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

AND THE ARISTOTELIAN SYLLOGISM. 157
mechanical curiosities. For the Aristotelian Sorites the
following rules may be given :
(1) The first premise alone can be particular;
(2) The last premise alone can be negative ;
for if any of the intermediate premises were either negative
or particular, the chain of connection would be broken. The
Goclenian Sorites proceeds
in the reverse order :
(1) The first premise alone can be negative ;
(2) The last premise alone can be particular.
In the examples given all the premises were universal and
affirmative. The student should construct examples in
which the first or last premise is particular or negative,
according to the rules.
Aristotle refers to arguments of this kind (An. Pr., i. 25)
but by the Greeks the name o-wpeiTTjs was given to a par
ticular kind of fallacy (e.g., Ueberweg, 125).
EXERCISE X.
Analyse the following into complete syllogisms (Aristotle,
Poetics, c. 6) :
1 i) Action is that wherein blessedness consists; that
wherein blessedness consists is the end and aim ; the end
and aim is the highest ; hence action is the highest.
(2) Action is the highest thing represented in tragedy, for
it is the highest in real life.
(3) Character is a mere quality (TTOIOV) ; mere quality is
that wherein blessedness does not consist ; that wherein
blessedness does not consist is not the end and aim [affirm
ative] ; what is not the end and aim, is not the highest
[affirmative] ; hence character is not the highest.
12. The student who has grasped the general
principle of each of the first three figures, will have
no difficulty in turning ordinary or colloquial reasonings
into syllogistic form, and so testing their
validity. To
do this is a valuable exercise in accuracy of thought.
For instance, if an argument aims at proving or disproving
some attribute of a thing, by applying a general rule or