ation of the predicate_ is a device of little value). What is
asserted in every proposition which conveys real knowledge, is a fact
dependent, not on artificial classification, but on the laws of nature;
and as ratiocination is a mode of gaining real knowledge, the principle
or law of all syllogisms, with propositions not purely verbal, must be,
for affirmative syllogisms, that; Things coexisting with the same thing
coexist with one another; and for negative, that; A thing coexisting
with another, with which a third thing does not coexist, does not
coexist with that third thing. But if (see _supra_, p. 26) propositions
(and, of course, all combinations of them) be regarded, not
speculatively, as portions of our knowledge of nature, but as memoranda
for practical guidance, to enable us, when we know that a thing has one
of two attributes, to infer it has the other, these two axioms may be
translated into one, viz. Whatever has any mark has that which it is a
mark of; or, if both premisses are universal, Whatever is a mark of any
mark, is a mark of that of which this last is a mark.

CHAPTER III.

THE FUNCTIONS AND LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM.

The question is, whether the syllogistic process is one of inference,
i.e. a process from the known to the unknown. Its assailants say, and
truly, that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the
conclusion, there is a _petitio principii_; and Dr. Whately's defence of
it, that its object is to unfold assertions wrapped up and implied (i.e.
in fact, _asserted unconsciously_) in those with which we set out,
represents it as a sort of trap. Yet, though no reasoning from generals
to particulars can, as such, prove anything, the conclusion _is_ a _bona
fide_ inference, though not an inference from the general proposition.
The general proposition (i.e. in the first figure, the major premiss)
contains not only a record of many particular facts which we have
observed or inferred, but also instructions for making inferences in
unforeseen cases. Thus the inference is completed in the major premiss;
and the rest of the syllogism serves only to decipher, as it were, our
own notes.

Dr. Whately fails to make out that syllogising, i.e. reasoning from
generals to particulars, is the _only_ mode of reasoning. No additional
evidence is gained by interpolating a general proposition, and therefore
we may, if we please, reason directly from the individual cases, since
it