RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISiM. 117 



according as tins is affirmative or negative, the conclusion is so too. 

 AH ratiocination, therefore, starts from a general proposition, principle, 

 or assumption : a proposition in which a predicate is affirmed or denied 

 of an entire class; that is, in which some attribute, or the negation of 

 some attribute, is asserted of an hidehnite number of objects, distin- 

 guished by a common characteristic, and designated, in consequence, 

 by a common name. • 



Tlie other premiss is alv/ays affirmative, and asserts that something 

 (which may be either an individual, a class, or part of a class), belongs 

 to, or is included in, the class, respecting vs^hich something was affirmed' 

 or denied in the major premiss. It follows that the attribute affirmed! 

 or denied of the entire class may (if there was truth in that affirmation 

 or denial) be affirmed or denied of the object or objects alleged to be 

 included in the class : and this ia precisely the assertion made in the 

 conclusion. 



Whether or not the foregoing is an adequate account of the coii- 

 stituent parts of the syllogism, will be presently considered; but as 

 far as it goes it is a true account. It has accordingly been generaUzed 

 and erected into a logical maxim, on which all ratiocination is said to 

 be founded, insomuch that to reason and to apply the maxim are 

 su|)posed to be one and the same thing. The maxim is. That what- 

 ever can be affinned (or denied) of a class, may be affirmed (or denied) 

 of everything included in the class. This axiom, supposed to be the 

 basis of the syllogistic theory, is termed by logicians the dictum de 

 omni et nullo. ' 



This maxim, however, when considered as a principle of reasoning, 

 appears suited to a system of metaphysics once indeed generally 

 received, but which for the last two centuries has been considered as 

 finally abandoned, thovigh thei-e have not been wanting, in our o^^^r 

 day, attempts at its revival. So long as what were termed Universals 

 were regarded as a peculiar kind of substances, having an objective 

 existence distinct from the individual objects classed under them, the 

 dictum de omni conveyed an important meaning ; because it expressed 

 the intercommunity of nature, which it was necessary upon that theory 

 that we should suppose to exist between those general substances and 

 the particular substances which were subordinated to them. That 

 everything predicable of the universal was predicable of the various 

 individuals contained inider it, was then no identical proposition, but 

 a statement of what was conceived as a fimdamental law of the uni- 

 verse. The assertion that the entire nature and properties of the 

 substantia secunda fonnod part of the properties of each of the 

 bidividual substances called by the same name ; that the properties of 

 Man, for example, were properties of all men ; was a proposition of 

 real significance when Man did not viean all men, but something 

 inherent in men, and vastly superior to them in dignity. Now, how- 

 ever, when it is known that a class, an universal, a genus or species, is 

 not an entity per se, but neither more nor less than the individual 

 substances themselves which are placed in the class, and that there is 

 nothing real in the matter except those objects, a common name given 

 to them, and common attributes indicated by the name ; what, I should 

 be glad to know, do \vq leani by being told, that whatever can bo 

 affirmed of a class, may be affinned of every object contained in the 

 class? The class is nothing but the objects contained in it: and the 



