An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

AND THE ARISTOTELIAN SYLLOGISM. 119
on questionable rhetorical devices or verbal tricks. The
syllogism of Aristotle is essentially a process
of strict
demonstration, which establishes some fact or state
ment by connecting it with a general principle, a rule
or law which is admitted. As we have seen, they are
connected by having a common term. The truth of
the premises must be granted ; the doctrine of the
syllogism does not give us any means of examining
that question ;
it shows us how to estimate their inter
dependence when they are accepted
as reliable. It
affords a method of testing given arguments ; for when
we have expressed the statements in logical form and
compared them according to syllogistic rules, we see
at once whether they are really connected in the way
which the argument asserts, or not.
In the concluding section of chapter
sense Names are prior to Propositions, although the Names
are an expression in language of Concepts which have been
formed by Judgments, and the Propositions are an expres
sion of the Judgments themselves. The Proposition uses
I. we saw that in a
distinct Names which have been fixed by language. In a
similar sense the Proposition is prior to the Syllogism. In
order to construct a syllogism we must have logical proposi
tions ; and the name Syllogism is used to signify both the
inner thought or reasoning and the formal expression of it
in language. Regarded from the side of language, the |
syllogism maybe defined as the combination of two proposi- \
tions in order to reach a truth not contained in either singly ; j
or as the comparison of two terms with a third term in order
to find their mutual relation. When we look behind its
formal expression to the thoughts expressed, we find that
the universal characteristic of Inference is exemplified in the
Syllogism. We can infer one judgment from another only
when they have a real bond of connection, only when there
is something identical in both. In syllogistic inference, the
term common to the two propositions represents the identical
element which makes possible the connection of thought.