104 



REASONING. 



Order in Time, Causation, or Resem- 

 blance. This, then, is the theory of 

 the Import of Propositions, reduced 

 to its ultimate elements : but there is 

 another and a less abstruse expression 

 for it, which, though stopping short 

 in an earlier stage of the analysis, is 

 sufficiently scientific for many of the 

 purposes for which such a general 

 expression is required. This expres- 

 sion recognises the commonly received 

 distinction between Subject and Attri- 

 bute, and gives the following as the 

 analysis of the meaning of proposi- 

 tions : — Every Proposition asserts, that 

 some given subject does or does not 

 possess some attribute ; or that some 

 attribute is or is not (either in all or 

 in some portion of the subjects in 

 which it is met with) conjoined with 

 some other attribute. 



We shall now for the present take 

 our leave of this portion of our inquiry, 

 and proceed to the peculiar problem 

 of the Science of Logic, namely, how 

 the assertions, of which we have 

 analysed the import, are proved or 

 disproved ; such of them, at least, as, 

 not being amenable to direct con- 

 sciousness or intuition, are appropriate 

 subjects of proof. 



We say of a fact or statement that it 

 is proved when we believe its truth by 

 reason of some other fact or statement 

 from which it is said to follow. Most 

 of the propositions, whether affirma- 

 tive or negative, universal, particular, 

 or singular, which we believe, are not 

 believed on their own evidence, but 

 on the ground of something previously 

 assented to, from which they are said 

 to be inferred. To infer a proposition 

 from a previous proposition or pro- 

 positions ; to give credence to it, or 

 claim credence for it, as a conclusion 

 from something else, is to reason, m 

 the most extensive sense of the term. 

 There is a narrower sense, in which 

 the name reasoning is confined to the 

 form of inference which is termed 

 ratiocination, and of which the syl- 

 logism is the general type. The 

 reasons for not conforming to this 

 restricted use of the term were stated 



in an earlier stage of our inquiry, and 

 additional motives will be suggested 

 by the considerations on which we are 

 now about to enter. 



§ 2. In proceeding to take into con- 

 sideration the cases in which infer- 

 ences can legitimately be drawn, we 

 shall first mention some cases in 

 which the inference is apparent, not 

 real ; and which require notice chiefly 

 that they may not be confounded with 

 cases of inference properly so called. 

 This occurs when the proposition 

 ostensibly inferred from another ap- 

 pears on analysis to be merely a re- 

 petition of the same, or part of the 

 same, assertion which was contained 

 in the first. All the cases mentioned 

 in books of Logic as examples of 

 sequipollency or equivalence of pro- 

 positions are of this nature. Thus, 

 if we were to argue. No man is incap- 

 able of reason, for every man is 

 rational ; or. All men are mortal, for 

 no man is exempt from death ; it 

 would be plain that we were not 

 proving the proposition, but only ap- 

 pealing to another mode of wording 

 it, which may or may not be more 

 readily comprehensible by the hearer, 

 or better adapted to suggest the real 

 proof, but which contains in itself no 

 shadow of proof. 



Another case is where, from an 

 universal proposition, we affect to 

 infer another which differs from it 

 only in being particular : as All A is 

 B, therefore Some A is B : No A is 

 B, therefore Some A is not B. This, 

 too, is not to conclude one proposition 

 from another, but to repeat a second 

 time something which had been as- 

 serted at first ; with the difference, 

 that we do not here repeat the whole 

 of the previous assertion, but only an 

 indefinite part of it. 



A third case is where the ante- 

 cedent having affirmed a predicate of 

 a given subject, the consequent affirms 

 of the same subject something already 

 connoted by the former predicate : as, 

 Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates 

 is a living creature ; where all that is 



