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On the basis of this theory of knowledge, it is evident that the usual arguments for the existence of God would have but little weight. For they either attempt to attain their end by formal thought alone, and thus result in mere "syllogizing;" or, starting from valid enough premises, they try to extend the conclusion beyond the limits imposed by the laws of "demonstration." For St.
Archbishop Whately has contended that syllogizing, or reasoning from generals to particulars, is not, agreeably to the vulgar idea, a peculiar mode of reasoning, but the philosophical analysis of the mode in which all men reason, and must do so if they reason at all. With the deference due to so high an authority, I can not help thinking that the vulgar notion is, in this case, the more correct.
The ass, who heard this, recommended himself mentally to the god Neptune, and was packing off, thinking and syllogizing within himself thus: Had not I been an ass, I had not come here among great lords, when I must needs be sensible that I was only made for the use of the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fair warning of this in one of his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or take what follows.
Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle Toby's deportment what great attention he gave to every word and as oft as he took his pipe from his mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of it surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his thumb then fore-right then this way, and then that, in all its possible directions and fore-shortenings he would have concluded my uncle Toby had got hold of the medius terminus, and was syllogizing and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in order, as my father laid them before him.
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