struse and complicated rules and unusual definitions?"

Dr. Whately speaks next of singular propositions, those whose subject is a proper name (for a common name with a singular sign is nothing but a proper name), and which, as I have already said, may, logically speaking, be reckoned as universal. Yet, it is here asserted that "some may fairly be reckoned as particular (that is partial); and in support of this assertion, the three following examples are given: "Cæsar was not wholly a tyrant," "this man is occasionally intemperate," and " non omnis moriar." In the first of these examples, the idea that the term Cæsar was a partial term, was probably suggested by the apparent resemblance between the words whole and wholly; but this resemblance is physical, not logical. The above proposition does not mean that a part of Cæsar was a tyrant and that a part was not, but that Cæsar was sometimes (or in some of his actions) a tyrant, and sometimes not. Not wholly in this proposition, like occasionally in the next, are expressive of modifications in time, a species of relation totally unconnected with those of logical subalternation, which the words universal and

particular or partial refer to, on the present occasion. As to the third example, " non omnismoriar," the non omnis, forms logically one entire individual, viz. my soul or the immortal part of me,-in the same manner as, in the proposition my head aches," the term " my head," though it be but a part of " me," forms, logically, one entire individual.

66

If my reduction of propositions to the abovementioned five formulæ, be adopted, the several rules of distribution, given in page 80 of the "Elements," become useless.

The subject-matter of the two remaining sections of this Part II, viz. the dependence of propropositions one upon another, may be more properly referred to the next chapter. I shall now, therefore, close my observations on propositions, taken singly, by the following synoptical table of their several species, as characterized and classed for the purpose of deductive argument.

or

partial

or

negative as 5. pX||pY

compound, as I ask, command, hope, fear, &c. that (this or that proposition +).

* In the three first of these species of propositions, if X be an individual, the proposition is singular; if X be a collective entity, the proposition is general.

The first proposition may be said to be expressive of absolute identity; the third, of absolute diversity; Nos. 2, 4, and 5, of partial identity and diversity.

+ If these propositions were completed by a substantive term,not by a proposition, they would be simple, not compound. Thus, for ex. "I fear death," is a simple proposition, which may be thus reduced to its syllogistic form, "I am a person-fearing-death." But "Come here" is a compound proposition, which may be thus paraphrased, "I com

mand that

you come here." The latter part of this expression being an entire proposition, not a substantive locution.

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CHAPTER IX.

DEDUCTION,

OR SYLLOGISTIC RATIOCINATION.

(Whately's Elements, Ch. II. Part III. Of Arguments, p. 86.)

"THE third operation of the mind," says Dr. Whately, "viz. reasoning, (or discourse) expressed in words, is argument." p. 86. "An argument is an expression in which, from something laid down and granted as true (i. e. the Premises) something else (i. e. the Conclusion) beyond this must be admitted to be true, as following necessarily (or resulting) from the other." p. 88.

"An argument stated at full length, and in its regular form, is called a syllogism" (p. 86.): "a syllogism" is "an argument so expressed, that the conclusiveness of it is manifest from the mere force of the expression, i. e. without con

sidering the meaning of the terms*." p. 88. From these definitions, it is evident that the words reasoning, discourse, and argument are not only confined to the deductive process, but that they only differ from single syllogisms by the loose and irregular mode of expression.

The various senses attached to the word reasoning have been spoken of in a former chapter of the present Outline; I have also adverted to the uselessness and inconvenience of considering the word discourse as a synonym to reasoning. It is only upon these two occasions (pp. 54 and 86) that Dr. Whately preserves this Aristotelian application of the word; for, in the rest of his work, he employs it in its ordinary English sense; as, for instance, in p. 87, "as is often done in common discourse," a few lines after having said, "Discourse expressed in words is argu

ment."

As to the words argument and syllogism, which are more particularly the subject of the

* In the Elements, this definition, with that of an argument, are combined in the form of an argument of which one of the premises is, "since Logic is wholly concerned in the use of Languages." If this proposition had been entirely free from obscurity and ambiguity, the reader might have had at once the benefit of an example and a definition.