FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 



Oi 



sible to retain so great a multitude of 

 details ; while the knowledge which 

 those details afforded for future use, 

 and which would otherwise be lost 

 as soon as the observations were for- 

 gotten, or as their record became too 

 bulky for reference, is retained in a 

 commodious and immediately avail- 

 able shape by means of general lan- 

 guage. 



Against this advantage is to be set 

 the countervailing inconvenience, that 

 inferences originally made on insuffi- 

 cient evidence become consecrated, 

 and, as it were, hardened into general 

 maxims ; and the mind cleaves to 

 them from habit after it has outgrown 

 any liability to be misled by similar 

 fallacious appearances if they were 

 now for the first time presented ; but 

 having forgotten the particulars, it 

 does not think of revising its own 

 former decision. An inevitable draw- 

 back, which, however considerable in 

 itself, forms evidently but a small set- 

 off against the immense benefits of 

 general language. 



The use of the syllogism is in truth 

 no other than the use of general pro- 

 positions in reasoning. We can 

 reason without them ; in simple and 

 obvious cases we habitually do so ; 

 minds of great sagacity can do it in 

 cases not simple and obvious, provided 

 their experience supplies them with in- 

 stances essentially similar to every j 

 combination of circumstances likely to i 

 arise. But other minds, and the same 

 minds where they have not the same 

 pre-eminent advantages of personal 

 experience, are quite helpless without 

 the aid of general propositions, where- j 

 ever the case presents the smallest : 

 complication ; and if we made no 

 general propositions, few persons 

 would get much beyond those simple 

 inferences which are drawn by the 

 more intelligent of the brutes. Though 

 not necessary to reasoning, general pro- 

 positions are necessary to any consi- 

 derable progress in reasoning. It is, 

 therefore, natural and indispensable 

 to separate the process of investigation 

 ioto two parts ; fmd obtain general j 



formulae for determining what infer- 

 ences may be drawn, before the occa- 

 sion arises for drawing the inferences. 

 The work of drawing them is then that 

 of applying the formulae ; and the rules 

 of syllogism are a system of securities 

 for the correctness of the application. 



§ 6. To complete the series of con- 

 siderations connected with the philo- 

 sophical character of the syllogism, 

 it is requisite to consider, since the 

 syllogism is not the universal type of 

 the reasoning process, what is the real 

 type. This resolves itself into the 

 question, what is the nature of the 

 minor premise, and in what manner it 

 contributes to establishthe conclusion : 

 for as to the major, we now fully under- 

 stand, that the place which it nomi- 

 nally occupies in our reasonings, pro- 

 perly belongs to the individual facts 

 or observations of which it expresses 

 the general result ; the major itself 

 being no real part of the argument, 

 but an intermediate halting-place for 

 the mind, interposed by an artifice of 

 language between the real premises 

 and the conclusion, by way of a secu- 

 rity, which it is in a most material 

 degree, for the correctness of the pro- 

 cess. The minor, however, being an 

 indispensable part of the syllogistic 

 expression of an argument, without 

 doubt either is, or corresponds to, an 

 equally indispensable part of the argu- 

 ment itself, and we have only to in- 

 quire what part. 



It is perhaps worth while to notice 

 here a speculation of a philosopher to 

 whom mental science is much indebted, 

 but who, though a very penetrating, 

 was a very hasty thinker, and whose 

 want of due circumspection rendered 

 him fully as remarkable for what he 

 did not see, as for what he saw. I 

 allude to Dr. Thomas Brown, whose 

 theory of ratiocination is peculiar. 

 He saw the peti'io prinripii which is 

 inherent in every syllogism, if we con- 

 sider the majorto be itself the evidence 

 by which the conclusion is proved, in- 

 stead of being, what in fact it is, 

 an assertion of the existence of evi« 



