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

218 CONDITIONAL ARGUMENTS AND
ticulars. . . . It is not only the village matron who,
when called to a consultation on the case of a neigh
bour s child, pronounces on the evil and its remedy
on the recollection and authority of what she accounts
the similar case of her Lucy. We all, when we have
no general maxims to steer by, guide ourselves in the
same way."
The essentials of Mill s view are :
(1) All inference is from particulars to particulars.
(2) General propositions are merely registers of
such inferences already made, and short
formulae for making more.
(3) The major premise of a syllogism is a formula
of this kind ; the conclusion is not an
inference drawn from the formula.
(4) The real logical antecedent or premise con
sists of the particular facts from which
the general proposition was collected.
It is true that in a great deal of our reasoning we
do not form general propositions; and it conforms
to the instances given by Mill. But we have to ask,
what justifies us in
passing from one
"
"
particular to
another? It is the resemblance of the two cases
certain qualities which the two cases have in common.
It is the recognition, in the second case, of attributes
found in the first. These common characteristics form
the only bridge by which we can pass from the one
"particular" to the other. What, then, does this
perception of similarity imply 1
} The cognition and
recognition of qualities common to different objects,
implies the formation in the mind of a general idea
of those qualities, a
"
"
universal (ch. II.
6). When
the child s experience of fire gives him an idea of it