FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF TlIK SYLLOGISM. 133 



But if lie reflected that this conclusion could not be justifi;il>lc unless 

 from the same evidence he was also warranted in concluding some gen- 

 eral proposition, as, for instance, that all Roman emperors are just 

 rulers ; he would immediately have thought of Nero, Domitian, and 

 other instances, which, showing the falsity of the general conclusion, and 

 therefore the insufficiency of the premisses, would have warned him 

 that those premisses could not prove in the instance of Commodus, 

 what they were inadequate to prove in any collection of cases in which 

 his was included. 



The advantage, in judging whetlier any controvei'ted inference is 

 legitimate, of referring to a parallel case, is universally acknowledged. 

 But by ascending to the general proposition, we bring under our view 

 not one parallel case only, but all possible parallel cases at once; all 

 cases to which the same set of evidentiary considerations are applicable. 



When, therefore, we argue from a number of known cases to another 

 case supposed to be analogous, it is always possible, and generally ad- 

 vantageous, to divert our argument into the circuitous channel of an 

 induction from those known cases to a general proposition, and a subse- 

 quent application of the general proposition to the unknown case. 

 This second part of the operation, which, as before observed, is essen- 

 tially a process of intei-pretation, will be resolvable into a syllogism or 

 a series of syllogisms, the majors of which will be general propositions 

 embracing whole classes of cases; every one of which propositions 

 must be true in all its extent, if our argument is maintainable. If, 

 therefore, any fact fairly coming within the range of one of these general 

 propositions, and consequently asserted by it, is known or -suspected 

 to be other than the proposition asserts it to be, this mode of stating 

 the argument causes us to know or to suspect that the original obser- 

 vations, which are the real grounds of our conclusion, are not sufficient 

 to support it. And in proportion to the greater chance of our detecting 

 the inconclusiveness of our evidence, will be the increased reliance we' 

 ai'e entitled to place in it if no such evidence of defect shall appear. 



The value, therefore, of the syllogistic form, and of the rules for 

 using it coiTectly, does not consist in their being the form and the rules 

 according to which our reasonings are necessarily, or even usually, 

 made ; but in their furnishing us with a mode in which those reason- 

 ings may always be represented, and which is admirably calcu- 

 lated, if they are inconclusive, to bring their inconclusiveness to light. 

 An induction from particulars to generals, followed by a syllogistic 

 process from those generals to other particulars, is a form in which we 

 may always state our reasonings if we please. It is not a form in 

 which we must reason, but it is a form in which we may reason, and 

 into which it is indispensable to throw our reasoning, when there is 

 any doubt of its validity ; though when the case is familiar and little 

 complicated, and there is no suspicion of eiTor, we may, and do, reason 

 at once from the known particular cases to unknown ones. 



These are the uses of the syllogism, as a mode of verifying any 

 given argument. Its ulterior uses, as respects the general course of 

 our intellectual operations, hardly require illustration, being in fact the 

 acknowledged uses of general language. They amount substantially 

 to this, that the inductions may be made once for all : a single careful ; 

 inten'ogation of experience may suffice, and the result may be regis- 

 tered in the form of a general proposition, which is committed to 



