icate includes all other animals as well as men. The middle term is that by means of which the other two are compared. In the complete concrete syllogism, All Indians are dark-skinned (major premise), Red Jacket is dark-skinned (conclusion), Syllogism Illustrated. it is asserted, first, that every member of the class, Indian, is dark-skinned; second, that Red Jacket is included in the class, Indian; and third, that what is asserted of the class, Indian, is true of a member of that class, Red Jacket. Nothing is affirmed in the conclusion beyond what is affirmed in the premises. If the premises are true and the reasoning is valid, the conclusion must follow. Whether the premises can be proved true or not, depends upon the character and use of evidence; whether the reasoning is valid or not, can be shown by applying the rules of the syllogism,which is the province of Logic. Syllogism. Very rarely in literary argument do reasoners make use of the complete syllogism, except to render perfectly apparent the premises from which the conclusion is deduced, or to show some fault in reasoning. Deductive arguments take various forms. Kinds of One premise, or even the conclusion, may not be expressed if obvious enough to be taken for granted; in this case the syllogism is called an enthymeme. One of the premises may be conditional, which gives the hypothetical syllogism. A syllogistic argument may be involved in a statement with its reasons, or with its inferences, or may be diffused throughout an extended discussion. To argue effectively, with clearness and cogency, the reasoner must have his deductive frame work clearly in mind at every point of his discussion, and keep it before the reader or hearer. Suggested 1 In the following paragraph from Burke, ' from (1) and (2), the conclusion may be drawn, "I mean to offer reconciliation." Combining (1) with the second clause of (2) gives, "I mean to make concession." From the second clause of (2), with the supplied premise, (3) may be deduced. (2) combined with (5) also gives (3). Expansion of (5) would give, "We are the superior power; we may offer peace with honor and with safety." Expansion of (7) gives, "The colonies are the weaker; the concession of the colonies would be the concession of fear." Still other syllogisms are obviously suggested: 66 (1) I mean to give peace. (2) Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or on the other. (3) In this state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate from us. (4) Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. (5) The superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety. (6) Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. (7) But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. (8) When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior power." The same argument may be presented in many forms. (1) A well-policed city will be free from crime; Berlin is a well-policed city; Berlin will be free from crime. Various (2) If a well-policed city will be free from crime, Berlin will be free from crime, for it is well policed. (3) If Berlin is well policed, it will be free from crime, for a well-policed city will be free from crime. 1 Select Works, I. 167. (4) Berlin ought to be free from crime; for it is a well-policed city. (5) Any well-policed city is likely to be free from crime; Berlin ought, therefore, to be free from crime. (6) Any well-policed city will be free from crime, and Berlin is well policed. Those following the first form differ from it in either having a conditional premise, or in being abbreviated forms, that is, enthymemes. Clauses introduced by "because," "since," "for," are usually premises of enthymemes; and those introduced by "hence," "therefore," "consequently," are frequently conclusions in that form of argument. There are two obvious advantages of the enthymeme, conciseness, and the avoid ance of what might seem a mere truism if expressed. In literature and in actual life, this abridged form of argument is by far the most common; for example: "Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy." "Man, being rational, is accountable for his actions." “Classical learning, since it tends to withdraw the mind from low pursuits by creating a taste for intellectual enjoyments, deserves to be promoted." "Every man should be moderate, for excess causes disease." "If he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child." "If Pitt had carried out Adam Smith's doctrines of Free Trade, he would have been a great and useful minister; but he did not." "The several species of brutes being created to prey upon each other, proves that man was intended to prey upon them." "The use of intoxicants should not be prohibited by law; for this would be to restrict individual liberty, and such restriction by law is impolitic." "It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here (Ireland) and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and my reason for saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a syllogism :—A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge; Theology is surely a branch of knowledge; how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them? I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to exception. " 1 It "It has often been asked, what was the cause of the instantaneous and wide-spread popularity of Childe Harold, which Byron himself so well expressed in the saying, 'I awoke one morning and found myself famous.' Chief among the secondary causes was the warm sympathy between the poet and his readers, the direct interest of his theme for the time. In the spring of 1812 England was in the very crisis of a struggle for existence. was just before Napoleon set out for Moscow. An English army was standing on the defensive in Portugal, with difficulty holding its own; the nation was trembling for its safety. The dreaded Bonaparte's next movement was uncertain; it was feared that it might be against our own shores. Rumor was busy with alarms. All through the country men were arming and drilling for self-defense. The heart of England was beating high with patriotic resolution. "What were our poets doing in the midst of all this? Scott, then at the head of the tuneful brotherhood in popular favor, was celebrating the exploits of William of Deloraine and Marmion. . . . Southey was floundering in the dim sea of Hindu mythology. Rogers was content with his Pleasures of Memory. Moore confined himself to political squibs and wanton little lays for the boudoir. It was no wonder that, when at last a poet did appear whose impulses were not merely literary, who felt in what century he was living, whose artistic creations were 1 Cardinal Newman, The Idaa of a University, 19. throbbing with the life of his own age, a crowd at once gathered to hear the new singer. There was not a parish in Great Britain in which there was not some household that had a direct personal interest in the scene of the pilgrim's travels some friend, some brother there.' The effect was not confined to England; Byron at once had all Europe as his audience, because he spoke to them on a theme in which they were all deeply concerned. He spoke to them, too, in language which was not merely a naked expression of their most intense feelings; the spell by which he held them was all the stronger that he lifted them with the irresistible power of his song above the passing anxieties of the moment. Loose and rambling as Childe Harold is, it yet had for the time an unconscious art; it entered the absorbing tumult of a hot and feverish struggle, and opened a way in the dark clouds gathering over the combatants through which they could see the blue vault and the shining stars. In that terrible time of change, when every state in Europe was shaken to its foundation, there was a profound meaning in placing before men's eyes the departed greatness of Greece; it rounded off the troubled scene with dramatic propriety. Even the mournful scepticism of Childe Harold was not resented at a time when it lay at the root of every heart to ask, 'Is there a God in heaven to see such desolation, and withhold His hand?" "1 . These examples serve to show some of the ways in which stiff and tedious syllogistic forms of argument may be modified. There is variation in the form of propositions, changed order of premises, What these transposition of terms, abridgment, amplifi- Examples cation. In the last two, reasons are given for the truth of the premises; but the premises appear as such. No explanation or illustration will be mistaken for premises, nor do subordinate propositions and irrelevant matter conceal premises. The connection Show. 1 William Minto on Byron, in Encyclopædia Britannica. |