e is an animal," you can reasonably conclude
that "the owner of a horse is the owner of an animal"; that "whoever
loves a horse loves an animal," and so on indefinitely. In brief, as
you at once see, from the one assertion, "A horse is an animal," there
rationally follow a limitless number of possible inferences of the
form: "Whatever is in any relation R to a horse is in that same
relation R to an animal." Now you may indeed at first, as I just said,
{97} imagine such reasonings to be comparatively trivial. Whether they
prove to be so, however, depends wholly upon the objects in question,
upon our own interests in these objects, and upon circumstances. They
might be vastly important. From the assertion, "Mr. Taft is President
of the United States," there follows, by this sort of reasoning, the
assertion, "Whoever is a personal friend of Mr. Taft is a personal
friend of the President of the United States." And such a conclusion
some people might be very glad to have you draw. So, too, whoever is a
member of Mr. Taft's family, or household, or club, or of the
university whose degrees he holds, or whoever is a fellow-townsman, or
fellow-countryman, or partisan, or opponent, or enemy of Mr. Taft,
whoever agrees with what he says in his speeches, whoever plays golf
with him, or whoever hopes or fears for his re-election, stands in
just that relation, whatever it may be, to the President of the United
States. And how important such rational inferences might appear for
the comprehension of somebody's actual situation and prospects and
acts depends upon the persons and the interests that may be in
question. To some people just such inferences, at one moment or
another, will not seem trivial, will be worth making, and will be
anything but feats of barren intellectualism. That they are easy
inferences to make is beside the mark. I have no time to ask you here
to study with me the harder inferences upon topics that do not concern
our main purpose. What I {98} need, however, is to illustrate to you
that such reasoning processes go beyond mere analysis, and do involve
a rational and articulate intuition of a novel aspect of experience.
For I defy you to find by any mere analysis of the assertion, "Mr.
Taft is President," the innumerable assertions about friends, about
family, about speeches, and policies, and so on, which as a fact
rationally follow, in the indicated way, from that first assertion.
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