"4 



REASONING. 



asserted of an indefinite number of 

 objects distinguished by a common 

 characteristic, and designated in con- 

 sequence by a common name. 



The other premise is always afiBrma- 

 tive, 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 which 

 something was aflfirmed or denied in 

 the major premise. It follows that 

 the attribute affirmed or denied of 

 the entire class may (if that affirma- 

 tion or denial was correct) be affirmed 

 or denied of the object or objects 

 alleged to be included in the class : 

 and this is precisely the assertion 

 made in the conclusion. 



Whether or not the foregoing is an 

 adequate account of the constituent 

 parts of the syllogism will be presently 

 considered ; but as far as it goes it is 

 a true account. It has accordingly 

 been generalised, and erected into a 

 logical maxim, on which all ratiocina- 

 tion is said to be founded, insomuch 

 that to reason and to apply the maxim 

 are supposed to be one and the same 

 thing. The maxim is, That whatever 

 can be affirmed (or denied) of a class, 

 may be affirmed (or denied) of every- 

 thing included in the class. This 

 axiom, supposed to be the basis of 

 the syllogistic theory, is termed 

 by logicians ths dictum de omni et 

 nullo. 



This maxim, however, when con- 

 sidered as a principle of reasoning, 

 appears suited to a system of meta- 

 physics once indeed generally received, 

 but which for the last two centuries 



ing, the new doctrine appears to me, I 

 confess, not merely superfluous but erron- 

 eous ; since tiie form in which it clothes 

 propositions does not, like the ordiuary 

 form, express wliat is in tiie mind of the 

 speaker when he enunciates the proposi- 

 tion. I cannot think Sir William Hamilton 

 right in maintaining that the quantity of 

 the predicate is "always understood in 

 tliovigiit." It is implied, but is not present 

 to the mind of the person who asserts the 

 prop sition. The quantification of the pre- 

 dicate, instead of being a mans of bring- 

 ing out more clearly the meaning of tlie 

 proposition, actually leads the mind out 

 iA th« proposition tnto another order of 



has been considered as finally aban- 

 doned, though there have not been 

 wanting in our own day attempts at 

 its revival. So long as what ar« 

 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 ex- 

 pressed the intercommunity of nature, 

 which it was necessary on that theory 

 that we should suppose to exist be- 

 tween those general substances and 

 the particular substances which were 

 subordinated to them. That every- 

 thing predicable of the universal was 

 predicable of the various individuals 

 contained under it, was then no 

 identical proposition, but a statement 

 of what was conceived as a funda- 

 mental law of the universe. The 

 assertion that the entire nature and 

 properties of the substantia secunda 

 formed part of the nature and pro- 

 perties of each of the individual sub- 

 stances 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 mean all men, but 

 something inherent in men, and vastly 

 superior to them in dignity. Now, 

 however, when it is kno^vn that a 

 class, an universal, a genus or species, 

 is not an entity per se, but neither 

 more nor less than the individual sub- 

 stances 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 



ideas. For when we say, All men are mor- 

 tal, we simply mean to affirm the attribute 

 mortality of all men ; without thinking at 

 all of the clasx mortal in the concrete, or 

 troubling ourselves about whether it con- 

 tains any other beings or not It is only 

 for some artificial purpose that we overlook 

 at the proposition in the aspect in which 

 the predicate also is thought of as a class- 

 name, either including the suV)ject only, 

 or the subject and something moie. (See 

 above, p. 60.) 



For a fuller discussion of this subject, 

 see the twenty-second chapter of a work 

 already referred to, ' ' An Examination of 

 Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy." 



