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If all ratiocinations resembled, as to the minor premiss, the examples which were exclusively employed in the preceding chapter; if the resemblance, which that premiss asserts, were obvious to the senses, as in the proposition “Socrates is a man,” or were at once ascertainable by direct observation; there would be no necessity for trains of reasoning, and Deductive or Ratiocinative Sciences would not exist.
If the minor premiss asserted nothing more than that something belongs to a class, and if the major premiss asserted nothing of that class except that it is included in another class, the conclusion would only be, that what was included in the lower class is included in the higher, and the result, therefore, nothing except that the classification is consistent with itself.
But the first premiss is certainly the case; therefore so must the consequent be.
Once recognize the fact that he is a fallen being and by that I mean no theological dogma, but a truth of life, which, whatever our creed may be, must stare us in the face the fact that he is a being knowing good but choosing evil, capable of an ideal but habitually falling below it, no mere automaton, but possessed of a spiritual will and an accusing conscience I ask how else can he be educated, in the true sense of the word, and raised from death unto life except by being made to educe his own results and work out his evil premiss to the bitter end, till he is forced to go back upon himself, and recognize the right principle which he has violated?
The reviewer says that if the major premiss included the conclusion, “we should be able to affirm the conclusion without the intervention of the minor premiss; but every one sees that that is impossible.” It does not follow, because the major premiss contains the conclusion, that the words themselves must show all the conclusions which it contains, and which, or evidence of which, it presupposes.
Hence we say, that the former should have conceded the major, and denied the minor, premiss of the above argument; that is, he should have admitted, that whoever can prevent the sin of another, but, instead of so doing, contributes to it by his concourse, is an accomplice: and he should have denied that God, being able to produce holiness in the place of sin, both permits and contributes to the reign of the latter in his dominions.
The Method of Agreement, when applied to negative instances, or those in which a phenomenon does not take place, is certainly free from the characteristic imperfection which affects it in the affirmative case. The negative premiss, it might therefore be supposed, could be worked as a simple case of the Method of Agreement, without requiring an affirmative premiss to be joined with it.
On examining, then, these two general formulæ, we find that in both of them, one premiss, the major, is an universal proposition; and according as this is affirmative or negative, the conclusion is so too.
In fact, both the minor premiss, and also the expression of our former experience, must both be present in our reasonings, or the conclusion will not follow. But, though this, and not the syllogistic, is the universal type of reasoning, yet the syllogistic process is a useful test of inferences.
And when I answer someone by denying some premiss, in order to compel him to prove it, or some conclusion, to compel him to put it in good form, it cannot be said that I answer nothing or that I answer nothing intelligible. For as it is the doubtful premiss of the adversary that I deny, my denial will be as intelligible as his affirmation.
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