the lower animals; if the theory of evolution be true, man is not a special creation: therefore if man is not a special creation, he is descended from the lower animals. 77. "The learned are pedants; A is a learned man: therefore A is a pedant." 78. "If it be fated that you recover from your present disease, whether you call in a doctor or not, you will recover; again, if it be fated that you do not recover from your present disease, whether you call in a doctor or not, you will not recover; but one or other of the contradictories is fated: therefore to call in a doctor is of no consequence."-Vide Hamilton, Vol. 1. pp. 462, 464. 79. "Perception is a cognition or act of knowledge; a cognition is an immanent act of mind; but to suppose the cognition of any thing external to the mind would be to suppose an act of the mind going out of itself, in other words, a transeunt act; but action supposes existence, and nothing can act where it is not: therefore to act out of self is to exist out of self, which is absurd.”—Hamilton's Lectures, Vol. II. p. 118. 80. "Mind and matter, it is said, are substances, not only of different, but of the most opposite natures; separated, as some philosophers express it, by the whole diameter of being; but what immediately knows must be of a nature correspondent, analogous to that which is known; mind cannot, therefore, be conscious or immediately cognizant of what is so disproportioned to its essence as matter."-Hamilton's Lectures, Vol. 1. p. 120. 81. "The mind can only know immediately that to which it is immediately present; but as external objects can neither themselves come into the mind, nor the mind go out to them, such presence is impossible: therefore external objects can only be immediately known through some representative object."-Hamilton's Lectures, Vol. II. p. 122. 82. "The table, which we see, seems to diminish, as we remove farther from it; but the real table which exists independently of us suffers no alteration: it was, therefore, nothing but its image which was present to the mind."-Hume. 83. "Take, for example, the term man. Here we can call up no notion, no idea, corresponding to the universality of the class or term. This is manifestly impossible. For as man involves contradictory attributes, and as contradictory attributes can not co-exist in one representation, an idea or notion adequate to man can not be realized in thought."-Hamilton, Vol. II. p. 297. 84. "The class man includes individuals, male and female, white and black, copper-coloured, tall and short, fat and thin, straight and crooked, whole and mutilated, &c., &c.; and the notion of the class must, therefore, represent all and none of these. It is, therefore, evident that we can not accomplish this; and this being impossible, we can not represent to ourselves the class man by any equivalent notion or idea."-Hamilton, Vol. I. p. 297. `85. "It is manifest, indeed, that man, so far as he is a man for the glory of God, must be an end unto himself, for it is only in the accomplishment of his own perfection that, as a creature, he can manifest the glory of his Creator."-Hamilton, Vol. 1. p. 5. 86. "Consciousness supposes a contrast-a discrimination; for we can be conscious only inasmuch as we are conscious of something; and we are conscious of something only inasmuch as we are conscious of what that something is—that is, distinguish it from what it is not."-Hamilton, Vol. 1. 87. "Energy can not exist except in connexion with matter. Hence, since in the space between the sun and the earth, the luminous and thermal radiations, which have left the sun and which have not reached the earth, possess energy, the amount of which per cubic mile can be measured, this energy must belong to matter existing in the interplanatory spaces, and since it is only by the light which reaches us that we become aware of the existence of the most remote stars, we conclude that the matter which transmits light is disseminated through the whole of the visible universe."-Maxwell's Matter and Motion, p. 93. CHAPTER VIII. FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. § 1. ACCORDING to Mill the syllogistic process is not the process according to which we reason. "All inference," says he, "is from particulars to particulars: general propositions are merely registers of such inferences already made, and short formulæ for making more. The major premiss of a syllogism consequently is a formula of this description; and the conclusion is not an inference drawn from the formula, but an inference drawn according to the formula; thé real, logical antecedent or premiss being the particular facts from which the general proposition was collected by Induction1." "The value, therefore, of the syllogistic form, and of rules for using it correctly, does not consist in their being the form and the rules according to which our reasonings are necessarily, or even usually, made; but in their furnishing us with a mode in which these reasonings may always be represented, and which is admirably calculated, if they are inconclusive, to bring their inconclusiveness to light. An induction from particulars to generals, followed by a syllogistic process from those generals to other particulars, is a form in which we may always state our reasonings if we please. It is not a form in which we must reason, but it is a form in which we may reason, and into which it is indispensable to throw our reasoning, when there is any doubt of its validity: though when the case is familiar and little complicated, and there is no sus 1 Logic, Vol. I. p. 221. picion of error, we may, and do, reason at once from the known particular cases to unknown cases 1.” The universal type of the reasoning process, according to Mill, is as follows:-"Certain individuals have a given attribute; an individual or individuals resemble the former in certain other attributes; therefore they resemble them also in the given attribute?." This type is not, however, conclusive like the syllogism from the mere form of the expression; but must, in every case, be examined by the canons and rules of Induction. For example, ‘all men now living resemble those men who have heretofore died' in certain attributes; whether from their resemblance in these attributes we may infer also their resemblance in the attribute 'mortality' is a question of Induction, and must be determined by its canons. If we may infer this attribute of 'all men now living,' we may infer it also of all other individuals that resemble the men who have died in the same attributes. This process of inference admits of a division into two steps: (1) “That of ascertaining what attributes are marks of mortality, universally, i.e., under all circumstances, and (2) whether any given individuals possess those marks.” Conformably to usage, the first step or process, namely, that of establishing the general proposition, is called Induction, and the second step in "the reasoning operation, which is substantially that of interpreting the general propositions," is called Deduction by Mill. Every process by which any thing is inferred respecting an unobserved case, consists similarly of an Induction followed by a Deduction. According to Mill, the syllogism is thus merely a process by which the real or complete meaning of a general proposition established by Induction is made explicit, and by which the validity of a reasoning is tested. It is, in other words, an interpreter of the general proposition and a test of reasoning. Its rules and canons are merely cautions against false reasoning. They merely help us in interpreting correctly the true meaning of general propo2 lbid. p. 232. 1 Logic, Vol. 1. pp. 227-8. In ordinary sitions, and in applying them to particular cases. discourse the reasoning is never conducted nor stated in the syllogistic form; but whenever there is any doubt about its validity, we may, or rather we must, throw it into the syllogistic form, and if it admits of being so expressed, we may be perfectly sure of its being valid. The syllogistic is not, therefore, the process according to which we usually reason. The universal process of reasoning is, according to Mill, from some particulars to other particulars; and the syllogistic process is merely a test of the validity of this process. § 2. Nor, according to Mill, is the syllogistic mode of arguing a sound one. "For," says he, "it must be granted that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a petitio principii. When we say, 'all men are mortal, Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal,' it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the syllogistic theory, that the proposition 'Socrates is mortal' is presupposed in the more general assumption 'All men are mortal'; that we cannot be assured of the mortality of all men, unless we are already certain of the mortality of every individual man, &c., &c.; that, in short, no reasonings from generals to particulars can as such prove anything; since from a general principle we can not infer any particulars but those which the principle itself assumes as known1." Regarded as a mode of Probation, the syllogism involves, according to Mill, the fallacy of petitio principii, that is, the conclusion is presupposed by the major premiss. The proposition 'all men are mortal' can not be true, unless the conclusion 'Socrates is mortal' is true. The truth of the latter is presupposed by the former, or the former can not be true unless the latter is. When you have assumed the major, you have already taken for granted the conclusion. Thus the conclusion is not really proved by the premisses of the syllogism. It is, on the contrary, proved by those particular cases of observation which 1 Logic, Vol. 1. p. 210. |