306 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



is a beast," distinctly advert in our minds to all those 

 various anatomical conditions which characterise the 

 class of beasts, but only to the fact of the predominance 

 in the whale's organisation of the marks which distin- 

 guish that class of animals. We can, however, if we 

 choose, turn back our mind, and mentally, or verbally, 

 refer to any one of such marks or characters, and recog- 

 nise the fact that the whale, inasmuch as it belongs to 

 the class of beasts, must have that particular character so 

 referred to one of those various marks which are com- 

 mon to the whole class. Then we may say to ourselves, 

 "The whale, being a beast, must have warm blood." 

 We in this manner bring forward into explicit recogni- 

 tion a character, the existence of which was implicitly 

 contained in the statement that it was a beast. This 

 character may not only have never been previously 

 thought of by us, but we may not have recognised the 

 fact at all. 



In repeating, then, the syllogism : 



All beasts have warm blood. 



The whale is a beast. 



Therefore the whale has warm blood, 



a new fact may become explicitly recognised which 

 previously was but latent, and so the syllogism can 

 impart knowledge it makes implicit truth explicit. 



Now the difference between explicit and implicit 

 knowledge is so great that the latter may not deerve to 

 be considered "knowledge" at all. No one will affirm 

 that a student by merely learning the axioms and defini- 

 tions of Euclid,* will, by having done so, have also 

 become at once acquainted with all the geometrical 



* See ante, p. 34. 



