116 REASOXING. 



tuous, and the evidence to prove it were the example of Aristides ; a 

 syllogism in the third figure, 



Aristides was virtuous, 



Aristides was a pagan, 

 therefore 



Some pagan was \artuous, 

 would be a more natural mode of stating the argument, and would 

 carry conviction more instantly home, than the same ratiocination 

 sti-ained into the first figure, thus — 



Aristides was virtuous, 



Some pagan was Aristides, 

 therefore 



Some pagan was virtuous. 



A German philofsopher, Lambert, whose Neues Organon (published 

 in the year 1TC4) contains among other things the most elaborate and 

 complete exposition of the syllogistic doctrine which I have happened 

 to meet with, has expressly examined what sorts of arguments fall 

 most naturally and suitably into each of the four figures ; and his solu- 

 tion is characterized by great higenuity and clearness of thought * 

 The argument, however, is one and the same, in whichever figure it is 

 expressed ; since, as Ave have already seen, the premisses of a syllo- 

 gism in the second, thuxl, or fourth figm-e, and those of the syllogism 

 in the first fip-ure to which it may be reduced, are the same premisses, 

 in everything except language, or, at least, as much of them as con- 

 tributes to the proof of the conclusion is the same. We are therefore 

 at liberty, in conformity with the general opinion of logicians, to con- 

 sider the two elementary fonns of the first figure as the universal 

 types of all coiTect ratiocination ; the one, when the conclusion to be 

 proved is affinnative, the other, when it is negative ; even though cer- 

 tain aro-uments may have a tendency to clothe themselves in the forms 

 of the second, third, and fourth figures ; which, however, cannot possi- 

 bly happen with the only class of arguments which are of fii'st-rate 

 scientific importance, those in which the conclusion is an universal 

 affinnative, such conclusions being susceptible of proof in the first 

 figui'e alone. 



§ 2. On examining, then, these two genei-al formulae, we find that in 

 both of them one premiss, the major, is an universal proposition ; and 



* His conclusions are, " The first figure is suited to the discovery or proof of the proper- 

 ties of a thing ; the-second to the discovery or proof of the distinctions between things ; 

 the third to the discovery or proof of instances and exceptions ; the fourth to the discovery, 

 or exclusion, of the ditferent species of a genus." The reference of syllogisms m the last 

 three figures to the dictum de omni et nulla is, in Lambert's view, strained and unnatural : 

 to each of the three belongs, according to him, a separate axiom, coordinate and of equal 

 authority with that dictum, and to which he gives the names of dictum de diverso for the 

 second figure, dictum de exemplo for the third, and dictuin de reciproco for the fourth. See 

 part i. or Dianoiologie, chap. iv. % 229 et seqq. . 



Were it not that the views I am about to propound on the functions and ultimate foun- 

 dation of the syllogism render such distinctions as these of very subordinate importance, I 

 should have availed" myself largely of this and other speculations of Lambert ; who has 

 displayed, within the limits of the received theory of the syllogism, an ongmahty for which 

 it was scarcely to be supposed that there could still have been room on so exhansted a 

 subject, and whose book may be strongly recommended to those who may attempt still 

 further to improve the excellent manuals we already possess of this elementary portion 

 the Art of Reasoning. 



