248 REASONING. 



stood its full force. When you admitted the major 

 premiss, you asserted the conclusion ; but, says Arch- 

 bishop Whately, you asserted it by implication merely: 

 this, however, can here only mean that you asserted 

 it unconsciously; that you did not know you were 

 asserting it ; but, if so, the difficulty revives in this 

 shape Ought you not to have known? Were you 

 warranted in asserting the general proposition without 

 having satisfied yourself of the truth of everything 

 which it fairly includes ? And if not, what then is 

 the syllogistic art but a contrivance for catching you 

 in a trap, and holding you fast in it ? 



3. From this difficulty there appears to be but 

 one issue. The proposition, that the Duke of Wel- 

 lington is mortal, is evidently an inference ; it is got 

 at as a conclusion from something else ; but do we, 

 in reality, conclude it from the proposition, All men 

 are mortal? I answer, no. 



The error committed is, I conceive, that of over- 

 looking the distinction between the two parts of the 

 process of philosophizing, the inferring part, and the 

 registering part ; and ascribing to the latter the 

 functions of the former. The mistake is that of 

 referring a man to his own notes for the origin of his 

 knowledge. If a man is asked a question, and is at 

 the moment unable to answer it, he may refresh his 

 memory by turning to a memorandum which he car- 

 ries about with him. But if he were asked, how the 

 fact came to his knowledge, he would scarcely answer, 

 because it was set down in his note-book : unless the 

 book was written, like the Koran, with a quill from 

 the wing of the angel Gabriel. 



Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of 

 Wellington is mortal, is immediately an inference 



