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

THE VALIDITY OF THE SYLLOGISM. 21?
elusion, is a petitio prindpii or "begging of the
question." This view was taken by Mill. Put briefly,
what Mill urges is this. Take the syllogism : "All
men are fallible, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates
is fallible." How do we know that all men are fallible ?
We are not entitled to make this assertion unless we
already know that Socrates is fallible ; hence the con
clusion, being presupposed in the more general pro
position, cannot be proved by it. When we have got
the general principle, we cannot infer any particulars
from it but those which the principle itself assumes
as known : "for a general truth is but an aggregate
of particular truths, a comprehensive expression by
means of which an indefinite number of individual
"
facts are affirmed or denied at once (Logic, II. Hi.
The conclusion about Socrates is inferred from
3).
the
observed cases in which other men have been found
fallible. Hence the inference may take place without
a general proposition.
" Not only may we reason
from particulars to particulars, without passing through
generals, but we perpetually do so reason. All our
earliest inferences are of this nature. From the first
dawn of intelligence we draw inference, but years
elapse before we learn the use of general language.
The child who, having burnt his fingers, avoids thrust
ing them again into the fire, has reasoned or inferred,
though he never thought of the general maxim, fire
burns. He knows from memory
that he has been
burned, and on this evidence believes, when he sees
a candle, that if he puts his finger
into the flame of
it, he will be burned again. He believes this in any
case which happens to arise, but without looking in
each instance beyond the present
case. He is not
generalising ; he is inferring a particular from par-