Aristotle
conclusion without contradicting himself. The constraining force,
however, does not come into accurate and regulated working until the
principles and conditions of deductive reasoning have been set
forth--until the Syllogism has been analysed, and the characteristics
of its validity, as distinguished from its invalidity, have been
marked out. This is what Aristotle teaches in the Analytica and
Topica. It admits of being set out in regular figure and mode--forms
of premisses with the conclusion appropriate to each; and the lesson
must be learnt before we can know how far the force of deductive
reasoning, which begins with the _notiora naturâ_, is legitimately
binding and trustworthy.
[Footnote 68: Aristot. Topica, I. xii. p. 105, a. 13-19: [Greek:
e)pagôgê\ de\ ê( a)po\ tô=n kath' e(/kaston e)pi\ ta\ katho/lou
e)/phodos; oi(=on ei) e)/sti kubernê/tês o( e)pista/menos kra/tistos
kai\ ê(ni/ochos, kai\ o(/lôs e)sti\n o( e)pista/menos peri\ e(/kaston
a)/ristos. e)/sti d' ê( me\n e)pagôgê\ pithanô/teron kai\
saphe/steron kai\ kata\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin gnôrimô/teron, _kai\ toi=s
polloi=s koino/n_; o( de\ sullogismo\s biastikô/teron kai\ pro\s
tou\s a)ntilogikou\s e)nerge/steron.] Also the same treatise. VI. iv.
p. 141, b. 17.
The inductive interrogations of Sokrates relating to matters of
common life, and the way in which they convinced ordinary hearers,
are strikingly illustrated in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, especially
IV. vi.: [Greek: polu\ ma/lista ô(=n e)gô\ oi)=da, o(/te le/goi,
tou\s a)kou/ontas o(mologou=ntas parei=chen] (15). The same can
hardly be said of the Platonic dialogues.]
[Footnote 69: Bacon, Novum Organ. I. Aphor. 13:--"Syllogismus
assensum constringit, non res."]
Both the two main points of Aristotle's doctrine--the antithesis
between Induction and Deduction, and the dependence of the latter
process upon premisses furnished by the former, so that the two
together form the two halves of complete ratiocination and
authoritative proof--both these two are confused and darkened by his
attempt to present the Inductive inference and the Analogical or
Paradeigmatic inference as two special forms of Syllogistic
deduction.[70] But when we put aside this attempt, and adhere to
Aristotle's main doctrine--of Induction as a process antithetical to
and separate from Deduction, yet as an essential preliminary
thereto,--we see that it forms the basis of that complete and
comprehensive System of Logic, recently elaborated in the work of Mr.
John Stuart Mill. The inference from Example (_i.e._ from some
particulars to other similar particulars) is distinguished by
Aristotle from Induction, and is recognized by him as the primitive
intellectual energy, common to all men, through which Induction is
reached; its results he calls Experience ([Greek: e)mpeiri/a]), and
he describes it as the real guide, more essential than philosophical
generalities, to exactness of performance in detail.[71] Mr. John
Mill has been the first to assign to Experience, thus understood, its
full value and true position in the theory of Ratiocination; and to
show that the Paradeigmatic process exhibits the prime and ultimate
reality of all Inference, the real premisses and the real conclusion
which Inference connects together. Between these two is interposed
the double process of which Induction forms the first half and
Deduction the second; neither the one nor the other being
indispensable to Inference, but both of them being required as
securities for Scientific inference, if we desire to have its
correctness tested and its sufficiency certified; the real evidence,
whereby the conclusion of a Syllogism is proved, being the minor
premiss, together with (not the major premiss itself, but) the
assemblage of particular facts from which by Induction the major
premiss is drawn. Now Aristotle had present to his mind the
conception of Inference as an entire process, enabling us from some
particular truths to discover and prove other particular truths: he
considers it as an unscientific process, of which to a limited extent
other animals besides man are capable, and which, as operative under
the title of Experience in mature practical men, is a safer guide
than Science amidst the doubts and difficulties of action. Upon this
foundation he erects the superstructure of Science; the universal
propositions acquired through Induction, and applied again to
particulars or to lower generalities, through the rules of the
deductive Syllogism. He signalizes, with just emphasis, the
universalizing point of view called Science or Theory; but he regards
it as emerging from particular facts, and as travelling again
downwards towards particular facts. The misfortune is, that he
contents himself with barely recognizing, though he distinctly
proclaims the necessity of, the inductive part of this complex
operation; while he bestows elaborate care upon the analysis of the
deductive part, and of the rules for conducting it. From this
disproportionate treatment, one half of Logic is made to look like
the whole; Science is disjoined from Experience, and is presented as
consisting in Deduction alone; every thing which is not Deduction, is
degraded into unscientific Experience; the major premiss of the
Syllogism being considered as part of the proof of the conclusion,
and the conclusion being necessarily connected therewith, we appear
to have acquired a _locus standi_ and a binding cogency such as
Experience could never supply; lastly, when Aristotle resolves
Induction into a peculiar variety of the Syllogism, he appears
finally to abolish all its separate dignity and jurisdiction. This
one-sided view of Logic has been embraced and perpetuated by the
Aristotelian expositors, who have carefully illustrated, and to a
certain extent even amplified, the part which was already in
comparative excess, while they have added nothing to the part that
was in defect, and have scarcely even preserved Aristotle's
recognition of it as being not merely legitimate but essential. The
vast body of Inductive Science, accumulated during the last three
centuries, has thus, until recently, been allowed to grow up, as if
its proofs and processes had nothing to do with Logic.
[Footnote 70: Heyder (in his learned treatise, Darstellung der
Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik, p. 226), after having
considered the unsatisfactory process whereby Aristotle attempts to
resolve Induction into a variety of Syllogism, concludes by a remark
which I think just:--"Aus alle dem erhellt zur Genüge, dass sich
Aristoteles bei dem Versuch die Induction auf eine Schlussform
zurückzuführen, selbst sich nicht recht befriedigt fühlte, und
derselbe wohl nur aus seinem durchgängigen Bestreben zu erklären ist,
alles wissenschaftliche Verfahren in die Form des Schlusses zu
bringen; dass dagegen, seiner eigentlichen Meinung und der strengen
Consequenz seiner Lehre zu Folge, die Induction zum syllogistischen
und beweisenden Verfahren einen in dem Begriff der beiden
Verfahrungsweisen liegenden Gegensatz bildete, was sich ihm dann auch
auf das Verhältniss der Induction zur Begriffsbestimmung ausdehnen
musste."]
[Footnote 71: Aristot. Analyt. Prior. II. xxiii. p. 68, b. 12; xxvi.
p. 69, a. 17. Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 30, seq**.; xiii. p.
97, b. 7. Topica, VIII. i. p. 155, b. 35; p. 156, b. 10; p. 157, a.
14-23; p. 160, a. 36. Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, b. 25-p. 981, a. 30.
This first chapter of the Metaphysica is one of the most remarkable
passages of Aristotle, respecting the analytical philosophy of mind.]
But though this restricted conception of Logic or the theory of
Reasoning has arisen naturally from Aristotle's treatment, I maintain
that it does not adequately represent his view of that theory. In his
numerous treatises on other subjects, scarcely any allusion is made
to the Syllogism; nor is appeal made to the rules for it laid down in
the Analytica. His conviction that the formalities of Deduction were
only one part of the process of general reasoning, and that the value
of the final conclusion depended not merely upon their being
correctly performed, but also upon the correctness of that initial
part whereby they are supplied with matter for premisses--is
manifested as well by his industry (unrivalled among his
contemporaries) in collecting multifarious facts, as by his specific
declarations respecting Induction. Indeed, a recent most erudite
logician, Sir William Hamilton, who insists upon the construction of
Logic in its strictest sense as purely formal, blames Aristotle[72]
for having transgressed this boundary, and for introducing other
considerations bearing on diversities of matter and of material
evidence. The charge so made, to whatever extent it is well-founded,
does rather partake of the nature of praise; inasmuch as it evinces
Aristotle's larger views of the theory of Inference, and confirms his
own statement that the Deductive process was only the last half of
it, presupposing a prior Induction. It is only this last half that
Aristotle has here analysed, setting forth its formal conditions with
precepts founded thereupon; while he claims to have accomplished the
work by long and patient investigation, having found not the smallest
foundation laid by others, and bespeaks indulgence[73] as for a first
attempt requiring to be brought to completion by others. He made this
first step for himself; and if any one would make a second step, so
as to apply the same analysis to the other half, and to bring out in
like manner the formal conditions and principles of Induction, we may
fairly believe that Aristotle would have welcomed the act, as filling
up what he himself recognized to be a gap in the entire compass of
Reasoning. As to his own achievement, it is certain that he could not
have composed the Analytica and Topica, if he had not had before him
many specimens of the deductive process to study and compare. Neither
could the inductive process have been analysed, until after the
examples of successful advance in inductive science which recent
years have furnished. Upon these examples, mainly, has been based the
profound System of Mr. John Stuart Mill, analysing and discriminating
the formalities of Induction in the same way as those of Deduction
had before been handled by Aristotle; also fusing the two together as
co-operative towards one comprehensive scheme of Logic--the Logic of
Evidence generally, or of Truth as discoverable and proveable. In
this scheme the Syllogistic Theory, or Logic of Consistency between
one proposition and others, is recognized as an essential part, but
is no longer tolerated as an independent whole.[74]
[Footnote 72: See his Discussions on Philosophy, p. 139, seq.;
Lectures on Logic, vol. i. p. 27.]
[Footnote 73: See the remarkable paragraph at the close of the
Sophistici Elenchi, already quoted (supra, p. 140, note).]
[Footnote 74: Mr. John Stuart Mill says (Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 3):
**"Induction is inferring a proposition from premisses _less general_
than itself, and Ratiocination is inferring a proposition from
premisses _equally or more general_." Again in another passage: "We
have found that all Inference, consequently all Proof, and all
discovery of truths not self-evident, consists of inductions, and the
interpretation of inductions; that all our knowledge, not intuitive,
comes to us exclusively from that source. What Induction is,
therefore, and what conditions render it legitimate, cannot but be
deemed the main question of logic--the question which includes all
others. It is however one which professed writers on logic have
almost entirely passed over. The generalities of the subject, indeed,
have not been altogether neglected by metaphysicians; but, for want
of sufficient acquaintance with the processes by which science has