128 



REASONING. 



a memorandum of ours, or of theirs. 

 The memorandum reminds us, that 

 from evidence, more or less carefully 

 weighed, it formerly appeared that a 

 certain attribute might be inferred 

 wherever we perceive a certain mark. 

 The proposition, All men are mortal, 

 for instance, shows that we have had 

 experience from which we thought it 

 followed that the attributes connoted 

 by the term " man " are a mark of mor- 

 tality. But when we conclude that 

 the Duke of Wellington is mortal, we 

 do not infer this from the memoran- 

 dum, but from the former experience. 

 All that we infer from the memor- 

 andum is our own previous belief (or 

 that of those who transmitted to us the 

 proposition) concerning the inferences 

 which that former experience would 

 warrant. 



This view of the nature of the 

 syllogism renders consistent and in- 

 telligible what otherwise remains ob- 

 scure and confused in the theory of 

 Archbishop Whately and other en- 

 lightened defenders of the syllogistic 

 doctrine respecting the limits to which 

 its functions are confined. They affirm 

 in as explicit terms as can be used, 

 that the sole office of general reason- 

 ing is to prevent inconsistency in our 

 opinions ; to prevent us from assent- 

 ing to anything, the truth of which 

 would contradict something to which 

 we had previously on good grounds 

 given our assent. And they tell us, 

 that the sole ground which a syllogism 

 affords for assenting to the conclusion, 

 is that the supposition of its being 

 false, combined with the supposition 

 that the premises are true, would lead 

 to a contradiction in terms. Now 

 this would be but a lame account of 

 the real grounds which we have for 

 believing the facts which we learn 

 from reasoning, in contradistinction 

 to observation. The true reason why 

 we believe that the Duke of Welling- 

 ton will die, is that his fathers, and 

 our fathers, and all other persons who 

 were cotemporary with them, have 

 died. Those facts are the real pre- 

 mises of the reasoning. But we are 



not led to infer the conclusion from 

 those premises, by the necessity of 

 avoiding any verbal inconsistency. 

 There is no contradiction in supposing 

 that all those persons have died, and 

 that the Duke of Wellington may, 

 notwithstanding, live for ever. But 

 there would be a contradiction if we 

 first, on the ground of those same 

 premises, made a general assertion 

 including and covering the case of the 

 Duke of Wellington, and then refused 

 to stand to it in the individual case. 

 There is an inconsistency to be avoided 

 between the memorandum we make 

 of the inferences which may be justly 

 drawn in future cases, and the infer- 

 ences we actually draw in those cases 

 when they arise. With this view we 

 interpret our own formula, precisely 

 as a judge interprets a law ; in order 

 that we may avoid drawing any in- 

 ferences not conformable to our for- 

 mer intention, as a judge avoids giving 

 any decision not conformable to the 

 legislator's intention. The rules for 

 this interpretation are the rules of the 

 syllogism : and its sole purpose is to 

 maintain consistency between the con- 

 clusions we draw in every particular 

 case, and the previous general direc- 

 tions for drawing them ; whether 

 those general directions were framed 

 by ourselves as the result of induc- 

 tion, or were received by us from an 

 authority competent to give them. 



§ 5. In the above observations it 

 has, I think, been shown, that, though 

 there is always a process of reasoning 

 or inference where a syllogism is used, 

 the syllogism is not a correct analysis 

 of that process of reasoning or infer- 

 ence ; which is, on the contrary (when 

 not a mere inference from testimony) 

 an inference from particulars to par- 

 ticulars, authorised by a previous in- 

 ference from particulars to generals, 

 and substantially the same with it ; 

 of the nature, therefore, of Induction. 

 But while these conclusions appear to 

 me undeniable, I must yet enter a 

 protest, as strong as that of Arch- 

 bishop Whately himself, against the 



