SECTIONS. THE PROGRESS OF METHODOLOGICAL THEORY. 39 



of fallacies 1 , and analogous sections, practically shrink into 

 insignificance before the syllogism itself. Here we are offered 

 a formal and infallible method of testing, a proposition, or at 

 least certain propositions, and this represents, therefore, a 

 discovery fraught with the utmost consequence in the realm 

 of ratiocination. Nor is there a doubt that Aristotle's syllogism 

 has entered the very marrow of social thought, and that even 

 his uncompromising opponents are deeply indebted to him. It 

 must be said also that many sophisms would never appear 

 plausible if men applied the syllogism more generally. 



The syllogism constitutes a formal method of testing the 

 soundness of a statement by showing how it necessarily follows 

 from certain accepted premises ; it does not represent the whole 

 of the reasoning process. Not only does it disregard the fact 

 that all but the rarest conclusions deal with probability and 

 not with certainty ; but unless employed as a merely mechanical 

 test of the reasoning process, it is meaningless. If any one had 

 greeted a neighbour of Socrates with "All men are mortal, Socra- 

 tes is a man, Therefore Socrates is mortal!" this neighbour 

 would have been at once concerned about the questioner's 

 sanity. He would have protested: "Have I asked you whether 

 all men are mortal, or had you any reason to believe that I 

 was interested in man's mortality?" and he might have added: 

 "Why should there be a reference to Socrates; why do you 

 draw a conclusion; and why should you have launched the 

 three sentences at n%y head at all ? " Even the proposer of the 

 above syllogism would meet it with an uneasy note of inter- 

 rogation if it welled up in his mind a propos of nothing in 

 particular. Manifestly, the syllogism presupposes the desire to 

 know whether Socrates is mortal, and this desire arises again 

 out of an extensive succession of interrelated and mostly 

 undetermined situations which cannot be reduced to a chain of 

 syllogisms, as will be evident from the arguments advanced in 

 the preceding Section. When we further consider, also in con- 

 sonance with the last Section, that knowledge is commonly 

 acquired in a fortuitous fashion, and that habits and the associa- 

 tive processes provide many short routes to a conclusion, it 

 should be readily granted that the syllogism does not reflect 

 the normal process of reflective thought. In pure reason, seeing 

 a mushroom, I argue: "All mushrooms are good to eat; this 

 is a mushroom; therefore it is good to eat"; but, in practice, 

 I feel hungry, I chance to see a mushroom in the wood where 

 I am strolling, and, without thinking, I take it and eat it, as 



1 The art of detecting fallacies is rendered almost superfluous when our 

 primary concern is with the facts underlying propositions. Under such con- 

 ditions terminological difficulties are reduced to a minimum. On the subject 

 of fallacies, Prof. Sidgwick's special work (Fallacies, London, 1883) may be 

 consulted with advantage. See also Mill's luminous and unconventional 

 exposition of the subject in Book 5 of his Logic. 



