telian tradition.

The limitations as well as the uses of Aristotle's logic may be traced
to the circumstances of its origin. Both parties to the disputation,
Questioner and Respondent alike, were mainly concerned with the
inter-dependence of the propositions put forward. Once the Respondent
had given his assent to a question, he was bound in consistency to all
that it implied. He must take all the consequences of his admission.
It might be true or it might be false as a matter of fact: all the
same he was bound by it: its truth or falsehood was immaterial to his
position as a disputant. On the other hand, the Questioner could not
go beyond the admissions of the Respondent. It has often been alleged
as a defect in the Syllogism that the conclusion does not go beyond
the premisses, and ingenious attempts have been made to show that
it is really an advance upon the premisses. But having regard to the
primary use of the syllogism, this was no defect, but a necessary
character of the relation. The Questioner could not in fairness assume
more than had been granted by implication. His advance could only be
an argumentative advance: if his conclusion contained a grain more
than was contained in the premisses, it was a sophistical trick, and
the Respondent could draw back and withhold his assent. He was bound
in consistency to stand by his admissions; he was not bound to go a
fraction of an inch beyond them.

We thus see how vain it is to look to the Aristotelian tradition
for an organon of truth or a criterion of falsehood. Directly and
primarily, at least, it was not so; the circumstances of its origin
gave it a different bent. Indirectly and secondarily, no doubt, it
served this purpose, inasmuch as truth was the aim of all serious
thinkers who sought to clear their minds and the minds of others by
Dialectic. But in actual debate truth was represented merely by the
common-sense of the audience. A dialectician who gained a triumph
by outraging this, however cleverly he might outwit his antagonist,
succeeded only in amusing his audience, and dialecticians of the
graver sort aimed at more serious uses and a more respectful homage,
and did their best to discountenance merely eristic disputation.
Further, it would be a mistake to conclude because Aristotle's Logic,
as an instrument of Dialectic, concerned itself with the syllogism
of propositions rather than their truth, that it was merely an art of
quibbling. On the contrary,