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CHAPTER I. 

 OF INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL. 



1 . IN the preceding Book, we have been occupied 

 not with the nature of Proof, but with the nature of 

 Assertion : the import conveyed by a Proposition , 

 whether that Proposition be true or false ; not the 

 means by which to discriminate true from false Pro- 

 positions. The proper subject, however, of Logic is 

 Proof. Before we could understand what Proof is, 

 it was necessary to understand what that is to which 

 proof is applicable ; what that is which can be a subject 

 of belief or disbelief, of affirmation or denial ; what, in 

 short, the different kinds of Propositions assert. 



This preliminary inquiry we have prosecuted to a 

 lefinite result. Assertion, in the first place, relates 

 ither to the meaning of words, or to some property 

 of the things which words signify. Assertions re- 

 specting the meaning of words, among which defini- 

 tions are the most important, hold a place, and an 

 indispensable one, in philosophy ; but as the meaning 

 of words is essentially arbitrary, this class of assertions 

 are not susceptible of truth or falsity, nor therefore 

 of proof or disproof. Assertions respecting Things, 

 or what may be called Real Propositions in contra- 

 distinction to verbal ones, are of various sorts. We 

 have analyzed the import of each sort, and have ascer- 

 tained the nature of the things they relate to, and 

 the nature of what they severally assert respecting 

 those things. We found that whatever be the form 

 of the proposition, and whatever its nominal subject 

 or predicate, the real subject of every proposition is 



