is on these alone that the general proposition, if made, would rest.
Indeed, thus are in fact drawn, as well the inferences of children and
savages, and of animals (which latter having no signs, can frame no
general propositions), as even those drawn by grown men generally, from
personal experience, and particularly the inferences of men of high
practical genius, who, not having been trained to generalise, can apply,
but not state, their principles of action. Even when we have general
propositions we need not use them. Thus Dugald Stewart showed that the
axioms need not be expressly adverted to in order to make good the
demonstrations in Euclid; though he held, inconsistently, that the
definitions must be. All general propositions, whether called axioms, or
definitions, or laws of nature, are merely abridged statements of the
particular facts, which, as occasion arises, we either think we may
proceed on as proved, or intend to assume.

In short, all inference is from particulars to particulars; and general
propositions are both registers or memoranda of such former inferences,
and also short formulae for making more. The major premiss is such a
formula; and the conclusion is an inference drawn, not from, but
according to that formula. The _actual_ premisses are the particular
facts whence the general proposition was collected inductively; and the
syllogistic rules are to guide us in reading the register, so as to
ascertain what it was that we formerly thought might be inferred from
those facts. Even where ratiocination is independent of induction, as,
when we accept from a man of science the doctrine that all A is B; or
from a legislator, the law that all men shall do this or that, the
operation of drawing thence any particular conclusion is a process, not
of inference, but of interpretation. In fact, whether the premisses are
given by authority, or derived from our own (or predecessors')
observation, the object is always simply to interpret, by reference to
certain marks, an intention, whether that of the propounder of the
principle or enactment, or that which we or our predecessors had when we
framed the general proposition, so that we may draw no inferences that
were not _intended_ to be drawn. We assent to the conclusion in a
syllogism on account of its consistency with what we interpret to have
been the intention of the framer of the major premiss, and not, as Dr.
Whately held, because the supposition of a false con