intelligible to me, can the particular conclusion be said to be drawn 

 from the general one. Whenever there is ground for drawing any conclu- 

 sion at all from particular instances, there is ground for a general conclu- 

 sion ; but that this general conclusion should be actually drawn, however 

 useful, can not be an indispensable condition of the validity of the inference 

 in the particular case. A man gives away sixpence by the same power by 

 which he disposes of his whole fortune ; but it is not necessary to the le- 

 gality of the smaller act, that he should make a formal assertion of his right 

 to the greater one. 



Some additional remarks, in reply to minor objections, are appended.* 



♦ A writer in the "British Quarterly Review" (August, 1846), in a review of ihis treatise, 

 endeavors to show that there is no petitio principii in the syllogism, by denying that the 

 proposition. All men are mortal, asserts or assumes that Socrates is mortal. In support of 

 this denial, he ai-gues that we may, and in fact do, admit the general proposition that all men 

 are mortal, without having particularly examined the case of Socrates, and even without 

 knowing whether the individual so named is a man or something else. But this of course 



