136 REASONING. 



idea of man, as an universal idea, the common property of all rational 

 crealures, cannot involve anything but what is strictly implied in the 

 name. If any one includes in his own private idea of man, as no 

 doubt is almost always the case, some other attributes, such for 

 instance as mortality, he does so only as the conseqvxence of experi- 

 ence after having satisfied himself that all men possess that attribute : 

 so that wiiatever the idea contains, in any person's mind, beyond what 

 is included iu the conventional signification of the Avord, has been added 

 to it as the result of assent to a proposition ; while Dr, Brown's theory 

 requires us to suppose, on the contrary, that assent to the proposition 

 is produced by evolving, through an analytic process, this very element 

 out of the idea. This theory, therefore, may be considered as 

 sufficiently refuted, and the minor premiss must be regarded as totally 

 insufficient to prove the conclusion,, except with the assistance of the 

 major, or of that which the major represents, namely, the various 

 singular propositions expressive of the series of obsei'vations, of which 

 the generalization called the major premiss is the result. 



In the argument, then, which proves that Socrates is mortal, one 

 indispensable part of the premisses will be as follows : " My father, 

 and my father's ' father, A, B, C, and an indefinite number of other 

 persons, were mortal;" which is only an exjjression in different words 

 of the observed fact that they have died. This is the major premiss, 

 divested of the petitio princ'qni, and cut down to as much as is really 

 known by direct evidence. 



In order to connect this proposition with the conclusion, Socrates is 

 mortal, the additional link necessary is such a proposition as the fol- 

 lowing : " Socrates resembles my father, and my father's father, and 

 the other individuals specified." This proposition we assert when we 

 say that Socrates is a man. .By saying so we likewise assert in what 

 respect he resembles them, namely, in the attribvites connoted by the 

 word man. And fi-om this we conclude that he further resembles 

 them in the attribute mortality. 



§ 7. We -have thus obtained what we were seeking, an universal 

 type of the reasoning process. We find it resolvable in all cases into 

 the following elements : Certain individuals have a given attribute ; 

 an indixddual or individuals resemble the former in certain other attri- 

 butes ; therefore they resemble them also in the given attribute. This 

 type of ratiocination does not claim, like the syllogism, to be conclu- 

 sive from the mere form of the expression ; nor can it possibly be so. 

 That one proposition does or does not assert the very fact which was 

 already asserted in another, may appear from the form of the expres- 

 sion, that is, from a comparison of the language ; but when the two 

 propositions assert facts which are bonajide different, whether the one 

 fact proves the other or not can never appear from the language, but 

 must depend upon other considerations. Whether, from the attributes 

 in which Socrates resembles those men who have heretofore died, it 

 is allowable to infer that he resembles them also in being mortal, is a 

 question of Induction ; and is to be decided by the principles or canons 

 which we shall hereafter recognize as tests of the coirect performance 

 of that great mental operation. 



Meanwhile, however, it is certain, as before remarked, that if this 

 inference can be drawn as to Socrates, it can be drawn as to all others 



