THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE.

THE LOGICAL MACHINE.

LONDON:
R. Clay, Sons, & Taylor, Printers,
BREAD STREET HILL.

Stereotyped Edition.

It may be truly asserted that the rapid progress of the physical sciences during the last three centuries has not been accompanied by a corresponding advance in the theory of reasoning. Physicists speak familiarly of Scientific Method, but they could not readily describe what they mean by that expression. Profoundly engaged in the study of particular classes of natural phenomena, they are usually too much engrossed in the immense and ever-accumulating details of their special sciences to generalise upon the methods of reasoning which they unconsciously employ. Yet few will deny that these methods of reasoning ought to be studied, especially by those who endeavour to introduce scientific order into less successful and methodical branches of knowledge.

The application of Scientific Method cannot be restricted to the sphere of lifeless objects. We must sooner or later have strict sciences of those mental and social phenomena, which, if comparison be possible, are of more interest to us than purely material phenomena. But it is the proper course of reasoning to proceed from the known to the unknown—from the evident to the obscure—from the material and palpable to the subtle and refined. The physical sciences may therefore be properlyviii made the practice-ground of the reasoning powers, because they furnish us with a great body-of precise and successful investigations. In these sciences we meet with happy instances of unquestionable deductive reasoning, of extensive generalisation, of happy prediction, of satisfactory verification, of nice calculation of probabilities. We can note how the slightest analogical clue has been followed up to a glorious discovery, how a rash generalisation has at length been exposed, or a conclusive experimentum crucis has decided the long-continued strife between two rival theories.

In following out my design of detecting the general methods of inductive investigation, I have found that the more elaborate and interesting processes of quantitative induction have their necessary foundation in the simpler science of Formal Logic. The earlier, and probably by far the least attractive part of this work, consists, therefore, in a statement of the so-called Fundamental Laws of Thought, and of the all-important Principle of Substitution, of which, as I think, all reasoning is a development. The whole procedure of inductive inquiry, in its most complex cases, is foreshadowed in the combinational view of Logic, which arises directly from these fundamental principles. Incidentally I have described the mechanical arrangements by which the use of the important form called the Logical Alphabet, and the whole working of the combinational system of Formal Logic, may be rendered evident to the eye, and easy to the mind and hand.

The study both of Formal Logic and of the Theory of Probabilities has led me to adopt the opinion that there is no such thing as a distinct method of induction as contrasted with deduction, but that induction is simply an inverse employment of deduction. Within the last century a reaction has been setting in against the purely empirical procedure of Francis Bacon, and physicists haveix learnt to advocate the use of hypotheses. I take the extreme view of holding that Francis Bacon, although he correctly insisted upon constant reference to experience, had no correct notions as to the logical method by which from particular facts we educe laws of nature. I endeavour to show that hypothetical anticipation of nature is an essential part of inductive inquiry, and that it is the Newtonian method of deductive reasoning combined with elaborate experimental verification, which has led to all the great triumphs of scientific research.

In attempting to give an explanation of this view of Scientific Method, I have first to show that the sciences of number and quantity repose upon and spring from the simpler and more general science of Logic. The Theory of Probability, which enables us to estimate and calculate quantities of knowledge, is then described, and especial attention is drawn to the Inverse Method of Probabilities, which involves, as I conceive, the true principle of inductive procedure. No inductive conclusions are more than probable, and I adopt the opinion that the theory of probability is an essential part of logical method, so that the logical value of every inductive result must be determined consciously or unconsciously, according to the principles of the inverse method of probability.

The phenomena of nature are commonly manifested in quantities of time, space, force, energy, &c., and the observation, measurement, and analysis of the various quantitative conditions or results involved, even in a simple experiment, demand much employment of systematic procedure. I devote a book, therefore, to a simple and general description of the devices by which exact measurement is effected, errors eliminated, a probable mean result attained, and the probable error of that mean ascertained. I then proceed to the principal, and probably the most interesting, subject of the book, illustrating successively the conditions and precautions requisite forx accurate observation, for successful experiment, and for the sure detection of the quantitative laws of nature. As it is impossible to comprehend aright the value of quantitative laws without constantly bearing in mind the degree of quantitative approximation to the truth probably attained, I have devoted a special chapter to the Theory of Approximation, and however imperfectly I may have treated this subject, I must look upon it as a very essential part of a work on Scientific Method.

It then remains to illustrate the sound use of hypothesis, to distinguish between the portions of knowledge which we owe to empirical observation, to accidental discovery, or to scientific prediction. Interesting questions arise concerning the accordance of quantitative theories and experiments, and I point out how the successive verification of an hypothesis by distinct methods of experiment yields conclusions approximating to but never attaining certainty. Additional illustrations of the general procedure of inductive investigations are given in a chapter on the Character of the Experimentalist, in which I endeavour to show, moreover, that the inverse use of deduction was really the logical method of such great masters of experimental inquiry as Newton, Huyghens, and Faraday.

In treating Generalisation and Analogy, I consider the precautions requisite in inferring from one case to another, or from one part of the universe to another part; the validity of all such inferences resting ultimately upon the inverse method of probabilities. The treatment of Exceptional Phenomena appeared to afford an interesting subject for a further chapter illustrating the various modes in which an outstanding fact may eventually be explained. The formal part of the book closes with the subject of Classification, which is, however, very inadequately treated. I have, in fact, almost restricted myself to showing that all classification is fundamentally carried out upon thexi principles of Formal Logic and the Logical Alphabet described at the outset.

In certain concluding remarks I have expressed the conviction which the study of Logic has by degrees forced upon my mind, that serious misconceptions are entertained by some scientific men as to the logical value of our knowledge of nature. We have heard much of what has been aptly called the Reign of Law, and the necessity and uniformity of natural forces has been not uncommonly interpreted as involving the non-existence of an intelligent and benevolent Power, capable of interfering with the course of natural events. Fears have been expressed that the progress of Scientific Method must therefore result in dissipating the fondest beliefs of the human heart. Even the ‘Utility of Religion’ is seriously proposed as a subject of discussion. It seemed to be not out of place in a work on Scientific Method to allude to the ultimate results and limits of that method. I fear that I have very imperfectly succeeded in expressing my strong conviction that before a rigorous logical scrutiny the Reign of Law will prove to be an unverified hypothesis, the Uniformity of Nature an ambiguous expression, the certainty of our scientific inferences to a great extent a delusion. The value of science is of course very high, while the conclusions are kept well within the limits of the data on which they are founded, but it is pointed out that our experience is of the most limited character compared with what there is to learn, while our mental powers seem to fall infinitely short of the task of comprehending and explaining fully the nature of any one object. I draw the conclusion that we must interpret the results of Scientific Method in an affirmative sense only. Ours must be a truly positive philosophy, not that false negative philosophy which, building on a few material facts, presumes to assert that it has compassed the bounds of existence, while it nevertheless ignores the mostxii unquestionable phenomena of the human mind and feelings.

It is approximately certain that in freely employing illustrations drawn from many different sciences, I have frequently fallen into errors of detail. In this respect I must throw myself upon the indulgence of the reader, who will bear in mind, as I hope, that the scientific facts are generally mentioned purely for the purpose of illustration, so that inaccuracies of detail will not in the majority of cases affect the truth of the general principles illustrated.

December 15, 1873.

Few alterations of importance have been made in preparing this second edition. Nevertheless, advantage has been taken of the opportunity to revise very carefully both the language and the matter of the book. Correspondents and critics having pointed out inaccuracies of more or less importance in the first edition, suitable corrections and emendations have been made. I am under obligations to Mr. C. J. Monro, M.A., of Barnet, and to Mr. W. H. Brewer, M.A., one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools, for numerous corrections.

Among several additions which have been made to the text, I may mention the abstract (p. 143) of Professor Clifford’s remarkable investigation into the number of types of compound statement involving four classes of objects. This inquiry carries forward the inverse logical problem described in the preceding sections. Again, the need of some better logical method than the old Barbara Celarent, &c., is strikingly shown by Mr. Venn’s logical problem, described at p. 90. A great number of candidates in logic and philosophy were tested by Mr. Venn with this problem, which, though simple in reality, was solved by very few of those who were ignorant of Boole’s Logic. Other evidence could be adduced by Mr. Venn of the need for some better means of logical training. To enable thexiv logical student to test his skill in the solution of inductive logical problems, I have given (p. 127) a series of ten problems graduated in difficulty.

To prevent misapprehension, it should be mentioned that, throughout this edition, I have substituted the name Logical Alphabet for Logical Abecedarium, the name applied in the first edition to the exhaustive series of logical combinations represented in terms of A, B, C, D (p. 94). It was objected by some readers that Abecedarium is a long and unfamiliar name.

To the chapter on Units and Standards of Measurement, I have added two sections, one (p. 325) containing a brief statement of the Theory of Dimensions, and the other (p. 319) discussing Professor Clerk Maxwell’s very original suggestion of a Natural System of Standards for the measurement of space and time, depending upon the length and rapidity of waves of light.

In my description of the Logical Machine in the Philosophical Transactions (vol. 160, p. 498), I said—“It is rarely indeed that any invention is made without some anticipation being sooner or later discovered; but up to the present time I am totally unaware of even a single previous attempt to devise or construct a machine which should perform the operations of logical inference; and it is only, I believe, in the satirical writings of Swift that an allusion to an actual reasoning machine is to be found.” Before the paper was printed, however, I was able to refer (p. 518) to the ingenious designs of the late Mr. Alfred Smee as attempts to represent thought mechanically. Mr. Smee’s machines indeed were never constructed, and, if constructed, would not have performed actual logical inference. It has now just come to light, however, that the celebrated Lord Stanhope actually did construct a mechanical device, capable of representing syllogistic inferences in a concrete form. It appears that logic was one of the favourite studies of this truly original and ingenious nobleman. There remain fragments of a logicalxv work, printed by the Earl at his own press, which show that he had arrived, before the year 1800, at the principle of the quantified predicate. He puts forward this principle in the most explicit manner, and proposes to employ it throughout his syllogistic system. Moreover, he converts negative propositions into affirmative ones, and represents these by means of the copula “is identic with.” Thus he anticipated, probably by the force of his own unaided insight, the main points of the logical method originated in the works of George Bentham and George Boole, and developed in this work. Stanhope, indeed, has no claim to priority of discovery, because he seems never to have published his logical writings, although they were put into print. There is no trace of them in the British Museum Library, nor in any other library or logical work, so far as I am aware. Both the papers and the logical contrivance have been placed by the present Earl Stanhope in the hands of the Rev. Robert Harley, F.R.S., who will, I hope, soon publish a description of them.‍1

By the kindness of Mr. Harley, I have been able to examine Stanhope’s logical contrivance, called by him the Demonstrator. It consists of a square piece of bay-wood with a square depression in the centre, across which two slides can be pushed, one being a piece of red glass, and the other consisting of wood coloured gray. The extent to which each of these slides is pushed in is indicated by scales and figures along the edges of the aperture, and the simple rule of inference adopted by Stanhope is: “To the gray add the red and subtract the holon,” meaning by holon (ὅλον) the whole width of the aperture. This rule of inference is a curious anticipation of De Morgan’s numerically definite syllogism (see below, p. 168), and of inferences founded on what Hamilton called “Ultra-total distribution.” Another curious point about Stanhope’sxvi device is, that one slide can be drawn out and pushed in again at right angles to the other, and the overlapping part of the slides then represents the probability of a conclusion, derived from two premises of which the probabilities are respectively represented by the projecting parts of the slides. Thus it appears that Stanhope had studied the logic of probability as well as that of certainty, here again anticipating, however obscurely, the recent progress of logical science. It will be seen, however, that between Stanhope’s Demonstrator and my Logical Machine there is no resemblance beyond the fact that they both perform logical inference.

In the first edition I inserted a section (vol. i. p. 25), on “Anticipations of the Principle of Substitution,” and I have reprinted that section unchanged in this edition (p. 21). I remark therein that, “In such a subject as logic it is hardly possible to put forth any opinions which have not been in some degree previously entertained. The germ at least of every doctrine will be found in earlier writings, and novelty must arise chiefly in the mode of harmonising and developing ideas.” I point out, as Professor T. M. Lindsay had previously done, that Beneke had employed the name and principle of substitution, and that doctrines closely approximating to substitution were stated by the Port Royal Logicians more than 200 years ago.

I have not been at all surprised to learn, however, that other logicians have more or less distinctly stated this principle of substitution during the last two centuries. As my friend and successor at Owens College, Professor Adamson, has discovered, this principle can be traced back to no less a philosopher than Leibnitz.

The remarkable tract of Leibnitz,‍2 entitled “Non inelegans Specimen Demonstrandi in Abstractis,” commences at once with a definition corresponding to the principle:‍—

xvii

“Eadem sunt quorum unum potest substitui alteri salva veritate. Si sint A et B, et A ingrediatur aliquam propositionem veram, et ibi in aliquo loco ipsius A pro ipso substituendo B fiat nova propositio æque itidem vera, idque semper succedat in quacunque tali propositione, A et B dicuntur esse eadem; et contra, si eadem sint A et B, procedet substitutio quam dixi.”

Leibnitz, then, explicitly adopts the principle of substitution, but he puts it in the form of a definition, saying that those things are the same which can be substituted one for the other, without affecting the truth of the proposition. It is only after having thus tested the sameness of things that we can turn round and say that A and B, being the same, may be substituted one for the other. It would seem as if we were here in a vicious circle; for we are not allowed to substitute A for B, unless we have ascertained by trial that the result is a true proposition. The difficulty does not seem to be removed by Leibnitz’ proviso, “idque semper succedat in quacunque tali propositione.” How can we learn that because A and B may be mutually substituted in some propositions, they may therefore be substituted in others; and what is the criterion of likeness of propositions expressed in the word “tali”? Whether the principle of substitution is to be regarded as a postulate, an axiom, or a definition, is just one of those fundamental questions which it seems impossible to settle in the present position of philosophy, but this uncertainty will not prevent our making a considerable step in logical science.

Leibnitz proceeds to establish in the form of a theorem what is usually taken as an axiom, thus (Opera, p. 95): “Theorema I. Quæ sunt eadem uni tertio, eadem sunt inter se. Si A ∝ B et B ∝ C, erit A ∝ C. Nam si in propositione A ∝ B (vera ea hypothesi) substituitur C in locum B (quod facere licet per Def. I. quia B ∝ C ex hypothesi) fiet A ∝ C. Q. E. Dem.” Thus Leibnitz precisely anticipates the mode of treating inference with two simple identities described at p. 51 of this work.

xviii

Even the mathematical axiom that ‘equals added to equals make equals,’ is deduced from the principle of substitution. At p. 95 of Erdmann’s edition, we find: “Si eidem addantur coincidentia fiunt coincidentia. Si A ∝ B, erit A + C ∝ B + C. Nam si in propositione A + C ∝ A + C (quæ est vera per se) pro A semel substituas B (quod facere licet per Def. I. quia A ∝ B) fiet A + C ∝ B + C  Q. E. Dem.” This is unquestionably the mode of deducing the several axioms of mathematical reasoning from the higher axiom of substitution, which is explained in the section on mathematical inference (p. 162) in this work, and which had been previously stated in my Substitution of Similars, p. 16.

There are one or two other brief tracts in which Leibnitz anticipates the modern views of logic. Thus in the eighteenth tract in Erdmann’s edition (p. 92), called “Fundamenta Calculi Ratiocinatoris”, he says: “Inter ea quorum unum alteri substitui potest, salvis calculi legibus, dicetur esse æquipollentiam.” There is evidence, also, that he had arrived at the quantification of the predicate, and that he fully understood the reduction of the universal affirmative proposition to the form of an equation, which is the key to an improved view of logic. Thus, in the tract entitled “Difficultates Quædam Logicæ,”‍3 he says: “Omne A est B; id est æquivalent AB et A, seu A non B est non-ens.”

It is curious to find, too, that Leibnitz was fully acquainted with the Laws of Commutativeness and “Simplicity” (as I have called the second law) attaching to logical symbols. In the “Addenda ad Specimen Calculi Universalis” we read as follows.‍4 “Transpositio literarum in eodem termino nihil mutat, ut ab coincidet cum ba, seu animal rationale et rationale animal.”

“Repetitio ejusdem literæ in eodem termino est inutilis, ut b est aa; vel bb est a; homo est animal animal, vel homo homo est animal. Sufficit enim dici a est b, seu homo est animal.”

xix

Comparing this with what is stated in Boole’s Mathematical Analysis of Logic, pp. 17–18, in his Laws of Thought, p. 29, or in this work, pp. 32–35, we find that Leibnitz had arrived two centuries ago at a clear perception of the bases of logical notation. When Boole pointed out that, in logic, xx = x, this seemed to mathematicians to be a paradox, or in any case a wholly new discovery; but here we have it plainly stated by Leibnitz.

The reader must not assume, however, that because Leibnitz correctly apprehended the fundamental principles of logic, he left nothing for modern logicians to do. On the contrary, Leibnitz obtained no useful results from his definition of substitution. When he proceeds to explain the syllogism, as in the paper on “Definitiones Logicæ,”‍‍5 he gives up substitution altogether, and falls back upon the notion of inclusion of class in class, saying, “Includens includentis est includens inclusi, seu si A includit B et B includit C, etiam A includet C.” He proceeds to make out certain rules of the syllogism involving the distinction of subject and predicate, and in no important respect better than the old rules of the syllogism. Leibnitz’ logical tracts are, in fact, little more than brief memoranda of investigations which seem never to have been followed out. They remain as evidence of his wonderful sagacity, but it would be difficult to show that they have had any influence on the progress of logical science in recent times.

I should like to explain how it happened that these logical writings of Leibnitz were unknown to me, until within the last twelve months. I am so slow a reader of Latin books, indeed, that my overlooking a few pages of Leibnitz’ works would not have been in any case surprising. But the fact is that the copy of Leibnitz’ works of which I made occasional use, was one of the edition of Dutens, contained in Owens College Library. The logical tracts in question were not printed in thatxx edition, and with one exception, they remained in manuscript in the Royal Library at Hanover, until edited by Erdmann, in 1839–40. The tract “Difficultates Quædam Logicæ,” though not known to Dutens, was published by Raspe in 1765, in his collection called Œuvres Philosophiques de feu M^r. Leibnitz; but this work had not come to my notice, nor does the tract in question seem to contain any explicit statement of the principle of substitution.

It is, I presume, the comparatively recent publication of Leibnitz’ most remarkable logical tracts which explains the apparent ignorance of logicians as regards their contents and importance. The most learned logicians, such as Hamilton and Ueberweg, ignore Leibnitz’ principle of substitution. In the Appendix to the fourth volume of Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, is given an elaborate compendium of the views of logical writers concerning the ultimate basis of deductive reasoning. Leibnitz is briefly noticed on p. 319, but without any hint of substitution. He is here quoted as saying, “What are the same with the same third, are the same with each other; that is, if A be the same with B, and C be the same with B, it is necessary that A and C should also be the same with one another. For this principle flows immediately from the principle of contradiction, and is the ground and basis of all logic; if that fail, there is no longer any way of reasoning with certainty.” This view of the matter seems to be inconsistent with that which he adopted in his posthumous tract.

Dr. Thomson, indeed, was acquainted with Leibnitz’ tracts, and refers to them in his Outline of the Necessary Laws of Thought. He calls them valuable; nevertheless, he seems to have missed the really valuable point; for in making two brief quotations,‍6 he omits all mention of the principle of substitution.

Ueberweg is probably considered the best authorityxxi concerning the history of logic, and in his well-known System of Logic and History of Logical Doctrines,‍7 he gives some account of the principle of substitution, especially as it is implicitly stated in the Port Royal Logic. But he omits all reference to Leibnitz in this connection, nor does he elsewhere, so far as I can find, supply the omission. His English editor, Professor T. M. Lindsay, in referring to my Substitution of Similars, points out how I was anticipated by Beneke; but he also ignores Leibnitz. It is thus apparent that the most learned logicians, even when writing especially on the history of logic, displayed ignorance of Leibnitz’ most valuable logical writings.

It has been recently pointed out to me, however, that the Rev. Robert Harley did draw attention, at the Nottingham Meeting of the British Association, in 1866, to Leibnitz’ anticipations of Boole’s laws of logical notation,‍8 and I am informed that Boole, about a year after the publication of his Laws of Thought, was made acquainted with these anticipations by R. Leslie Ellis.

There seems to have been at least one other German logician who discovered, or adopted, the principle of substitution. Reusch, in his Systema Logicum, published in 1734, laboured to give a broader basis to the Dictum de Omni et Nullo. He argues, that “the whole business of ordinary reasoning is accomplished by the substitution of ideas in place of the subject or predicate of the fundamental proposition. This some call the equation of thoughts.” But, in the hands of Reusch, substitution does not seem to lead to simplicity, since it has to be carried on according to the rules of Equipollence, Reciprocation, Subordination, and Co-ordination.‍9 Reusch is elsewhere spoken of‍10 as the “celebrated Reusch”; nevertheless, I have not been able toxxii find a copy of his book in London, even in the British Museum Library; it is not mentioned in the printed catalogue of the Bodleian Library; Messrs. Asher have failed to obtain it for me by advertisement in Germany; and Professor Adamson has been equally unsuccessful. From the way in which the principle of substitution is mentioned by Reusch, it would seem likely that other logicians of the early part of the eighteenth century were acquainted with it; but, if so, it is still more curious that recent historians of logical science have overlooked the doctrine.

It is a strange and discouraging fact, that true views of logic should have been discovered and discussed from one to two centuries ago, and yet should have remained, like George Bentham’s work in this century, without influence on the subsequent progress of the science. It may be regarded as certain that none of the discoverers of the quantification of the predicate, Bentham, Hamilton, Thomson, De Morgan, and Boole, were in any way assisted by the hints of the principle contained in previous writers. As to my own views of logic, they were originally moulded by a careful study of Boole’s works, as fully stated in my first logical essay.‍11 As to the process of substitution, it was not learnt from any work on logic, but is simply the process of substitution perfectly familiar to mathematicians, and with which I necessarily became familiar in the course of my long-continued study of mathematics under the late Professor De Morgan.

I find that the Theory of Number, which I explained in the eighth chapter of this work, is also partially anticipated in a single scholium of Leibnitz. He first gives as an axiom the now well-known law of Boole, as follows:‍—

“Axioma I. Si idem secum ipso sumatur, nihil constituitur novum, seu A + A ∝ A.” Then follows thisxxiii remarkable scholium: “Equidem in numeris 4 + 4 facit 8, seu bini nummi binis additi faciunt quatuor nummos, sed tunc bini additi sunt alii a prioribus; si iidem essent nihil novi prodiret et perinde esset ac si joco ex tribus ovis facere vellemus sex numerando, primum 3 ova, deinde uno sublato residua 2, ac denique uno rursus sublato residuum.”

Translated this would read as follows:‍—

“Axiom I. If the same thing is taken together with itself, nothing new arises, or A + A = A.

“Scholium. In numbers, indeed, 4 + 4 makes 8, or two coins added to two coins make four coins, but then the two added are different from the former ones; if they were the same nothing new would be produced, and it would be just as if we tried in joke to make six eggs out of three, by counting firstly the three eggs, then, one being removed, counting the remaining two, and lastly, one being again removed, counting the remaining egg.”

Compare the above with pp. 156 to 162 of the present work.

M. Littré has quite recently pointed out‍12 what he thinks is an analogy between the system of formal logic, stated in the following pages, and the logical devices of the celebrated Raymond Lully. Lully’s method of invention was described in a great number of mediæval books, but is best stated in his Ars Compendiosa Inveniendi Veritatem, seu Ars Magna et Major. This method consisted in placing various names of things in the sectors of concentric circles, so that when the circles were turned, every possible combination of the things was easily produced by mechanical means. It might, perhaps, be possible to discover in this method a vague and rude anticipation of combinational logic; but it is well known that the results of Lully’s method were usually of a fanciful, if not absurd character.

A much closer analogue of the Logical Alphabet is probably to be found in the Logical Square, invented byxxiv John Christian Lange, and described in a rare and unnoticed work by him which I have recently found in the British Museum.‍13 This square involved the principle of bifurcate classification, and was an improved form of the Ramean and Porphyrian tree (see below, p. 702). Lange seems, indeed, to have worked out his Logical Square into a mechanical form, and he suggests that it might be employed somewhat in the manner of Napier’s Bones (p. 65). There is much analogy between his Square and my Abacus, but Lange had not arrived at a logical system enabling him to use his invention for logical inference in the manner of the Logical Abacus. Another work of Lange is said to contain the first publication of the well known Eulerian diagrams of proposition and syllogism.‍14

Since the first edition was published, an important work by Mr. George Lewes has appeared, namely, his Problems of Life and Mind, which to a great extent treats of scientific method, and formulates the rules of philosophising. I should have liked to discuss the bearing of Mr. Lewes’s views upon those here propounded, but I have felt it to be impossible in a book already filling nearly 800 pages, to enter upon the discussion of a yet more extensive book. For the same reason I have not been able to compare my own treatment of the subject of probability with the views expressed by Mr. Venn in his Logic of Chance. With Mr. J. J. Murphy’s profound and remarkable works on Habit and Intelligence, and on The Scientific Basis of Faith, I was unfortunately unacquainted when I wrote the following pages. They cannot safely be overlooked by any one who wishes to comprehend the tendency of philosophy and scientific method in the present day.

It seems desirable that I should endeavour to answer some of the critics who have pointed out what theyxxv consider defects in the doctrines of this book, especially in the first part, which treats of deduction. Some of the notices of the work were indeed rather statements of its contents than critiques. Thus, I am much indebted to M. Louis Liard, Professor of Philosophy at Bordeaux, for the very careful exposition‍15 of the substitutional view of logic which he gave in the excellent Revue Philosophique, edited by M. Ribot. (Mars, 1877, tom. iii. p. 277.) An equally careful account of the system was given by M. Riehl, Professor of Philosophy at Graz, in his article on “Die Englische Logik der Gegenwart,” published in the Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie. (1 Heft, Leipzig, 1876.) I should like to acknowledge also the careful and able manner in which my book was reviewed by the New York Daily Tribune and the New York Times.

The most serious objections which have been brought against my treatment of logic have regard to my failure to enter into an analysis of the ultimate nature and origin of the Laws of Thought. The Spectator,‍16 for instance, in the course of a careful review, says of the principle of substitution, “Surely it is a great omission not to discuss whence we get this great principle itself; whether it is a pure law of the mind, or only an approximate lesson of experience; and if a pure product of the mind, whether there are any other products of the same kind, furnished by our knowing faculty itself.” Professor Robertson, in his very acute review,‍17 likewise objects to the want ofxxvi psychological and philosophical analysis. “If the book really corresponded to its title, Mr. Jevons could hardly have passed so lightly over the question, which he does not omit to raise, concerning those undoubted principles of knowledge commonly called the Laws of Thought.... Everywhere, indeed, he appears least at ease when he touches on questions properly philosophical; nor is he satisfactory in his psychological references, as on pp. 4, 5, where he cannot commit himself to a statement without an accompaniment of ‘probably,’ ‘almost,’ or ‘hardly.’ Reservations are often very much in place, but there are fundamental questions on which it is proper to make up one’s mind.”

These remarks appear to me to be well founded, and I must state why it is that I have ventured to publish an extensive work on logic, without properly making up my mind as to the fundamental nature of the reasoning process. The fault after all is one of omission rather than of commission. It is open to me on a future occasion to supply the deficiency if I should ever feel able to undertake the task. But I do not conceive it to be an essential part of any treatise to enter into an ultimate analysis of its subject matter. Analyses must always end somewhere. There were good treatises on light which described the laws of the phenomenon correctly before it was known whether light consisted of undulations or of projected particles. Now we have treatises on the Undulatory Theory which are very valuable and satisfactory, although they leave us in almost complete doubt as to what the vibrating medium really is. So I think that, in the present day, we need a correct and scientific exhibition of the formal laws of thought, and of the forms of reasoning based on them, although we may not be able to enter into any complete analysis of the nature of those laws. What would the science of geometry be like now if the Greek geometers had decided that it was improper to publish any propositions before they had decided onxxvii the nature of an axiom? Where would the science of arithmetic be now if an analysis of the nature of number itself were a necessary preliminary to a development of the results of its laws? In recent times there have been enormous additions to the mathematical sciences, but very few attempts at psychological analysis. In the Alexandrian and early mediæval schools of philosophy, much attention was given to the nature of unity and plurality chiefly called forth by the question of the Trinity. In the last two centuries whole sciences have been created out of the notion of plurality, and yet speculation on the nature of plurality has dwindled away. This present treatise contains, in the eighth chapter, one of the few recent attempts to analyse the notion of number itself.

If further illustration is needed, I may refer to the differential calculus. Nobody calls in question the formal truth of the results of that calculus. All the more exact and successful parts of physical science depend upon its use, and yet the mathematicians who have created so great a body of exact truths have never decided upon the basis of the calculus. What is the nature of a limit or the nature of an infinitesimal? Start the question among a knot of mathematicians, and it will be found that hardly two agree, unless it is in regarding the question itself as a trifling one. Some hold that there are no such things as infinitesimals, and that it is all a question of limits. Others would argue that the infinitesimal is the necessary outcome of the limit, but various shades of intermediate opinion spring up.

Now it is just the same with logic. If the forms of deductive and inductive reasoning given in the earlier part of this treatise are correct, they constitute a definite addition to logical science, and it would have been absurd to decline to publish such results because I could not at the same time decide in my own mind about the psychology and philosophy of the subject. It comes in short to this, that my book is a book on Formal Logic andxxviii Scientific Method, and not a book on psychology and philosophy.

It may be objected, indeed, as the Spectator objects, that Mill’s System of Logic is particularly strong in the discussion of the psychological foundations of reasoning, so that Mill would appear to have successfully treated that which I feel myself to be incapable of attempting at present. If Mill’s analysis of knowledge is correct, then I have nothing to say in excuse for my own deficiencies. But it is well to do one thing at a time, and therefore I have not occupied any considerable part of this book with controversy and refutation. What I have to say of Mill’s logic will be said in a separate work, in which his analysis of knowledge will be somewhat minutely analysed. It will then be shown, I believe, that Mill’s psychological and philosophical treatment of logic has not yielded such satisfactory results as some writers seem to believe.‍18

Various minor but still important criticisms were made by Professor Robertson, a few of which have been noticed in the text (pp. 27, 101). In other cases his objections hardly admit of any other answer than such as consists in asking the reader to judge between the work and the criticism. Thus Mr. Robertson asserts‍19 that the most complex logical problems solved in this book (up to p. 102 of this edition) might be more easily and shortly dealt with upon the principles and with the recognised methods of the traditional logic. The burden of proof here lies upon Mr. Robertson, and his only proof consists in a single case, where he is able, as it seems to me accidentally, to get a special conclusion by the old form of dilemma. It would be a long labour to test the old logic upon every result obtained by my notation, and I must leave suchxxix readers as are well acquainted with the syllogistic logic to pronounce upon the comparative simplicity and power of the new and old systems. For other acute objections brought forward by Mr. Robertson, I must refer the reader to the article in question.

One point in my last chapter, that on the Results and Limits of Scientific Method, has been criticised by Professor W. K. Clifford in his lecture‍20 on “The First and the Last Catastrophe.” In vol. ii. p. 438 of the first edition (p. 744 of this edition) I referred to certain inferences drawn by eminent physicists as to a limit to the antiquity of the present order of things. “According to Sir W. Thomson’s deductions from Fourier’s theory of heat, we can trace down the dissipation of heat by conduction and radiation to an infinitely distant time when all things will be uniformly cold. But we cannot similarly trace the Heat-history of the Universe to an infinite distance in the past. For a certain negative value of the time, the formulæ give impossible values, indicating that there was some initial distribution of heat which could not have resulted, according to known laws of nature, from any previous distribution.”

Now according to Professor Clifford I have here misstated Thomson’s results. “It is not according to the known laws of nature, it is according to the known laws of conduction of heat, that Sir William Thomson is speaking. . . . All these physical writers, knowing what they were writing about, simply drew such conclusions from the facts which were before them as could be reasonably drawn. They say, here is a state of things which could not have been produced by the circumstances we are at present investigating. Then your speculator comes, he reads a sentence and says, ‘Here is an opportunity for me to have my fling.’ And he has his fling, and makes a purely baseless theory about the necessary origin of the present order of nature at some definite point of time, which might be calculated.”

Professor Clifford proceeds to explain that Thomson’s formulæ only give a limit to the heat history of, say, the earth’s crust in the solid state. We are led back to the time when it became solidified from the fluid condition. There is discontinuity in the history of the solid matter, but still discontinuity which is within our comprehension. Still further back we should come to discontinuity again, when the liquid was formed by the condensation of heated gaseous matter. Beyond that event, however, there is no need to suppose further discontinuity of law, for the gaseous matter might consist of molecules which had been falling together from different parts of space through infinite past time. As Professor Clifford says (p. 481) of the bodies of the universe, “What they have actually done is to fall together and get solid. If we should reverse the process we should see them separating and getting cool, and as a limit to that, we should find that all these bodies would be resolved into molecules, and all these would be flying away from each other. There would be no limit to that process, and we could trace it as far back as ever we liked to trace it.”

Assuming that I have erred, I should like to point out that I have erred in the best company, or more strictly, being a speculator, I have been led into error by the best physical writers. Professor Tait, in his Sketch of Thermodynamics, speaking of the laws discovered by Fourier for the motion of heat in a solid, says, “Their mathematical expressions point also to the fact that a uniform distribution of heat, or a distribution tending to become uniform, must have arisen from some primitive distribution of heat of a kind not capable of being produced by known laws from any previous distribution.” In the latter words it will be seen that there is no limitation to the laws of conduction, and, although I had carefully referred to Sir W. Thomson’s original paper, it is not unnaturalxxxi that I should take Professor Tait’s interpretation of its meaning.‍21

In his new work On some Recent Advances in Physical Science, Professor Tait has recurred to the subject as follows:‍22 “A profound lesson may be learned from one of the earliest little papers of Sir W. Thomson, published while he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, where he shows that Fourier’s magnificent treatment of the conduction of heat [in a solid body] leads to formulæ for its distribution which are intelligible (and of course capable of being fully verified by experiment) for all time future, but which, except in particular cases, when extended to time past, remain intelligible for a finite period only, and then indicate a state of things which could not have resulted under known laws from any conceivable previous distribution [of heat in the body]. So far as heat is concerned, modern investigations have shown that a previous distribution of the matter involved may, by its potential energy, be capable of producing such a state of things at the moment of its aggregation; but the example is now adduced not for its bearing on heat alone, but as a simple illustration of the fact that all portions of our Science, especially that beautiful one, the Dissipation of Energy, point unanimously to a beginning, to a state of things incapable of being derived by present laws [of tangible matter and its energy] from any conceivable previous arrangement.” As this was published nearly a year after Professor Clifford’s lecture, it may be inferredxxxii that Professor Tait adheres to his original opinion that the theory of heat does give evidence of “a beginning.”

I may add that Professor Clerk Maxwell’s words seem to countenance the same view, for he says,‍23 “This is only one of the cases in which a consideration of the dissipation of energy leads to the determination of a superior limit to the antiquity of the observed order of things.” The expression “observed order of things” is open to much ambiguity, but in the absence of qualification I should take it to include the aggregate of the laws of nature known to us. I should interpret Professor Maxwell as meaning that the theory of heat indicates the occurrence of some event of which our science cannot give any further explanation. The physical writers thus seem not to be so clear about the matter as Professor Clifford assumes.

So far as I may venture to form an independent opinion on the subject, it is to the effect that Professor Clifford is right, and that the known laws of nature do not enable us to assign a “beginning.” Science leads us backwards into infinite past duration. But that Professor Clifford is right on this point, is no reason why we should suppose him to be right in his other opinions, some of which I am sure are wrong. Nor is it a reason why other parts of my last chapter should be wrong. The question only affects the single paragraph on pp. 744–5 of this book, which might, I believe, be struck out without necessitating any alteration in the rest of the text. It is always to be remembered that the failure of an argument in favour of a proposition does not, generally speaking, add much, if any, probability to the contradictory proposition. I cannot conclude without expressing my acknowledgments to Professor Clifford for his kind expressions regarding my work as a whole.

2, The Chestnuts,
 West Heath,
    Hampstead, N. W.

August 15, 1877.

1

Science arises from the discovery of Identity amidst Diversity. The process may be described in different words, but our language must always imply the presence of one common and necessary element. In every act of inference or scientific method we are engaged about a certain identity, sameness, similarity, likeness, resemblance, analogy, equivalence or equality apparent between two objects. It is doubtful whether an entirely isolated phenomenon could present itself to our notice, since there must always be some points of similarity between object and object. But in any case an isolated phenomenon could be studied to no useful purpose. The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account.

Nature is a spectacle continually exhibited to our senses, in which phenomena are mingled in combinations of endless variety and novelty. Wonder fixes the mind’s attention; memory stores up a record of each distinct impression; the powers of association bring forth the record when the like is felt again. By the higher faculties of judgment and reasoning the mind compares the new with2 the old, recognises essential identity, even when disguised by diverse circumstances, and expects to find again what was before experienced. It must be the ground of all reasoning and inference that what is true of one thing will be true of its equivalent, and that under carefully ascertained conditions Nature repeats herself.

Were this indeed a Chaotic Universe, the powers of mind employed in science would be useless to us. Did Chance wholly take the place of order, and did all phenomena come out of an Infinite Lottery, to use Condorcet’s expression, there could be no reason to expect the like result in like circumstances. It is possible to conceive a world in which no two things should be associated more often, in the long run, than any other two things. The frequent conjunction of any two events would then be purely fortuitous, and if we expected conjunctions to recur continually, we should be disappointed. In such a world we might recognise the same kind of phenomenon as it appeared from time to time, just as we might recognise a marked ball as it was occasionally drawn and re-drawn from a ballot-box; but the approach of any phenomenon would be in no way indicated by what had gone before, nor would it be a sign of what was to come after. In such a world knowledge would be no more than the memory of past coincidences, and the reasoning powers, if they existed at all, would give no clue to the nature of the present, and no presage of the future.

Happily the Universe in which we dwell is not the result of chance, and where chance seems to work it is our own deficient faculties which prevent us from recognising the operation of Law and of Design. In the material framework of this world, substances and forces present themselves in definite and stable combinations. Things are not in perpetual flux, as ancient philosophers held. Element remains element; iron changes not into gold. With suitable precautions we can calculate upon finding the same thing again endowed with the same properties. The constituents of the globe, indeed, appear in almost endless combinations; but each combination bears its fixed character, and when resolved is found to be the compound of definite substances. Misapprehensions must continually occur, owing to the limited extent of our experience. We3 can never have examined and registered possible existences so thoroughly as to be sure that no new ones will occur and frustrate our calculations. The same outward appearances may cover any amount of hidden differences which we have not yet suspected. To the variety of substances and powers diffused through nature at its creation, we should not suppose that our brief experience can assign a limit, and the necessary imperfection of our knowledge must be ever borne in mind.

Yet there is much to give us confidence in Science. The wider our experience, the more minute our examination of the globe, the greater the accumulation of well-reasoned knowledge,—the fewer in all probability will be the failures of inference compared with the successes. Exceptions to the prevalence of Law are gradually reduced to Law themselves. Certain deep similarities have been detected among the objects around us, and have never yet been found wanting. As the means of examining distant parts of the universe have been acquired, those similarities have been traced there as here. Other worlds and stellar systems may be almost incomprehensively different from ours in magnitude, condition and disposition of parts, and yet we detect there the same elements of which our own limbs are composed. The same natural laws can be detected in operation in every part of the universe within the scope of our instruments; and doubtless these laws are obeyed irrespective of distance, time, and circumstance.

It is the prerogative of Intellect to discover what is uniform and unchanging in the phenomena around us. So far as object is different from object, knowledge is useless and inference impossible. But so far as object resembles object, we can pass from one to the other. In proportion as resemblance is deeper and more general, the commanding powers of knowledge become more wonderful. Identity in one or other of its phases is thus always the bridge by which we pass in inference from case to case; and it is my purpose in this treatise to trace out the various forms in which the one same process of reasoning presents itself in the ever-growing achievements of Scientific Method.

4

The Powers of Mind concerned in the Creation of Science.

It is no part of the purpose of this work to investigate the nature of mind. People not uncommonly suppose that logic is a branch of psychology, because reasoning is a mental operation. On the same ground, however, we might argue that all the sciences are branches of psychology. As will be further explained, I adopt the opinion of Mr. Herbert Spencer, that logic is really an objective science, like mathematics or mechanics. Only in an incidental manner, then, need I point out that the mental powers employed in the acquisition of knowledge are probably three in number. They are substantially as Professor Bain has stated them‍24:‍—

1. The Power of Discrimination.

2. The Power of Detecting Identity.

3. The Power of Retention.

We exert the first power in every act of perception. Hardly can we have a sensation or feeling unless we discriminate it from something else which preceded. Consciousness would almost seem to consist in the break between one state of mind and the next, just as an induced current of electricity arises from the beginning or the ending of the primary current. We are always engaged in discrimination; and the rudiment of thought which exists in the lower animals probably consists in their power of feeling difference and being agitated by it.

Yet had we the power of discrimination only, Science could not be created. To know that one feeling differs from another gives purely negative information. It cannot teach us what will happen. In such a state of intellect each sensation would stand out distinct from every other; there would be no tie, no bridge of affinity between them. We want a unifying power by which the present and the future may be linked to the past; and this seems to be accomplished by a different power of mind. Lord Bacon has pointed out that different men possess in very different degrees the powers of discrimination and identification. It may be said indeed that discrimination necessarily implies the action of the opposite process of identification; and so5 it doubtless does in negative points. But there is a rare property of mind which consists in penetrating the disguise of variety and seizing the common elements of sameness; and it is this property which furnishes the true measure of intellect. The name of “intellect” expresses the interlacing of the general and the single, which is the peculiar province of mind.‍25 To cogitate is the Latin coagitare, resting on a like metaphor. Logic, also, is but another name for the same process, the peculiar work of reason; for λογος is derived from λεγειν, which like the Latin legere meant originally to gather. Plato said of this unifying power, that if he met the man who could detect the one in the many, he would follow him as a god.

Laws of Identity and Difference.

At the base of all thought and science must lie the laws which express the very nature and conditions of the discriminating and identifying powers of mind. These are the so-called Fundamental Laws of Thought, usually stated as follows:‍—

1. The Law of Identity. Whatever is, is.

2. The Law of Contradiction. A thing cannot both be and not be.

3. The Law of Duality. A thing must either be or not be.

The first of these statements may perhaps be regarded as a description of identity itself, if so fundamental a notion can admit of description. A thing at any moment is perfectly identical with itself, and, if any person were unaware of the meaning of the word “identity,” we could not better describe it than by such an example.

The second law points out that contradictory attributes can never be joined together. The same object may vary in its different parts; here it may be black, and there white; at one time it may be hard and at another time6 soft; but at the same time and place an attribute cannot be both present and absent. Aristotle truly described this law as the first of all axioms—one of which we need not seek for any demonstration. All truths cannot be proved, otherwise there would be an endless chain of demonstration; and it is in self-evident truths like this that we find the simplest foundations.

The third of these laws completes the other two. It asserts that at every step there are two possible alternatives—presence or absence, affirmation or negation. Hence I propose to name this law the Law of Duality, for it gives to all the formulæ of reasoning a dual character. It asserts also that between presence and absence, existence and non-existence, affirmation and negation, there is no third alternative. As Aristotle said, there can be no mean between opposite assertions: we must either affirm or deny. Hence the inconvenient name by which it has been known—The Law of Excluded Middle.

It may be allowed that these laws are not three independent and distinct laws; they rather express three different aspects of the same truth, and each law doubtless presupposes and implies the other two. But it has not hitherto been found possible to state these characters of identity and difference in less than the threefold formula. The reader may perhaps desire some information as to the mode in which these laws have been stated, or the way in which they have been regarded, by philosophers in different ages of the world. Abundant information on this and many other points of logical history will be found in Ueberweg’s System of Logic, of which an excellent translation has been published by Professor T. M. Lindsay (see pp. 228–281).

The Nature of the Laws of Identity and Difference.

I must at least allude to the profoundly difficult question concerning the nature and authority of these Laws of Identity and Difference. Are they Laws of Thought or Laws of Things? Do they belong to mind or to material nature? On the one hand it may be said that science is a purely mental existence, and must therefore conform to the laws of that which formed it. Science is in the mind and7 not in the things, and the properties of mind are therefore all important. It is true that these laws are verified in the observation of the exterior world; and it would seem that they might have been gathered and proved by generalisation, had they not already been in our possession. But on the other hand, it may well be urged that we cannot prove these laws by any process of reasoning or observation, because the laws themselves are presupposed, as Leibnitz acutely remarked, in the very notion of a proof. They are the prior conditions of all thought and all knowledge, and even to question their truth is to allow them true. Hartley ingeniously refined upon this argument, remarking that if the fundamental laws of logic be not certain, there must exist a logic of a second order whereby we may determine the degree of uncertainty: if the second logic be not certain, there must be a third; and so on ad infinitum. Thus we must suppose either that absolutely certain laws of thought exist, or that there is no such thing as certainty whatever.‍26

Logicians, indeed, appear to me to have paid insufficient attention to the fact that mistakes in reasoning are always possible, and of not unfrequent occurrence. The Laws of Thought are often called necessary laws, that is, laws which cannot but be obeyed. Yet as a matter of fact, who is there that does not often fail to obey them? They are the laws which the mind ought to obey rather than what it always does obey. Our thoughts cannot be the criterion of truth, for we often have to acknowledge mistakes in arguments of moderate complexity, and we sometimes only discover our mistakes by collision between our expectations and the events of objective nature.

Mr. Herbert Spencer holds that the laws of logic are objective laws,‍27 and he regards the mind as being in a state of constant education, each act of false reasoning or miscalculation leading to results which are likely to prevent similar mistakes from being again committed. I am quite inclined to accept such ingenious views; but at the same time it is necessary to distinguish between the accumulation of knowledge, and the constitution of the mind which allows of the acquisition of knowledge. Before the mind can perceive or reason at all it must have8 the conditions of thought impressed upon it. Before a mistake can be committed, the mind must clearly distinguish the mistaken conclusion from all other assertions. Are not the Laws of Identity and Difference the prior conditions of all consciousness and all existence? Must they not hold true, alike of things material and immaterial? and if so, can we say that they are only subjectively true or objectively true? I am inclined, in short, to regard them as true both “in the nature of thought and things,” as I expressed it in my first logical essay;‍28 and I hold that they belong to the common basis of all existence. But this is one of the most difficult questions of psychology and metaphysics which can be raised, and it is hardly one for the logician to decide. As the mathematician does not inquire into the nature of unity and plurality, but develops the formal laws of plurality, so the logician, as I conceive, must assume the truth of the Laws of Identity and Difference, and occupy himself in developing the variety of forms of reasoning in which their truth may be manifested.

Again, I need hardly dwell upon the question whether logic treats of language, notions, or things. As reasonably might we debate whether a mathematician treats of symbols, quantities, or things. A mathematician certainly does treat of symbols, but only as the instruments whereby to facilitate his reasoning concerning quantities; and as the axioms and rules of mathematical science must be verified in concrete objects in order that the calculations founded upon them may have any validity or utility, it follows that the ultimate objects of mathematical science are the things themselves. In like manner I conceive that the logician treats of language so far as it is essential for the embodiment and exhibition of thought. Even if reasoning can take place in the inner consciousness of man without the use of any signs, which is doubtful, at any rate it cannot become the subject of discussion until by some system of material signs it is manifested to other persons. The logician then uses words and symbols as instruments of reasoning, and leaves the nature and peculiarities of language to the grammarian. But signs again must9 correspond to the thoughts and things expressed, in order that they shall serve their intended purpose. We may therefore say that logic treats ultimately of thoughts and things, and immediately of the signs which stand for them. Signs, thoughts, and exterior objects may be regarded as parallel and analogous series of phenomena, and to treat any one of the three series is equivalent to treating either of the other series.

The Process of Inference.

The fundamental action of our reasoning faculties consists in inferring or carrying to a new instance of a phenomenon whatever we have previously known of its like, analogue, equivalent or equal. Sameness or identity presents itself in all degrees, and is known under various names; but the great rule of inference embraces all degrees, and affirms that so far as there exists sameness, identity or likeness, what is true of one thing will be true of the other. The great difficulty doubtless consists in ascertaining that there does exist a sufficient degree of likeness or sameness to warrant an intended inference; and it will be our main task to investigate the conditions under which reasoning is valid. In this place I wish to point out that there is something common to all acts of inference, however different their apparent forms. The one same rule lends itself to the most diverse applications.

The simplest possible case of inference, perhaps, occurs in the use of a pattern, example, or, as it is commonly called, a sample. To prove the exact similarity of two portions of commodity, we need not bring one portion beside the other. It is sufficient that we take a sample which exactly represents the texture, appearance, and general nature of one portion, and according as this sample agrees or not with the other, so will the two portions of commodity agree or differ. Whatever is true as regards the colour, texture, density, material of the sample will be true of the goods themselves. In such cases likeness of quality is the condition of inference.

Exactly the same mode of reasoning holds true of magnitude and figure. To compare the sizes of two objects, we need not lay them beside each other. A10 staff, string, or other kind of measure may be employed to represent the length of one object, and according as it agrees or not with the other, so must the two objects agree or differ. In this case the proxy or sample represents length; but the fact that lengths can be added and multiplied renders it unnecessary that the proxy should always be as large as the object. Any standard of convenient size, such as a common foot-rule, may be made the medium of comparison. The height of a church in one town may be carried to that in another, and objects existing immovably at opposite sides of the earth may be vicariously measured against each other. We obviously employ the axiom that whatever is true of a thing as regards its length, is true of its equal.

To every other simple phenomenon in nature the same principle of substitution is applicable. We may compare weights, densities, degrees of hardness, and degrees of all other qualities, in like manner. To ascertain whether two sounds are in unison we need not compare them directly, but a third sound may be the go-between. If a tuning-fork is in unison with the middle C of York Minster organ, and we afterwards find it to be in unison with the same note of the organ in Westminster Abbey, then it follows that the two organs are tuned in unison. The rule of inference now is, that what is true of the tuning-fork as regards the tone or pitch of its sound, is true of any sound in unison with it.

The skilful employment of this substitutive process enables us to make measurements beyond the powers of our senses. No one can count the vibrations, for instance, of an organ-pipe. But we can construct an instrument called the siren, so that, while producing a sound of any pitch, it shall register the number of vibrations constituting the sound. Adjusting the sound of the siren in unison with an organ-pipe, we measure indirectly the number of vibrations belonging to a sound of that pitch. To measure a sound of the same pitch is as good as to measure the sound itself.

Sir David Brewster, in a somewhat similar manner, succeeded in measuring the refractive indices of irregular fragments of transparent minerals. It was a troublesome, and sometimes impracticable work to grind the minerals11 into prisms, so that the power of refracting light could be directly observed; but he fell upon the ingenious device of compounding a liquid possessing the same refractive power as the transparent fragment under examination. The moment when this equality was attained could be known by the fragments ceasing to reflect or refract light when immersed in the liquid, so that they became almost invisible in it. The refractive power of the liquid being then measured gave that of the solid. A more beautiful instance of representative measurement, depending immediately upon the principle of inference, could not be found.‍29

Throughout the various logical processes which we are about to consider—Deduction, Induction, Generalisation, Analogy, Classification, Quantitative Reasoning—we shall find the one same principle operating in a more or less disguised form.

Deduction and Induction.

The processes of inference always depend on the one same principle of substitution; but they may nevertheless be distinguished according as the results are inductive or deductive. As generally stated, deduction consists in passing from more general to less general truths; induction is the contrary process from less to more general truths. We may however describe the difference in another manner. In deduction we are engaged in developing the consequences of a law. We learn the meaning, contents, results or inferences, which attach to any given proposition. Induction is the exactly inverse process. Given certain results or consequences, we are required to discover the general law from which they flow.

In a certain sense all knowledge is inductive. We can only learn the laws and relations of things in nature by observing those things. But the knowledge gained from the senses is knowledge only of particular facts, and we require some process of reasoning by which we may collect out of the facts the laws obeyed by them.12 Experience gives us the materials of knowledge: induction digests those materials, and yields us general knowledge. When we possess such knowledge, in the form of general propositions and natural laws, we can usefully apply the reverse process of deduction to ascertain the exact information required at any moment. In its ultimate foundation, then, all knowledge is inductive—in the sense that it is derived by a certain inductive reasoning from the facts of experience.

It is nevertheless true,—and this is a point to which insufficient attention has been paid, that all reasoning is founded on the principles of deduction. I call in question the existence of any method of reasoning which can be carried on without a knowledge of deductive processes. I shall endeavour to show that induction is really the inverse process of deduction. There is no mode of ascertaining the laws which are obeyed in certain phenomena, unless we have the power of determining what results would follow from a given law. Just as the process of division necessitates a prior knowledge of multiplication, or the integral calculus rests upon the observation and remembrance of the results of the differential calculus, so induction requires a prior knowledge of deduction. An inverse process is the undoing of the direct process. A person who enters a maze must either trust to chance to lead him out again, or he must carefully notice the road by which he entered. The facts furnished to us by experience are a maze of particular results; we might by chance observe in them the fulfilment of a law, but this is scarcely possible, unless we thoroughly learn the effects which would attach to any particular law.

Accordingly, the importance of deductive reasoning is doubly supreme. Even when we gain the results of induction they would be of no use unless we could deductively apply them. But before we can gain them at all we must understand deduction, since it is the inversion of deduction which constitutes induction. Our first task in this work, then, must be to trace out fully the nature of identity in all its forms of occurrence. Having given any series of propositions we must be prepared to develop deductively the whole meaning embodied in them, and the whole of the consequences which flow from them.

13

Symbolic Expression of Logical Inference.

In developing the results of the Principle of Inference we require to use an appropriate language of signs. It would indeed be quite possible to explain the processes of reasoning by the use of words found in the dictionary. Special examples of reasoning, too, may seem to be more readily apprehended than general symbolic forms. But it has been shown in the mathematical sciences that the attainment of truth depends greatly upon the invention of a clear, brief, and appropriate system of symbols. Not only is such a language convenient, but it is almost essential to the expression of those general truths which are the very soul of science. To apprehend the truth of special cases of inference does not constitute logic; we must apprehend them as cases of more general truths. The object of all science is the separation of what is common and general from what is accidental and different. In a system of logic, if anywhere, we should esteem this generality, and strive to exhibit clearly what is similar in very diverse cases. Hence the great value of general symbols by which we can represent the form of a reasoning process, disentangled from any consideration of the special subject to which it is applied.

The signs required in logic are of a very simple kind. As sameness or difference must exist between two things or notions, we need signs to indicate the things or notions compared, and other signs to denote the relations between them. We need, then, (1) symbols for terms, (2) a symbol for sameness, (3) a symbol for difference, and (4) one or two symbols to take the place of conjunctions.

Ordinary nouns substantive, such as Iron, Metal, Electricity, Undulation, might serve as terms, but, for the reasons explained above, it is better to adopt blank letters, devoid of special signification, such as A, B, C, &c. Each letter must be understood to represent a noun, and, so far as the conditions of the argument allow, any noun. Just as in Algebra, x, y, z, p, q, &c. are used for any quantities, undetermined or unknown, except when the special conditions of the problem are taken into account, so will our letters stand for undetermined or unknown things.

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These letter-terms will be used indifferently for nouns substantive and adjective. Between these two kinds of nouns there may perhaps be differences in a metaphysical or grammatical point of view. But grammatical usage sanctions the conversion of adjectives into substantives, and vice versâ; we may avail ourselves of this latitude without in any way prejudging the metaphysical difficulties which may be involved. Here, as throughout this work, I shall devote my attention to truths which I can exhibit in a clear and formal manner, believing that in the present condition of logical science, this course will lead to greater advantage than discussion upon the metaphysical questions which may underlie any part of the subject.

Every noun or term denotes an object, and usually implies the possession by that object of certain qualities or circumstances common to all the objects denoted. There are certain terms, however, which imply the absence of qualities or circumstances attaching to other objects. It will be convenient to employ a special mode of indicating these negative terms, as they are called. If the general name A denotes an object or class of objects possessing certain defined qualities, then the term Not A will denote any object which does not possess the whole of those qualities; in short, Not A is the sign for anything which differs from A in regard to any one or more of the assigned qualities. If A denote “transparent object,” Not A will denote “not transparent object.” Brevity and facility of expression are of no slight importance in a system of notation, and it will therefore be desirable to substitute for the negative term Not A a briefer symbol. De Morgan represented negative terms by small Roman letters, or sometimes by small italic letters;‍30 as the latter seem to be highly convenient, I shall use a, b, c, . . . p, q, &c., as the negative terms corresponding to A, B, C, . . . P, Q, &c. Thus if A means “fluid,” a will mean “not fluid.”

Expression of Identity and Difference.

To denote the relation of sameness or identity I unhesitatingly adopt the sign =, so long used by mathematicians to denote equality. This symbol was originally appropriated15 by Robert Recorde in his Whetstone of Wit, to avoid the tedious repetition of the words “is equal to;” and he chose a pair of parallel lines, because no two things can be more equal.‍31 The meaning of the sign has however been gradually extended beyond that of equality of quantities; mathematicians have themselves used it to indicate equivalence of operations. The force of analogy has been so great that writers in most other branches of science have employed the same sign. The philologist uses it to indicate the equivalence of meaning of words: chemists adopt it to signify identity in kind and equality in weight of the elements which form two different compounds. Not a few logicians, for instance Lambert, Drobitsch, George Bentham,‍32 Boole,‍33 have employed it as the copula of propositions. De Morgan declined to use it for this purpose, but still further extended its meaning so as to include the equivalence of a proposition with the premises from which it can be inferred;‍34 and Herbert Spencer has applied it in a like manner.‍35

Many persons may think that the choice of a symbol is a matter of slight importance or of mere convenience; but I hold that the common use of this sign = in so many different meanings is really founded upon a generalisation of the widest character and of the greatest importance—one indeed which it is a principal purpose of this work to explain. The employment of the same sign in different cases would be unphilosophical unless there were some real analogy between its diverse meanings. If such analogy exists, it is not only allowable, but highly desirable and even imperative, to use the symbol of equivalence with a generality of meaning corresponding to the generality of the principles involved. Accordingly De Morgan’s refusal to use the symbol in logical propositions indicated his opinion that there was a want of analogy between logical propositions and mathematical equations. I use the sign because I hold the contrary opinion.

16

I conceive that the sign = as commonly employed, always denotes some form or degree of sameness, and the particular form is usually indicated by the nature of the terms joined by it. Thus “6,720 pounds = 3 tons” is evidently an equation of quantities. The formula — × — = + expresses the equivalence of operations. “Exogens = Dicotyledons” is a logical identity expressing a profound truth concerning the character and origin of a most important group of plants.

We have great need in logic of a distinct sign for the copula, because the little verb is (or are), hitherto used both in logic and ordinary discourse, is thoroughly ambiguous. It sometimes denotes identity, as in “St. Paul’s is the chef-d’œuvre of Sir Christopher Wren;” but it more commonly indicates inclusion of class within class, or partial identity, as in “Bishops are members of the House of Lords.” This latter relation involves identity, but requires careful discrimination from simple identity, as will be shown further on.

When with this sign of equality we join two nouns or logical terms, as in

we signify that the object or group of objects denoted by one term is identical with that denoted by the other, in everything except the names. The general formula

must be taken to mean that A and B are symbols for the same object or group of objects. This identity may sometimes arise from the mere imposition of names, but it may also arise from the deepest laws of the constitution of nature; as when we say

We shall need carefully to distinguish between relations of terms which can be modified at our own will and those which are fixed as expressing the laws of nature; but at present we are considering only the mode of expression which may be the same in either case.

Sometimes, but much less frequently, we require a symbol to indicate difference or the absence of complete17 sameness. For this purpose we may generalise in like manner the symbol ~, which was introduced by Wallis to signify difference between quantities. The general formula

denotes that B and C are the names of two objects or groups which are not identical with each other. Thus we may say

I shall also occasionally use the sign ᔕ to signify in the most general manner the existence of any relation between the two terms connected by it. Thus ᔕ might mean not only the relations of equality or inequality, sameness or difference, but any special relation of time, place, size, causation, &c. in which one thing may stand to another. By A ᔕ B I mean, then, any two objects of thought related to each other in any conceivable manner.

General Formula of Logical Inference.

The one supreme rule of inference consists, as I have said, in the direction to affirm of anything whatever is known of its like, equal or equivalent. The Substitution of Similars is a phrase which seems aptly to express the capacity of mutual replacement existing in any two objects which are like or equivalent to a sufficient degree. It is matter for further investigation to ascertain when and for what purposes a degree of similarity less than complete identity is sufficient to warrant substitution. For the present we think only of the exact sameness expressed in the form

Now if we take the letter C to denote any third conceivable object, and use the sign ᔕ in its stated meaning of indefinite relation, then the general formula of all inference may be thus exhibited:‍—

or, in words—In whatever relation a thing stands to a second thing, in the same relation it stands to the like or equivalent of that second thing. The identity between A18 and B allows us indifferently to place A where B was, or B where A was; and there is no limit to the variety of special meanings which we can bestow upon the signs used in this formula consistently with its truth. Thus if we first specify only the meaning of the sign ᔕ, we may say that if C is the weight of B, then C is also the weight of A. Similarly

and so on ad infinitum.

We may also endow with special meanings the letter-terms A, B, and C, and the process of inference will never be false. Thus let the sign ᔕ mean “is height of,” and let

then it obviously follows since “3,590 feet is the height of Snowdon,” and “Snowdon = the highest mountain in England or Wales,” that, “3,590 feet is the height of the highest mountain in England or Wales.”

One result of this general process of inference is that we may in any aggregate or complex whole replace any part by its equivalent without altering the whole. To alter is to make a difference; but if in replacing a part I make no difference, there is no alteration of the whole. Many inferences which have been very imperfectly included in logical formulas at once follow. I remember the late Prof. De Morgan remarking that all Aristotle’s logic could not prove that “Because a horse is an animal, the head of a horse is the head of an animal.” I conceive that this amounts merely to replacing in the complete notion head of a horse, the term “horse,” by its equivalent some animal or an animal. Similarly, since

it follows that

and any event, circumstance or thing, which stands in a19 certain relation to the one will stand in like relation to the other. Milton reasons in this way when he says, in his Areopagitica, “Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God’s image.” If we may suppose him to mean

it follows that “The killer of a man is the killer of some reasonable creature,” and also “The killer of God’s image.”

This replacement of equivalents may be repeated over and over again to any extent. Thus if person is identical in meaning with individual, it follows that

and if assemblage = meeting, we may make a new replacement and show that

We may in fact found upon this principle of substitution a most general axiom in the following terms‍36:‍—

If, for instance, exactly similar bricks and other materials be used to build two houses, and they be similarly placed in each house, the two houses must be similar. There are millions of cells in a human body, but if each cell of one person were represented by an exactly similar cell similarly placed in another body, the two persons would be undistinguishable, and would be only numerically different. It is upon this principle, as we shall see, that all accurate processes of measurement depend. If for a weight in a scale of a balance we substitute another weight, and the equilibrium remains entirely unchanged, then the weights must be exactly equal. The general test of equality is substitution. Objects are equally bright when on replacing one by the other the eye perceives no difference. Objects are equal in dimensions when tested by the same gauge they fit in the same manner. Generally speaking, two objects are alike so far as when substituted one for another no alteration is produced, and vice versâ when alike no alteration is produced by the substitution.

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The Propagating Power of Similarity.

The relation of similarity in all its degrees is reciprocal. So far as things are alike, either may be substituted for the other; and this may perhaps be considered the very meaning of the relation. But it is well worth notice that there is in similarity a peculiar power of extending itself among all the things which are similar. To render a number of things similar to each other we need only render them similar to one standard object. Each coin struck from a pair of dies not only resembles the matrix or original pattern from which the dies were struck, but resembles every other coin manufactured from the same original pattern. Among a million such coins there are not less than 499,999,500,000 pairs of coins resembling each other. Similars to the same are similars to all. It is one great advantage of printing that all copies of a document struck from the same type are necessarily identical each with each, and whatever is true of one copy will be true of every copy. Similarly, if fifty rows of pipes in an organ be tuned in perfect unison with one row, usually the Principal, they must be in unison with each other. Similarity can also reproduce or propagate itself ad infinitum: for if a number of tuning-forks be adjusted in perfect unison with one standard fork, all instruments tuned to any one fork will agree with any instrument tuned to any other fork. Standard measures of length, capacity, weight, or any other measurable quality, are propagated in the same manner. So far as copies of the original standard, or copies of copies, or copies again of those copies, are accurately executed, they must all agree each with every other.

It is the capability of mutual substitution which gives such great value to the modern methods of mechanical construction, according to which all the parts of a machine are exact facsimiles of a fixed pattern. The rifles used in the British army are constructed on the American interchangeable system, so that any part of any rifle can be substituted for the same part of another. A bullet fitting one rifle will fit all others of the same bore. Sir J.21 Whitworth has extended the same system to the screws and screw-bolts used in connecting together the parts of machines, by establishing a series of standard screws.

Anticipations of the Principle of Substitution.

In such a subject as logic it is hardly possible to put forth any opinions which have not been in some degree previously entertained. The germ at least of every doctrine will be found in earlier writers, and novelty must arise chiefly in the mode of harmonising and developing ideas. When I first employed the process and name of substitution in logic,‍37 I was led to do so from analogy with the familiar mathematical process of substituting for a symbol its value as given in an equation. In writing my first logical essay I had a most imperfect conception of the importance and generality of the process, and I described, as if they were of equal importance, a number of other laws which now seem to be but particular cases of the one general rule of substitution.

My second essay, “The Substitution of Similars,” was written shortly after I had become aware of the great simplification which may be effected by a proper application of the principle of substitution. I was not then acquainted with the fact that the German logician Beneke had employed the principle of substitution, and had used the word itself in forming a theory of the syllogism. My imperfect acquaintance with the German language had prevented me from acquiring a complete knowledge of Beneke’s views; but there is no doubt that Professor Lindsay is right in saying that he, and probably other logicians, were in some degree familiar with the principle.‍38 Even Aristotle’s dictum may be regarded as an imperfect statement of the principle of substitution; and, as I have pointed out, we have only to modify that dictum in accordance with the quantification of the predicate in order to arrive at the complete22 process of substitution.‍39 The Port-Royal logicians appear to have entertained nearly equivalent views, for they considered that all moods of the syllogism might be reduced under one general principle.‍40 Of two premises they regard one as the containing proposition (propositio continens), and the other as the applicative proposition. The latter proposition must always be affirmative, and represents that by which a substitution is made; the former may or may not be negative, and is that in which a substitution is effected. They also show that this method will embrace certain cases of complex reasoning which had no place in the Aristotelian syllogism. Their views probably constitute the greatest improvement in logical doctrine made up to that time since the days of Aristotle. But a true reform in logic must consist, not in explaining the syllogism in one way or another, but in doing away with all the narrow restrictions of the Aristotelian system, and in showing that there exists an infinite variety of logical arguments immediately deducible from the principle of substitution of which the ancient syllogism forms but a small and not even the most important part.

The Logic of Relatives.

There is a difficult and important branch of logic which may be called the Logic of Relatives. If I argue, for instance, that because Daniel Bernoulli was the son of John, and John the brother of James, therefore Daniel was the nephew of James, it is not possible to prove this conclusion by any simple logical process. We require at any rate to assume that the son of a brother is a nephew. A simple logical relation is that which exists between properties and circumstances of the same object or class. But objects and classes of objects may also be related according to all the properties of time and space. I believe it may be shown, indeed, that where an inference concerning such relations is drawn, a process of substitution is really employed and an identity must exist;23 but I will not undertake to prove the assertion in this work. The relations of time and space are logical relations of a complicated character demanding much abstract and difficult investigation. The subject has been treated with such great ability by Peirce,‍41 De Morgan,‍42 Ellis,‍43 and Harley, that I will not in the present work attempt any review of their writings, but merely refer the reader to the publications in which they are to be found.

Every proposition expresses the resemblance or difference of the things denoted by its terms. As inference treats of the relation between two or more propositions, so a proposition expresses a relation between two or more terms. In the portion of this work which treats of deduction it will be convenient to follow the usual order of exposition. We will consider in succession the various kinds of terms, propositions, and arguments, and we commence in this chapter with terms.

The simplest and most palpable meaning which can belong to a term consists of some single material object, such as Westminster Abbey, Stonehenge, the Sun, Sirius, &c. It is probable that in early stages of intellect only concrete and palpable things are the objects of thought. The youngest child knows the difference between a hot and a cold body. The dog can recognise his master among a hundred other persons, and animals of much lower intelligence know and discriminate their haunts. In all such acts there is judgment concerning the likeness of physical objects, but there is little or no power of analysing each object and regarding it as a group of qualities.

The dignity of intellect begins with the power of separating points of agreement from those of difference. Comparison of two objects may lead us to perceive that they are at once like and unlike. Two fragments of rock may differ entirely in outward form, yet they may have the same colour, hardness, and texture. Flowers which agree in colour may differ in odour. The mind learns to regard25 each object as an aggregate of qualities, and acquires the power of dwelling at will upon one or other of those qualities to the exclusion of the rest. Logical abstraction, in short, comes into play, and the mind becomes capable of reasoning, not merely about objects which are physically complete and concrete, but about things which may be thought of separately in the mind though they exist not separately in nature. We can think of the hardness of a rock, or the colour of a flower, and thus produce abstract notions, denoted by abstract terms, which will form a subject for further consideration.

At the same time arise general notions and classes of objects. We cannot fail to observe that the quality hardness exists in many objects, for instance in many fragments of rock; mentally joining these together, we create the class hard object, which will include, not only the actual objects examined, but all others which may happen to agree with them, as they agree with each other. As our senses cannot possibly report to us all the contents of space, we cannot usually set any limits to the number of objects which may fall into any such class. At this point we begin to perceive the power and generality of thought, which enables us in a single act to treat of indefinitely or even infinitely numerous objects. We can safely assert that whatever is true of any one object coming under a class is true of any of the other objects so far as they possess the common qualities implied in their belonging to the class. We must not place a thing in a class unless we are prepared to believe of it all that is believed of the class in general; but it remains a matter of important consideration to decide how far and in what manner we can safely undertake thus to assign the place of objects in that general system of classification which constitutes the body of science.

Twofold Meaning of General Names.

Etymologically the meaning of a name is that which we are caused to think of when the name is used. Now every general name causes us to think of some one or more of the objects belonging to a class; it may also cause us to think of the common qualities possessed by those objects.26 A name is said to denote the object of thought to which it may be applied; it implies at the same time the possession of certain qualities or circumstances. The objects denoted form the extent of meaning of the term; the qualities implied form the intent of meaning. Crystal is the name of any substance of which the molecules are arranged in a regular geometrical manner. The substances or objects in question form the extent of meaning; the circumstance of having the molecules so arranged forms the intent of meaning.

When we compare general terms together, it may often be found that the meaning of one is included in the meaning of another. Thus all crystals are included among material substances, and all opaque crystals are included among crystals; here the inclusion is in extension. We may also have inclusion of meaning in regard to intension. For, as all crystals are material substances, the qualities implied by the term material substance must be among those implied by crystal. Again, it is obvious that while in extension of meaning opaque crystals are but a part of crystals, in intension of meaning crystal is but part of opaque crystal. We increase the intent of meaning of a term by joining to it adjectives, or phrases equivalent to adjectives, and the removal of such adjectives of course decreases the intensive meaning. Now, concerning such changes of meaning, the following all-important law holds universally true:—When the intent of meaning of a term is increased the extent is decreased; and vice versâ, when the extent is increased the intent is decreased. In short, as one is increased the other is decreased.

This law refers only to logical changes. The number of steam-engines in the world may be undergoing a rapid increase without the intensive meaning of the name being altered. The law will only be verified, again, when there is a real change in the intensive meaning, and an adjective may often be joined to a noun without making a change. Elementary metal is identical with metal; mortal man with man; it being a property of all metals to be elements, and of all men to be mortals.

There is no limit to the amount of meaning which a term may have. A term may denote one object, or many, or an infinite number; it may imply a single quality, if such27 there be, or a group of any number of qualities, and yet the law connecting the extension and intension will infallibly apply. Taking the general name planet, we increase its intension and decrease its extension by prefixing the adjective exterior; and if we further add nearest to the earth, there remains but one planet, Mars, to which the name can then be applied. Singular terms, which denote a single individual only, come under the same law of meaning as general names. They may be regarded as general names of which the meaning in extension is reduced to a minimum. Logicians have erroneously asserted, as it seems to me, that singular terms are devoid of meaning in intension, the fact being that they exceed all other terms in that kind of meaning, as I have elsewhere tried to show.‍44

Abstract Terms.

Comparison of objects, and analysis of the complex resemblances and differences which they present, lead us to the conception of abstract qualities. We learn to think of one object as not only different from another, but as differing in some particular point, such as colour, or weight, or size. We may then convert points of agreement or difference into separate objects of thought which we call qualities and denote by abstract terms. Thus the term redness means something in which a number of objects agree as to colour, and in virtue of which they are called red. Redness forms, in fact, the intensive meaning of the term red.

Abstract terms are strongly distinguished from general terms by possessing only one kind of meaning; for as they denote qualities there is nothing which they cannot in addition imply. The adjective “red” is the name of red objects, but it implies the possession by them of the quality28 redness; but this latter term has one single meaning—the quality alone. Thus it arises that abstract terms are incapable of plurality. Red objects are numerically distinct each from each, and there are multitudes of such objects; but redness is a single quality which runs through all those objects, and is the same in one as it is in another. It is true that we may speak of rednesses, meaning different kinds or tints of redness, just as we may speak of colours, meaning different kinds of colours. But in distinguishing kinds, degrees, or other differences, we render the terms so far concrete. In that they are merely red there is but a single nature in red objects, and so far as things are merely coloured, colour is a single indivisible quality. Redness, so far as it is redness merely, is one and the same everywhere, and possesses absolute oneness. In virtue of this unity we acquire the power of treating all instances of such quality as we may treat any one. We possess, in short, general knowledge.

Substantial Terms.

Logicians appear to have taken little notice of a class of terms which partake in certain respects of the character of abstract terms and yet are undoubtedly the names of concrete existing things. These terms are the names of substances, such as gold, carbonate of lime, nitrogen, &c. We cannot speak of two golds, twenty carbonates of lime, or a hundred nitrogens. There is no such distinction between the parts of a uniform substance as will allow of a discrimination of numerous individuals. The qualities of colour, lustre, malleability, density, &c., by which we recognise gold, extend through its substance irrespective of particular size or shape. So far as a substance is gold, it is one and the same everywhere; so that terms of this kind, which I propose to call substantial terms, possess the peculiar unity of abstract terms. Yet they are not abstract; for gold is of course a tangible visible body, entirely concrete, and existing independently of other bodies.

It is only when, by actual mechanical division, we break up the uniform whole which forms the meaning of a substantial term, that we introduce number. Piece of gold29 is a term capable of plurality; for there may be a great many pieces discriminated either by their various shapes and sizes, or, in the absence of such marks, by simultaneously occupying different parts of space. In substance they are one; as regards the properties of space they are many.‍45 We need not further pursue this question, which involves the distinction between unity and plurality, until we consider the principles of number in a subsequent chapter.

Collective Terms.

We must clearly distinguish between the collective and the general meanings of terms. The same name may be used to denote the whole body of existing objects of a certain kind, or any one of those objects taken separately. “Man” may mean the aggregate of existing men, which we sometimes describe as mankind; it is also the general name applying to any man. The vegetable kingdom is the name of the whole aggregate of plants, but “plant” itself is a general name applying to any one or other plant. Every material object may be conceived as divisible into parts, and is therefore collective as regards those parts. The animal body is made up of cells and fibres, a crystal of molecules; wherever physical division, or as it has been called partition, is possible, there we deal in reality with a collective whole. Thus the greater number of general terms are at the same time collective as regards each individual whole which they denote.

It need hardly be pointed out that we must not infer of a collective whole what we know only of the parts, nor of the parts what we know only of the whole. The relation of whole and part is not one of identity, and does not allow of substitution. There may nevertheless be qualities which are true alike of the whole and of its parts. A number of organ-pipes tuned in unison produce an aggregate of sound which is of exactly the same pitch as each30 separate sound. In the case of substantial terms, certain qualities may be present equally in each minutest part as in the whole. The chemical nature of the largest mass of pure carbonate of lime is the same as the nature of the smallest particle. In the case of abstract terms, again, we cannot draw a distinction between whole and part; what is true of redness in any case is always true of redness, so far as it is merely red.

Synthesis of Terms.

We continually combine simple terms together so as to form new terms of more complex meaning. Thus, to increase the intension of meaning of a term we write it with an adjective or a phrase of adjectival nature. By joining “brittle” to “metal,” we obtain a combined term, “brittle metal,” which denotes a certain portion of the metals, namely, such as are selected on account of possessing the quality of brittleness. As we have already seen, “brittle metal” possesses less extension and greater intension than metal. Nouns, prepositional phrases, participial phrases and subordinate propositions may also be added to terms so as to increase their intension and decrease their extension.

In our symbolic language we need some mode of indicating this junction of terms, and the most convenient device will be the juxtaposition of the letter-terms. Thus if A mean brittle, and B mean metal, then AB will mean brittle metal. Nor need there be any limit to the number of letters thus joined together, or the complexity of the notions which they may represent.

Thus if we take the letters

then we can form a combined term PQRSTV, which will denote “a white monovalent metal, of specific gravity 10·5, melting above 1000° C., and a good conductor of heat and electricity.”

31

There are many grammatical usages concerning the junction of words and phrases to which we need pay no attention in logic. We can never say in ordinary language “of wood table,” meaning “table of wood;” but we may consider “of wood” as logically an exact equivalent of “wooden”; so that if

there is no reason why, in our symbols, XY should not be just as correct an expression for “table of wood ” as YX. In this case indeed we might substitute for “of wood ” the corresponding adjective “wooden,” but we should often fail to find any adjective answering exactly to a phrase. There is no single word by which we could express the notion “of specific gravity 10·5:” but logically we may consider these words as forming an adjective; and denoting this by S and metal by P, we may say that SP means “metal of specific gravity 10·5.” It is one of many advantages in these blank letter-symbols that they enable us completely to neglect all grammatical peculiarities and to fix our attention solely on the purely logical relations involved. Investigation will probably show that the rules of grammar are mainly founded upon traditional usage and have little logical signification. This indeed is sufficiently proved by the wide grammatical differences which exist between languages, though the logical foundation must be the same.

Symbolic Expression of the Law of Contradiction.

The synthesis of terms is subject to the all-important Law of Thought, described in a previous section (p. 5) and called the Law of Contradiction, It is self-evident that no quality can be both present and absent at the same time and place. This fundamental condition of all thought and of all existence is expressed symbolically by a rule that a term and its negative shall never be allowed to come into combination. Such combined terms as Aa, Bb, Cc, &c., are self-contradictory and devoid of all intelligible meaning. If they could represent anything, it would be what cannot exist, and cannot even be imagined in the mind. They can therefore only enter into our consideration to suffer32 immediate exclusion. The criterion of false reasoning, as we shall find, is that it involves self-contradiction, the affirming and denying of the same statement. We might represent the object of all reasoning as the separation of the consistent and possible from the inconsistent and impossible; and we cannot make any statement except a truism without implying that certain combinations of terms are contradictory and excluded from thought. To assert that “all A’s are B’s” is equivalent to the assertion that “A’s which are not B’s cannot exist.”

It will be convenient to have the means of indicating the exclusion of the self-contradictory, and we may use the familiar sign for nothing, the cipher 0. Thus the second law of thought may be symbolised in the forms

We may variously describe the meaning of 0 in logic as the non-existent, the impossible, the self-inconsistent, the inconceivable. Close analogy exists between this meaning and its mathematical signification.

Certain Special Conditions of Logical Symbols.

In order that we may argue and infer truly we must treat our logical symbols according to the fundamental laws of Identity and Difference. But in thus using our symbols we shall frequently meet with combinations of which the meaning will not at first sight be apparent. If in one case we learn that an object is “yellow and round,” and in another case that it is “round and yellow,” there arises the question whether these two descriptions are identical in meaning or not. Again, if we proved that an object was “round round,” the meaning of such an expression would be open to doubt. Accordingly we must take notice, before proceeding further, of certain special laws which govern the combination of logical terms.

In the first place the combination of a logical term with itself is without effect, just as the repetition of a statement does not alter the meaning of the statement; “a round round object” is simply “a round object.” What is yellow yellow is merely yellow; metallic metals cannot differ from metals, nor circular circles from circles. In our33 symbolic language we may similarly hold that AA is identical with A, or

The late Professor Boole is the only logician in modern times who has drawn attention to this remarkable property of logical terms;‍46 but in place of the name which he gave to the law, I have proposed to call it The Law of Simplicity.‍47 Its high importance will only become apparent when we attempt to determine the relations of logical and mathematical science. Two symbols of quantity, and only two, seem to obey this law; we may say that 1 × 1 = 1, and 0 × 0 = 0 (taking 0 to mean absolute zero or 1 – 1); there is apparently no other number which combined with itself gives an unchanged result. I shall point out, however, in the chapter upon Number, that in reality all numerical symbols obey this logical principle.

It is curious that this Law of Simplicity, though almost unnoticed in modern times, was known to Boëthius, who makes a singular remark in his treatise De Trinitate et Unitate Dei (p. 959). He says: “If I should say sun, sun, sun, I should not have made three suns, but I should have named one sun so many times.”‍48 Ancient discussions about the doctrine of the Trinity drew more attention to subtle questions concerning the nature of unity and plurality than has ever since been given to them.

It is a second law of logical symbols that order of combination is a matter of indifference. “Rich and rare gems” are the same as “rare and rich gems,” or even as “gems, rich and rare.” Grammatical, rhetorical, or poetic usage may give considerable significance to order of expression. The limited power of our minds prevents our grasping many ideas at once, and thus the order of statement may produce some effect, but not in a simply logical manner. All life proceeds in the succession of time, and we are obliged to write, speak, or even think of things and their qualities one after the other; but between the things and their qualities there need be no such relation of order in34 time or space. The sweetness of sugar is neither before nor after its weight and solubility. The hardness of a metal, its colour, weight, opacity, malleability, electric and chemical properties, are all coexistent and coextensive, pervading the metal and every part of it in perfect community, none before nor after the others. In our words and symbols we cannot observe this natural condition; we must name one quality first and another second, just as some one must be the first to sign a petition, or to walk foremost in a procession. In nature there is no such precedence.

I find that the opinion here stated, to the effect that relations of space and time do not apply to many of our ideas, is clearly adopted by Hume in his celebrated Treatise on Human Nature (vol. i. p. 410). He says:‍49—“An object may be said to be no where, when its parts are not so situated with respect to each other, as to form any figure or quantity; nor the whole with respect to other bodies so as to answer to our notions of contiguity or distance. Now this is evidently the case with all our perceptions and objects, except those of sight and feeling. A moral reflection cannot be placed on the right hand or on the left hand of a passion, nor can a smell or sound be either of a circular or a square figure. These objects and perceptions, so far from requiring any particular place, are absolutely incompatible with it, and even the imagination cannot attribute it to them.”

A little reflection will show that knowledge in the highest perfection would consist in the simultaneous possession of a multitude of facts. To comprehend a science perfectly we should have every fact present with every other fact. We must write a book and we must read it successively word by word, but how infinitely higher would be our powers of thought if we could grasp the whole in one collective act of consciousness! Compared with the brutes we do possess some slight approximation to such power, and it is conceivable that in the indefinite future mind may acquire an increase of capacity, and be less restricted to the piecemeal examination of a subject. But I wish here to make plain that there is no logical foundation for the successive character of thought and reasoning unavoidable under our present mental conditions.35 We are logically weak and imperfect in respect of the fact that we are obliged to think of one thing after another. We must describe metal as “hard and opaque,” or “opaque and hard,” but in the metal itself there is no such difference of order; the properties are simultaneous and coextensive in existence.

Setting aside all grammatical peculiarities which render a substantive less moveable than an adjective, and disregarding any meaning indicated by emphasis or marked order of words, we may state, as a general law of logic, that AB is identical with BA, or AB = BA. Similarly, ABC = ACB = BCA = &c.

Boole first drew attention in recent years to this property of logical terms, and he called it the property of Commutativeness.‍50 He not only stated the law with the utmost clearness, but pointed out that it is a Law of Thought rather than a Law of Things. I shall have in various parts of this work to show how the necessary imperfection of our symbols expressed in this law clings to our modes of expression, and introduces complication into the whole body of mathematical formulæ, which are really founded on a logical basis.

It is of course apparent that the power of commutation belongs only to terms related in the simple logical mode of synthesis. No one can confuse “a house of bricks” with “bricks of a house,” “twelve square feet” with “twelve feet square,” “the water of crystallization” with “the crystallization of water.” All relations which involve differences of time and space are inconvertible; the higher must not be made to change places with the lower, nor the first with the last. For the parties concerned there is all the difference in the world between A killing B and B killing A. The law of commutativeness simply asserts that difference of order does not attach to the connection between the properties and circumstances of a thing—to what I call simple logical relation.

We now proceed to consider the variety of forms of propositions in which the truths of science must be expressed. I shall endeavour to show that, however diverse these forms may be, they all admit the application of the one same principle of inference that what is true of a thing is true of the like or same. This principle holds true whatever be the kind or manner of the likeness, provided proper regard be had to its nature. Propositions may assert an identity of time, space, manner, quantity, degree, or any other circumstance in which things may agree or differ.

We find an instance of a proposition concerning time in the following:—“The year in which Newton was born, was the year in which Galileo died.” This proposition expresses an approximate identity of time between two events; hence whatever is true of the year in which Galileo died is true of that in which Newton was born, and vice versâ. “Tower Hill is the place where Raleigh was executed” expresses an identity of place; and whatever is true of the one spot is true of the spot otherwise defined, but in reality the same. In ordinary language we have many propositions obscurely expressing identities of number, quantity, or degree. “So many men, so many minds,” is a proposition concerning number, that is to say, an equation; whatever is true of the number of men is true of the number of minds, and vice versâ. “The density of Mars is (nearly) the same as that of the Earth,” “The force of gravity is directly as the product of the masses, and37 inversely as the square of the distance,” are propositions concerning magnitude or degree. Logicians have not paid adequate attention to the great variety of propositions which can be stated by the use of the little conjunction as, together with so. “As the home so the people,” is a proposition expressing identity of manner; and a great number of similar propositions all indicating some kind of resemblance might be quoted. Whatever be the special kind of identity, all such expressions are subject to the great principle of inference; but as we shall in later parts of this work treat more particularly of inference in cases of number and magnitude, we will here confine our attention to logical propositions which involve only notions of quality.

Simple Identities.

The most important class of propositions consists of those which fall under the formula

and may be called simple identities. I may instance, in the first place, those most elementary propositions which express the exact similarity of a quality encountered in two or more objects. I may compare the colour of the Pacific Ocean with that of the Atlantic, and declare them identical. I may assert that “the smell of a rotten egg is like that of hydrogen sulphide;” “the taste of silver hyposulphite is like that of cane sugar;” “the sound of an earthquake resembles that of distant artillery.” Such are propositions stating, accurately or otherwise, the identity of simple physical sensations. Judgments of this kind are necessarily pre-supposed in more complex judgments. If I declare that “this coin is made of gold,” I must base the judgment upon the exact likeness of the substance in several qualities to other pieces of substance which are undoubtedly gold. I must make judgments of the colour, the specific gravity, the hardness, and of other mechanical and chemical properties; each of these judgments is expressed in an elementary proposition, “the colour of this coin is the colour of gold,” and so on. Even when we establish the identity of a thing with itself under a different name or aspect, it is by distinct judgments38 concerning single circumstances. To prove that the Homeric χαλκός is copper we must show the identity of each quality recorded of χαλκός with a quality of copper. To establish Deal as the landing-place of Cæsar all material circumstances must be shown to agree. If the modern Wroxeter is the ancient Uriconium, there must be the like agreement of all features of the country not subject to alteration by time.

Such identities must be expressed in the form A = B. We may say

In these and similar propositions we assert identity of single qualities or causes of sensation. In the same form we may also express identity of any group of qualities, as in

A multitude of propositions involving singular terms fall into the same form, as in

In mathematical and scientific theories we often meet with simple identities capable of expression in the same form. Thus in mechanical science “The process for finding the resultant of forces = the process for finding the resultant of simultaneous velocities.” Theorems in geometry often give results in this form, as

The more profound and important laws of nature are often expressible in the form of simple identities; in addition to some instances which have already been given, I may suggest,

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All definitions are necessarily of this form, whether the objects defined be many, few, or singular. Thus we may say,

It is an extraordinary fact that propositions of this elementary form, all-important and very numerous as they are, had no recognised place in Aristotle’s system of Logic. Accordingly their importance was overlooked until very recent times, and logic was the most deformed of sciences. But it is impossible that Aristotle or any other person should avoid constantly using them; not a term could be defined without their use. In one place at least Aristotle actually notices a proposition of the kind. He observes: “We sometimes say that that white thing is Socrates, or that the object approaching is Callias.”‍51 Here we certainly have simple identity of terms; but he considered such propositions purely accidental, and came to the unfortunate conclusion, that “Singulars cannot be predicated of other terms.”

Propositions may also express the identity of extensive groups of objects taken collectively or in one connected whole; as when we say,

When Blackstone asserts that “The only true and natural foundation of society are the wants and fears of individuals,” we must interpret him as meaning that the whole of the wants and fears of individuals in the aggregate form the foundation of society. But many propositions which might seem to be collective are but groups of singular propositions or identities. When we say “Potassium and sodium are the metallic bases of potash and soda,” we obviously mean,

It is the work of grammatical analysis to separate the various propositions often combined into a single sentence. Logic cannot be properly required to interpret the forms and devices of language, but only to treat the meaning when clearly exhibited.

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Partial Identities.

A second highly important kind of proposition is that which I propose to call a partial identity. When we say that “All mammalia are vertebrata,” we do not mean that mammalian animals are identical with vertebrate animals, but only that the mammalia form a part of the class vertebrata. Such a proposition was regarded in the old logic as asserting the inclusion of one class in another, or of an object in a class. It was called a universal affirmative proposition, because the attribute vertebrate was affirmed of the whole subject mammalia; but the attribute was said to be undistributed, because not all vertebrata were of necessity involved in the proposition. Aristotle, overlooking the importance of simple identities, and indeed almost denying their existence, unfortunately founded his system upon the notion of inclusion in a class, instead of adopting the basis of identity. He regarded inference as resting upon the rule that what is true of the containing class is true of the contained, in place of the vastly more general rule that what is true of a class or thing is true of the like. Thus he not only reduced logic to a fragment of its proper self, but destroyed the deep analogies which bind together logical and mathematical reasoning. Hence a crowd of defects, difficulties and errors which will long disfigure the first and simplest of the sciences.

It is surely evident that the relation of inclusion rests upon the relation of identity. Mammalian animals cannot be included among vertebrates unless they be identical with part of the vertebrates. Cabinet Ministers are included almost always in the class Members of Parliament, because they are identical with some who sit in Parliament. We may indicate this identity with a part of the larger class in various ways; as for instance,

In ordinary language the verbs is and are express mere inclusion more often than not. Men are mortals, means41 that men form a part of the class mortal; but great confusion exists between this sense of the verb and that in which it expresses identity, as in “The sun is the centre of the planetary system.” The introduction of the indefinite article a often expresses partiality; when we say “Iron is a metal” we clearly mean that iron is one only of several metals.

Certain recent logicians have proposed to avoid the indefiniteness in question by what is called the Quantification of the Predicate, and they have generally used the little word some to show that only a part of the predicate is identical with the subject. Some is an indeterminate adjective; it implies unknown qualities by which we might select the part in question if the qualities were known, but it gives no hint as to their nature. I might make use of such an indeterminate sign to express partial identities in this work. Thus, taking the special symbol V = Some, the general form of a partial identity would be A = VB, and in Boole’s Logic expressions of the kind were much used. But I believe that indeterminate symbols only introduce complexity, and destroy the beauty and simple universality of the system which may be created without their use. A vague word like some is only used in ordinary language by ellipsis, and to avoid the trouble of attaining accuracy. We can always employ more definite expressions if we like; but when once the indefinite some is introduced we cannot replace it by the special description. We do not know whether some colour is red, yellow, blue, or what it is; but on the other hand red colour is certainly some colour.

Throughout this system of logic I shall dispense with such indefinite expressions; and this can readily be done by substituting one of the other terms. To express the proposition “All A’s are some B’s” I shall not use the form A = VB, but

This formula states that the class A is identical with the class AB; and as the latter must be a part at least of the class B, it implies the inclusion of the class A in that of B. We might represent our former example thus,

This proposition asserts identity between a part (or it may42 be the whole) of the vertebrata and the mammalia. If it is asked What part? the proposition affords no answer, except that it is the part which is mammalian; but the assertion “mammalia = some vertebrata” tells us no more.

It is quite likely that some readers will think this mode of representing the universal affirmative proposition artificial and complicated. I will not undertake to convince them of the opposite at this point of my exposition. Justification for it will be found, not so much in the immediate treatment of this proposition, as in the general harmony which it will enable us to disclose between all parts of reasoning. I have no doubt that this is the critical difficulty in the relation of logical to other forms of reasoning. Grant this mode of denoting that “all A’s are B’s,” and I fear no further difficulties; refuse it, and we find want of analogy and endless anomaly in every direction. It is on general grounds that I hope to show overwhelming reasons for seeking to reduce every kind of proposition to the form of an identity.

I may add that not a few logicians have accepted this view of the universal affirmative proposition. Leibnitz, in his Difficultates Quædam Logicæ, adopts it, saying, “Omne A est B; id est æquivalent AB et A, seu A non B est nonens.” Boole employed the logical equation x = xy concurrently with x = vy; and Spalding‍52 distinctly says that the proposition “all metals are minerals” might be described as an assertion of partial identity between the two classes. Hence the name which I have adopted for the proposition.

Limited Identities.

An important class of propositions have the form

expressing the identity of the class AB with the class AC. In other words, “Within the sphere of the class A, all the B’s are all the C’s;” or again, “The B’s and C’s, which are A’s, are identical.” But it will be observed that nothing is asserted concerning things which are outside of the class A; and thus the identity is of limited extent. It is the proposition B = C limited to the sphere of things called A.43 Thus we may say, with some approximation to truth, that “Large plants are plants devoid of locomotive power.”

A barrister may make numbers of most general statements concerning the relations of persons and things in the course of an argument, but it is of course to be understood that he speaks only of persons and things under the English Law. Even mathematicians make statements which are not true with absolute generality. They say that imaginary roots enter into equations by pairs; but this is only true under the tacit condition that the equations in question shall not have imaginary coefficients.‍53 The universe, in short, within which they habitually discourse is that of equations with real coefficients. These implied limitations form part of that great mass of tacit knowledge which accompanies all special arguments.

To De Morgan is due the remark, that we do usually think and argue in a limited universe or sphere of notions, even when it is not expressly stated.‍54

It is worthy of inquiry whether all identities are not really limited to an implied sphere of meaning. When we make such a plain statement as “Gold is malleable” we obviously speak of gold only in its solid state; when we say that “Mercury is a liquid metal” we must be understood to exclude the frozen condition to which it may be reduced in the Arctic regions. Even when we take such a fundamental law of nature as “All substances gravitate,” we must mean by substance, material substance, not including that basis of heat, light, and electrical undulations which occupies space and possesses many wonderful mechanical properties, but not gravity. The proposition then is really of the form

Negative Propositions.

In every act of intellect we are engaged with a certain identity or difference between things or sensations compared together. Hitherto I have treated only of identities; and yet it might seem that the relation of difference must be44 infinitely more common than that of likeness. One thing may resemble a great many other things, but then it differs from all remaining things in the world. Diversity may almost be said to constitute life, being to thought what motion is to a river. The perception of an object involves its discrimination from all other objects. But we may nevertheless be said to detect resemblance as often as we detect difference. We cannot, in fact, assert the existence of a difference, without at the same time implying the existence of an agreement.

If I compare mercury, for instance, with other metals, and decide that it is not solid, here is a difference between mercury and solid things, expressed in a negative proposition; but there must be implied, at the same time, an agreement between mercury and the other substances which are not solid. As it is impossible to separate the vowels of the alphabet from the consonants without at the same time separating the consonants from the vowels, so I cannot select as the object of thought solid things, without thereby throwing together into another class all things which are not solid. The very fact of not possessing a quality, constitutes a new quality which may be the ground of judgment and classification. In this point of view, agreement and difference are ever the two sides of the same act of intellect, and it becomes equally possible to express the same judgment in the one or other aspect.

Between affirmation and negation there is accordingly a perfect equilibrium. Every affirmative proposition implies a negative one, and vice versâ. It is even a matter of indifference, in a logical point of view, whether a positive or negative term be used to denote a given quality and the class of things possessing it. If the ordinary state of a man’s body be called good health, then in other circumstances he is said not to be in good health; but we might equally describe him in the latter state as sickly, and in his normal condition he would be not sickly. Animal and vegetable substances are now called organic, so that the other substances, forming an immensely greater part of the globe, are described negatively as inorganic. But we might, with at least equal logical correctness, have described the preponderating class of substances as mineral, and then vegetable and animal substances would have been non-mineral.

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It is plain that any positive term and its corresponding negative divide between them the whole universe of thought: whatever does not fall into one must fall into the other, by the third fundamental Law of Thought, the Law of Duality. It follows at once that there are two modes of representing a difference. Supposing that the things represented by A and B are found to differ, we may indicate (see p. 17) the result of the judgment by the notation

We may now represent the same judgment by the assertion that A agrees with those things which differ from B, or that A agrees with the not-B’s. Using our notation for negative terms (see p. 14), we obtain

as the expression of the ordinary negative proposition. Thus if we take A to mean quicksilver, and B solid, then we have the following proposition:‍—

There may also be several other classes of negative propositions, of which no notice was taken in the old logic. We may have cases where all A’s are not-B’s, and at the same time all not-B’s are A’s; there may, in short, be a simple identity between A and not-B, which may be expressed in the form

An example of this form would be

We shall also frequently have to deal as results of deduction, with simple, partial, or limited identities between negative terms, as in the forms

It would be possible to represent affirmative propositions in the negative form. Thus “Iron is solid,” might be expressed as “Iron is not not-solid,” or “Iron is not fluid;” or, taking A and b for the terms “iron,” and “not-solid,” the form would be A ~ b.

But there are very strong reasons why we should employ all propositions in their affirmative form. All inference proceeds by the substitution of equivalents, and a proposition expressed in the form of an identity is ready to yield all its consequences in the most direct manner. As will be more fully shown, we can infer in a negative proposition,46 but not by it. Difference is incapable of becoming the ground of inference; it is only the implied agreement with other differing objects which admits of deductive reasoning; and it will always be found advantageous to employ propositions in the form which exhibits clearly the implied agreements.

Conversion of Propositions.

The old books of logic contain many rules concerning the conversion of propositions, that is, the transposition of the subject and predicate in such a way as to obtain a new proposition which will be true when the original proposition is true. The reduction of every proposition to the form of an identity renders all such rules and processes needless. Identity is essentially reciprocal. If the colour of the Atlantic Ocean is the same as that of the Pacific Ocean, that of the Pacific must be the same as that of the Atlantic. Sodium chloride being identical with common salt, common salt must be identical with sodium chloride. If the number of windows in Salisbury Cathedral equals the number of days in the year, the number of days in the year must equal the number of the windows. Lord Chesterfield was not wrong when he said, “I will give anybody their choice of these two truths, which amount to the same thing; He who loves himself best is the honestest man; or, The honestest man loves himself best.” Scotus Erigena exactly expresses this reciprocal character of identity in saying, “There are not two studies, one of philosophy and the other of religion; true philosophy is true religion, and true religion is true philosophy.”

A mathematician would not think it worth while to mention that if x = y then also y = x. He would not consider these to be two equations at all, but one equation accidentally written in two different manners. In written symbols one of two names must come first, and the other second, and a like succession must perhaps be observed in our thoughts: but in the relation of identity there is no need for succession in order (see p. 33), each is simultaneously equal and identical to the other. These remarks will hold true both of logical and mathematical identity; so that I shall consider the two forms

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to express exactly the same identity differently written. All need for rules of conversion disappears, and there will be no single proposition in the system which may not be written with either end foremost. Thus A = AB is the same as AB = A, aC = bC is the same as bC = aC, and so forth.

The same remarks are partially true of differences and inequalities, which are also reciprocal to the extent that one thing cannot differ from a second without the second differing from the first. Mars differs in colour from Venus, and Venus must differ from Mars. The Earth differs from Jupiter in density; therefore Jupiter must differ from the Earth. Speaking generally, if A ~ B we shall also have B ~ A, and these two forms may be considered expressions of the same difference. But the relation of differing things is not wholly reciprocal. The density of Jupiter does not differ from that of the Earth in the same way that that of the Earth differs from that of Jupiter. The change of sensation which we experience in passing from Venus to Mars is not the same as what we experience in passing back to Venus, but just the opposite in nature. The colour of the sky is lighter than that of the ocean; therefore that of the ocean cannot be lighter than that of the sky, but darker. In these and all similar cases we gain a notion of direction or character of change, and results of immense importance may be shown to rest on this notion. For the present we shall be concerned with the mere fact of identity existing or not existing.

Twofold Interpretation of Propositions.

Terms, as we have seen (p. 25), may have a meaning either in extension or intension; and according as one or the other meaning is attributed to the terms of a proposition, so may a different interpretation be assigned to the proposition itself. When the terms are abstract we must read them in intension, and a proposition connecting such terms must denote the identity or non-identity of the qualities respectively denoted by the terms. Thus if we say

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the assertion means that the circumstance of being equal exactly corresponds with the circumstance of being identical in magnitude. Similarly in

the quality of being incapable of transmitting light is declared to be the same as the intended meaning of the word opacity.

When general names form the terms of a proposition we may apply a double interpretation. Thus

means either that the qualities which belong to all exogens are the same as those which belong to all dicotyledons, or else that every individual falling under one name falls equally under the other. Hence it may be said that there are two distinct fields of logical thought. We may argue either by the qualitative meaning of names or by the quantitative, that is, the extensive meaning. Every argument involving concrete plural terms might be converted into one involving only abstract singular terms, and vice versâ. But there are reasons for believing that the intensive or qualitative form of reasoning is the primary and fundamental one. It is sufficient to point out that the extensive meaning of a name is a changeable and fleeting thing, while the intensive meaning may nevertheless remain fixed. Very numerous additions have been lately made to the extensive meanings both of planet and element. Every iron steam-ship which is made or destroyed adds to or subtracts from the extensive meaning of the name steam-ship, without necessarily affecting the intensive meaning. Stage coach means as much as ever in one way, but in extension the class is nearly extinct. Chinese railway, on the other hand, is a term represented only by a single instance; in twenty years it may be the name of a large class.

The general principle of inference having been explained in the previous chapters, and a suitable system of symbols provided, we have now before us the comparatively easy task of tracing out the most common and important forms of deductive reasoning. The general problem of deduction is as follows:—From one or more propositions called premises to draw such other propositions as will necessarily be true when the premises are true. By deduction we investigate and unfold the information contained in the premises; and this we can do by one single rule—For any term occurring in any proposition substitute the term which is asserted in any premise to be identical with it. To obtain certain deductions, especially those involving negative conclusions, we shall require to bring into use the second and third Laws of Thought, and the process of reasoning will then be called Indirect Deduction. In the present chapter, however, I shall confine my attention to those results which can be obtained by the process of Direct Deduction, that is, by applying to the premises themselves the rule of substitution. It will be found that we can combine into one harmonious system, not only the various moods of the ancient syllogism but a great number of equally important forms of reasoning, which had no recognised place in the old logic. We can at the same time dispense entirely with the elaborate apparatus of logical rules and mnemonic lines, which were requisite so long as the vital principle of reasoning was not clearly expressed.

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Immediate Inference.

Probably the simplest of all forms of inference is that which has been called Immediate Inference, because it can be performed upon a single proposition. It consists in joining an adjective, or other qualifying clause of the same nature, to both sides of an identity, and asserting the equivalence of the terms thus produced. For instance, since

it follows that

If we suppose that

it follows that

In general terms, from the identity

we can infer the identity

This is but a case of plain substitution; for by the first Law of Thought it must be admitted that

and if, in the second side of this identity, we substitute for A its equivalent B, we obtain

In like manner from the partial identity

we may obtain

by an exactly similar act of substitution; and in every other case the rule will be found capable of verification by the principle of inference. The process when performed as here described will be quite free from the liability to error which I have shown‍55 to exist in “Immediate Inference by added Determinants,” as described by Dr. Thomson.‍56

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Inference with Two Simple Identities.

One of the most common forms of inference, and one to which I shall especially direct attention, is practised with two simple identities. From the two statements that “London is the capital of England” and “London is the most populous city in the world,” we instantaneously draw the conclusion that “The capital of England is the most populous city in the world.” Similarly, from the identities

we infer

The general form of the argument is exhibited in the symbols

We may describe the result by saying that terms identical with the same term are identical with each other; and it is impossible to overlook the analogy to the first axiom of Euclid that “things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” It has been very commonly supposed that this is a fundamental principle of thought, incapable of reduction to anything simpler. But I entertain no doubt that this form of reasoning is only one case of the general rule of inference. We have two propositions, A = B and B = C, and we may for a moment consider the second one as affirming a truth concerning B, while the former one informs us that B is identical with A; hence by substitution we may affirm the same truth of A. It happens in this particular case that the truth affirmed is identity to C, and we might, if we preferred it, have considered the substitution as made by means of the second identity in the first. Having two identities we have a choice of the mode in which we will make the substitution, though the result is exactly the same in either case.

Now compare the three following formulæ,

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In the second formula we have an identity and a difference, and we are able to infer a difference; in the third we have two differences and are unable to make any inference at all. Because A and C both differ from B, we cannot tell whether they will or will not differ from each other. The flowers and leaves of a plant may both differ in colour from the earth in which the plant grows, and yet they may differ from each other; in other cases the leaves and stem may both differ from the soil and yet agree with each other. Where we have difference only we can make no inference; where we have identity we can infer. This fact gives great countenance to my assertion that inference proceeds always through identity, but may be equally well effected in propositions asserting difference or identity.

Deferring a more complete discussion of this point, I will only mention now that arguments from double identity occur very frequently, and are usually taken for granted, owing to their extreme simplicity. In regard to the equivalence of words this form of inference must be constantly employed. If the ancient Greek χαλκός is our copper, then it must be the French cuivre, the German kupfer, the Latin cuprum, because these are words, in one sense at least, equivalent to copper. Whenever we can give two definitions or expressions for the same term, the formula applies; thus Senior defined wealth as “All those things, and those things only, which are transferable, are limited in supply, and are directly or indirectly productive of pleasure or preventive of pain.” Wealth is also equivalent to “things which have value in exchange;” hence obviously, “things which have value in exchange = all those things, and those things only, which are transferable, &c.” Two expressions for the same term are often given in the same sentence, and their equivalence implied. Thus Thomson and Tait say,‍57 “The naturalist may be content to know matter as that which can be perceived by the senses, or as that which can be acted upon by or can exert force.” I take this to mean—

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For the term “matter” in either of these identities we may substitute its equivalent given in the other definition. Elsewhere they often employ sentences of the form exemplified in the following:‍58 “The integral curvature, or whole change of direction of an arc of a plane curve, is the angle through which the tangent has turned as we pass from one extremity to the other.” This sentence is certainly of the form‍—

Disguised cases of the same kind of inference occur throughout all sciences, and a remarkable instance is found in algebraic geometry. Mathematicians readily show that every equation of the form y = mx + c corresponds to or represents a straight line; it is also easily proved that the same equation is equivalent to one of the general form Ax + By + C = 0, and vice versâ. Hence it follows that every equation of the form in question, that is to say, every equation of the first degree, corresponds to or represents a straight line.‍59

Inference with a Simple and a Partial Identity.

A form of reasoning somewhat different from that last considered consists in inference-between a simple and a partial identity. If we have two propositions of the forms

we may then substitute for B in either proposition its equivalent in the other, getting in both cases A = BC; in this we may if we like make a second substitution for B, getting

Thus, since “The Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe, and the Mont Blanc is deeply covered with snow,” we infer by an obvious substitution that “The highest mountain in Europe is deeply covered with snow.” These propositions when rigorously stated fall into the forms above exhibited.

This mode of inference is constantly employed when for54 a term we substitute its definition, or vice versâ. The very purpose of a definition is to allow a single noun to be employed in place of a long descriptive phrase. Thus, when we say “A circle is a curve of the second degree,” we may substitute a definition of the circle, getting “A curve, all points of which are at equal distances from one point, is a curve of the second degree.” The real forms of the propositions here given are exactly those shown in the symbolic statement, but in this and many other cases it will be sufficient to state them in ordinary elliptical language for sake of brevity. In scientific treatises a term and its definition are often both given in the same sentence, as in “The weight of a body in any given locality, or the force with which the earth attracts it, is proportional to its mass.” The conjunction or in this statement gives the force of equivalence to the parenthetic phrase, so that the propositions really are

A slightly different case of inference consists in substituting in a proposition of the form A = AB, a definition of the term B. Thus from A = AB and B = C we get A = AC. For instance, we may say that “Metals are elements” and “Elements are incapable of decomposition.”

Hence

It is almost needless to point out that the form of these arguments does not suffer any real modification if some of the terms happen to be negative; indeed in the last example “incapable of decomposition” may be treated as a negative term. Taking

the propositions are of the forms

whence, by substitution,

55

Inference of a Partial from Two Partial Identities.

However common be the cases of inference already noticed, there is a form occurring almost more frequently, and which deserves much attention, because it occupied a prominent place in the ancient syllogistic system. That system strangely overlooked all the kinds of argument we have as yet considered, and selected, as the type of all reasoning, one which employs two partial identities as premises. Thus from the propositions

we may conclude that

Taking A, B, C to represent the three terms respectively, the premises are of the forms

Now for B in (1) we can substitute its expression as given in (2), obtaining

or, in words, from

we infer

which, in the elliptical language of common life, becomes

The above is a syllogism in the mood called Barbara‍60 in the truly barbarous language of ancient logicians; and the first figure of the syllogism contained Barbara and three other moods which were esteemed distinct forms of argument. But it is worthy of notice that, without any real change in our form of inference, we readily include these three other moods under Barbara. The negative mood Celarent will be represented by the example

56

If we put A for Neptune, B for planet, and C for “having retrograde motion,” then by the corresponding negative term c, we denote “not having retrograde motion.” The premises now fall into the forms

and by substitution for B, exactly as before, we obtain

What is called in the old logic a particular conclusion may be deduced without any real variation in the symbols. Particular quantity is indicated, as before mentioned (p. 41), by joining to the term an indefinite adjective of quantity, such as some, a part of, certain, &c., meaning that an unknown part of the term enters into the proposition as subject. Considerable doubt and ambiguity arise out of the question whether the part may not in some cases be the whole, and in the syllogism at least it must be understood in this sense.‍61 Now, if we take a letter to represent this indefinite part, we need make no change in our formulæ to express the syllogisms Darii and Ferio. Consider the example—

then the propositions are evidently as before,

Thus the syllogism Darii does not really differ from Barbara. If the reader prefer it, we can readily employ a distinct symbol for the indefinite sign of quantity.

B and C having the same meanings as before. Then the premises become

57

hence, by substitution, as before,

Except that the formulæ look a little more complicated there is no difference whatever.

The mood Ferio is of exactly the same character as Darii or Barbara, except that it involves the use of a negative term. Take the example,

Assigning the letters as follows:‍—

Our argument is of the same form as before, and may be concisely stated in one line,

If it is preferred to put PQ for the indefinite some crystals, we have

The only difference is that the negative term c takes the place of C in the mood Darii.

Ellipsis of Terms in Partial Identities.

The reader will probably have noticed that the conclusion which we obtain from premises is often more full than that drawn by the old Aristotelian processes. Thus from “Sodium is a metal,” and “Metals conduct electricity,” we inferred (p. 55) that “Sodium = sodium, metal, conducting electricity,” whereas the old logic simply concludes that “Sodium conducts electricity.” Symbolically, from A = AB, and B = BC, we get A = ABC, whereas the old logic gets at the most A = AC. It is therefore well to show that without employing any other principles of inference than those already described, we may infer A = AC from A = ABC, though we cannot infer the latter58 more full and accurate result from the former. We may show this most simply as follows:‍—

By the first Law of Thought it is evident that

and if we have given the proposition A = ABC, we may substitute for both the A’s in the second side of the above, obtaining

But from the property of logical symbols expressed in the Law of Simplicity (p. 33) some of the repeated letters may be made to coalesce, and we have

Substituting again for ABC its equivalent A, we obtain

the desired result.

By a similar process of reasoning it may be shown that we can always drop out any term appearing in one member of a proposition, provided that we substitute for it the whole of the other member. This process was described in my first logical Essay,‍62 as Intrinsic Elimination, but it might perhaps be better entitled the Ellipsis of Terms. It enables us to get rid of needless terms by strict substitutive reasoning.

Inference of a Simple from Two Partial Identities.

Two terms may be connected together by two partial identities in yet another manner, and a case of inference then arises which is of the highest importance. In the two premises

the second member of each is the same; so that we can by obvious substitution obtain

Thus, in plain geometry we readily prove that “Every equilateral triangle is also an equiangular triangle,” and we can with equal ease prove that “Every equiangular triangle is an equilateral triangle.” Thence by substitution, as explained above, we pass to the simple identity,

59

We thus prove that one class of triangles is entirely identical with another class; that is to say, they differ only in our way of naming and regarding them.

The great importance of this process of inference arises from the fact that the conclusion is more simple and general than either of the premises, and contains as much information as both of them put together. It is on this account constantly employed in inductive investigation, as will afterwards be more fully explained, and it is the natural mode by which we arrive at a conviction of the truth of simple identities as existing between classes of numerous objects.

Inference of a Limited from Two Partial Identities.

We have considered some arguments which are of the type treated by Aristotle in the first figure of the syllogism. But there exist two other types of argument which employ a pair of partial identities. If our premises are as shown in these symbols,

we may substitute for B either by (1) in (2) or by (2) in (1), and by both modes we obtain the conclusion

a proposition of the kind which we have called a limited identity (p. 42). Thus, for example,

hence

This is really a syllogism of the mood Darapti in the third figure, except that we obtain a conclusion of a more exact character than the old syllogism gives. From the premises “Potassium is a metal” and “Potassium floats on water,” Aristotle would have inferred that “Some metals float on water.” But if inquiry were made what the “some metals” are, the answer would certainly be “Metal which is potassium.” Hence Aristotle’s conclusion simply leaves out some of the information afforded in the premises. It60 even leaves us open to interpret the some metals in a wider sense than we are warranted in doing. From these distinct defects of the old syllogism the process of substitution is free, and the new process only incurs the possible objection of being tediously minute and accurate.

Miscellaneous Forms of Deductive Inference.

The more common forms of deductive reasoning having been exhibited and demonstrated on the principle of substitution, there still remain many, in fact an indefinite number, which may be explained with nearly equal ease. Such as involve the use of disjunctive propositions will be described in a later chapter, and several of the syllogistic moods which include negative terms will be more conveniently treated after we have introduced the symbolic use of the second and third laws of thought.

We sometimes meet with a chain of propositions which allow of repeated substitution, and form an argument called in the old logic a Sorites. Take, for instance, the premises

It obviously follows that

Now if we take our letters thus,

the premises will assume the forms

For B in (1) we can substitute its equivalent in (2) obtaining, as before,

Substituting for C in this intermediate result its equivalent as given in (3), we obtain the complete conclusion

The full interpretation is that Iron is iron, metal, good conductor of electricity, useful for telegraphic purposes, which61 is abridged in common language by the ellipsis of the circumstances which are not of immediate importance.

Instead of all the propositions being exactly of the same kind as in the last example, we may have a series of premises of various character; for instance,

it will follow that

Taking our letter-terms thus,

we may state the premises in the forms

Substituting by (3) in (2) and then by (2) as thus altered in (1) we obtain

which is a more precise version of the common conclusion.

We often meet with a series of propositions describing the qualities or circumstances of the one same thing, and we may combine them all into one proposition by the process of substitution. This case is, in fact, that which Dr. Thomson has called “Immediate Inference by the sum of several predicates,” and his example will serve my purpose well.‍63 He describes copper as “A metal—of a red colour—and disagreeable smell—and taste—all the preparations of which are poisonous—which is highly malleable—ductile—and tenacious—with a specific gravity of about 8.83.” If we assign the letter A to copper, and the succeeding letters of the alphabet in succession to the series of predicates, we have nine distinct statements, of the form A = AB (1) A = AC (2) A = AD (3) . . . A = AK (9). We can readily combine these propositions into one by62 substituting for A in the second side of (1) its expression in (2). We thus get

and by repeating the process over and over again we obviously get the single proposition

But Dr. Thomson is mistaken in supposing that we can obtain in this manner a definition of copper. Strictly speaking, the above proposition is only a description of copper, and all the ordinary descriptions of substances in scientific works may be summed up in this form. Thus we may assert of the organic substances called Paraffins that they are all saturated hydrocarbons, incapable of uniting with other substances, produced by heating the alcoholic iodides with zinc, and so on. It may be shown that no amount of ordinary description can be equivalent to a definition of any substance.

Fallacies.

I have hitherto been engaged in showing that all the forms of reasoning of the old syllogistic logic, and an indefinite number of other forms in addition, may be readily and clearly explained on the single principle of substitution. It is now desirable to show that the same principle will prevent us falling into fallacies. So long as we exactly observe the one rule of substitution of equivalents it will be impossible to commit a paralogism, that is to break any one of the elaborate rules of the ancient system. The one new rule is thus proved to be as powerful as the six, eight, or more rules by which the correctness of syllogistic reasoning was guarded.

It was a fundamental rule, for instance, that two negative premises could give no conclusion. If we take the propositions

we ought not to be able to draw any inference concerning the relation between granite and basalt. Taking our letter-terms thus:

the premises may be expressed in the forms

63

We have in this form two statements of difference; but the principle of inference can only work with a statement of agreement or identity (p. 63). Thus our rule gives us no power whatever of drawing any inference; this is exactly in accordance with the fifth rule of the syllogism.

It is to be remembered, indeed, that we claim the power of always turning a negative proposition into an affirmative one (p. 45); and it might seem that the old rule against negative premises would thus be circumvented. Let us try. The premises (1) and (2) when affirmatively stated take the forms

The reader will find it impossible by the rule of substitution to discover a relation between A and C. Three terms occur in the above premises, namely A, b, and C; but they are so combined that no term occurring in one has its exact equivalent stated in the other. No substitution can therefore be made, and the principle of the fifth rule of the syllogism holds true. Fallacy is impossible.

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the mere occurrence of negative terms in both premises of a syllogism renders them incapable of yielding a conclusion. The old rule informed us that from two negative premises no conclusion could be drawn, but it is a fact that the rule in this bare form does not hold universally true; and I am not aware that any precise explanation has been given of the conditions under which it is or is not imperative. Consider the follow­ing example:

Here we have two distinctly negative premises (1) and (2), and yet they yield a perfectly valid negative conclusion (3). The syllogistic rule is actually falsified in its bare and general statement. In this and many other cases we can convert the propositions into affirmative ones which will yield a conclusion by substitution without any difficulty.64

To show this let

The premises readily take the forms

and substitution for b in (2) by means of (1) gives the conclusion

Our principle of inference then includes the rule of negative premises whenever it is true, and discriminates correctly between the cases where it does and does not hold true.

The paralogism, anciently called the Fallacy of Undistributed Middle, is also easily exhibited and infallibly avoided by our system. Let the premises be

According to the syllogistic rules the middle term “element” is here undistributed, and no conclusion can be obtained; we cannot tell then whether hydrogen is or is not a metal. Represent the terms as follows

The premises then become

The reader will here, as in a former page (p. 62), find it impossible to make any substitution. The only term which occurs in both premises is B, but it is differently combined in the two premises. For B we must not substitute A, which is equivalent to AB, not to B. Nor must we confuse together CB and AB, which, though they contain one common letter, are different aggregate terms. The rule of substitution gives us no right to decompose combinations; and if we adhere rigidly to the rule, that if two terms are stated to be equivalent we may substitute one for the other, we cannot commit the fallacy. It is apparent that the form of premises stated above is the same as that which we obtained by translating two negative premises into the affirmative form.

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The old fallacy, technically called the Illicit Process of the Major Term, is more easy to commit and more difficult to detect than any other breach of the syllogistic rules. In our system it could hardly occur. From the premises

we might inadvertently but fallaciously infer that, “Fixed stars are not subject to gravity.” To reduce the premises to symbolic form, let

then we have the propositions

The reader will try in vain to produce from these premises by legitimate substitution any relation between B and C; he could not then commit the fallacy of asserting that B is not C.

There remain two other kinds of paralogism, commonly known as the fallacy of Four Terms and the Illicit Process of the Minor Term. They are so evidently impossible while we obey the rule of the substitution of equivalents, that it is not necessary to give any illustrations. When there are four distinct terms in two propositions as in A = B and C = D, there could evidently be no opening for substitution. As to the Illicit Process of the Minor Term it consists in a flagrant substitution for a term of another wider term which is not known to be equivalent to it, and which is therefore not allowed by our rule to be substituted for it.

In the previous chapter I have exhibited various cases of deductive reasoning by the process of substitution, avoiding the introduction of disjunctive propositions; but we cannot long defer the consideration of this more complex class of identities. General terms arise, as we have seen (p. 24), from classifying or mentally uniting together all objects which agree in certain qualities, the value of this union consisting in the fact that the power of knowledge is multiplied thereby. In forming such classes or general notions, we overlook or abstract the points of difference which exist between the objects joined together, and fix our attention only on the points of agreement. But every process of thought may be said to have its inverse process, which consists in undoing the effects of the direct process. Just as division undoes multiplication, and evolution undoes involution, so we must have a process which undoes generalization, or the operation of forming general notions. This inverse process will consist in distinguishing the separate objects or minor classes which are the constituent parts of any wider class. If we mentally unite together certain objects visible in the sky and call them planets, we shall afterwards need to distinguish the contents of this general notion, which we do in the disjunctive proposition—

Having formed the very wide class “vertebrate animal,” we may specify its subordinate classes thus:—“A vertebrate67 animal is either a mammal, bird, reptile, or fish.” Nor is there any limit to the number of possible alternatives. “An exogenous plant is either a ranunculus, a poppy, a crucifer, a rose, or it belongs to some one of the other seventy natural orders of exogens at present recognized by botanists.” A cathedral church in England must be either that of London, Canterbury, Winchester, Salisbury, Manchester, or of one of about twenty-four cities possessing such churches. And if we were to attempt to specify the meaning of the term “star,” we should require to enumerate as alternatives, not only the many thousands of stars recorded in catalogues, but the many millions unnamed.

Whenever we thus distinguish the parts of a general notion we employ a disjunctive proposition, in at least one side of which are several alternatives joined by the so-called disjunctive conjunction or, a contracted form of other. There must be some relation between the parts thus connected in one proposition; we may call it the disjunctive or alternative relation, and we must carefully inquire into its nature. This relation is that of ignorance and doubt, giving rise to choice. Whenever we classify and abstract we must open the way to such uncertainty. By fixing our attention on certain attributes to the exclusion of others, we necessarily leave it doubtful what those other attributes are. The term “molar tooth” bears upon the face of it that it is a part of the wider term “tooth.” But if we meet with the simple term “tooth” there is nothing to indicate whether it is an incisor, a canine, or a molar tooth. This doubt, however, may be resolved by further information, and we have to consider what are the appropriate logical processes for treating disjunctive propositions in connection with other propositions disjunctive or otherwise.

Expression of the Alternative Relation.

In order to represent disjunctive propositions with convenience we require a sign of the alternative relation, equivalent to one meaning at least of the little conjunction or so frequently used in common language. I propose to use for this purpose the symbol ꖌ. In my first logical essay I followed the practice of Boole and adopted68 the sign +; but this sign should not be employed unless there exists exact analogy between mathematical addition and logical alternation. We shall find that the analogy is imperfect, and that there is such profound difference between logical and mathematical terms as should prevent our uniting them by the same symbol. Accordingly I have chosen a sign ꖌ, which seems aptly to suggest whatever degree of analogy may exist without implying more. The exact meaning of the symbol we will now proceed to investigate.

Nature of the Alternative Relation.

Before treating disjunctive propositions it is indispensable to decide whether the alternatives must be considered exclusive or unexclusive. By exclusive alternatives we mean those which cannot contain the same things. If we say “Arches are circular or pointed,” it is certainly to be understood that the same arch cannot be described as both circular and pointed. Many examples, on the other hand, can readily be suggested in which two or more alternatives may hold true of the same object. Thus

It is undoubtedly possible, by the laws of optics, that the same surface may at one and the same moment give off light of its own and reflect light from other bodies. We speak familiarly of deaf or dumb persons, knowing that the majority of those who are deaf from birth are also dumb.

There can be no doubt that in a great many cases, perhaps the greater number of cases, alternatives are exclusive as a matter of fact. Any one number is incompatible with any other; one point of time or place is exclusive of all others. Roger Bacon died either in 1284 or 1292; it is certain that he could not die in both years. Henry Fielding was born either in Dublin or Somersetshire; he could not be born in both places. There is so much more precision and clearness in the use of exclusive alternatives that we ought doubtless to select them when possible. Old works on logic accordingly contained a rule directing that the Membra dividentia, the69 parts of a division or the constituent species of a genus, should be exclusive of each other.

It is no doubt owing to the great prevalence and convenience of exclusive divisions that the majority of logicians have held it necessary to make every alternative in a disjunctive proposition exclusive of every other one. Aquinas considered that when this was not the case the proposition was actually false, and Kant adopted the same opinion.‍64 A multitude of statements to the same effect might readily be quoted, and if the question were to be determined by the weight of historical evidence, it would certainly go against my view. Among recent logicians Hamilton, as well as Boole, took the exclusive side. But there are authorities to the opposite effect. Whately, Mansel, and J. S. Mill have all pointed out that we may often treat alternatives as Compossible, or true at the same time. Whately gives us an example,‍65 “Virtue tends to procure us either the esteem of mankind, or the favour of God,” and he adds—“Here both members are true, and consequently from one being affirmed we are not authorized to deny the other. Of course we are left to conjecture in each case, from the context, whether it is meant to be implied that the members are or are not exclusive.” Mansel says,‍66 “We may happen to know that two alternatives cannot be true together, so that the affirmation of the second necessitates the denial of the first; but this, as Boethius observes, is a material, not a formal consequence.” Mill has also pointed out the absurdities which would arise from always interpreting alternatives as exclusive. “If we assert,” he says,‍67 “that a man who has acted in some particular way must be either a knave or a fool, we by no means assert, or intend to assert, that he cannot be both.” Again, “to make an entirely unselfish use of despotic power, a man must be either a saint or a philosopher.... Does the disjunctive premise necessarily imply, or must it be construed as supposing, that the same person cannot be both a70 saint and a philosopher? Such a construction would be ridiculous.”

I discuss this subject fully because it is really the point which separates my logical system from that of Boole. In his Laws of Thought (p. 32) he expressly says, “In strictness, the words ‘and,’ ‘or,’ interposed between the terms descriptive of two or more classes of objects, imply that those classes are quite distinct, so that no member of one is found in another.” This I altogether dispute. In the ordinary use of these conjunctions we do not join distinct terms only; and when terms so joined do prove to be logically distinct, it is by virtue of a tacit premise, something in the meaning of the names and our knowledge of them, which teaches us that they are distinct. If our knowledge of the meanings of the words joined is defective it will often be impossible to decide whether terms joined by conjunctions are exclusive or not.

In the sentence “Repentance is not a single act, but a habit or virtue,” it cannot be implied that a virtue is not a habit; by Aristotle’s definition it is. Milton has the expression in one of his sonnets, “Unstain’d by gold or fee,” where it is obvious that if the fee is not always gold, the gold is meant to be a fee or bribe. Tennyson has the expression “wreath or anadem.” Most readers would be quite uncertain whether a wreath may be an anadem, or an anadem a wreath, or whether they are quite distinct or quite the same. From Darwin’s Origin of Species, I take the expression, “When we see any part or organ developed in a remarkable degree or manner.” In this, or is used twice, and neither time exclusively. For if part and organ are not synonymous, at any rate an organ is a part. And it is obvious that a part may be developed at the same time both in an extraordinary degree and an extraordinary manner, although such cases may be comparatively rare.

From a careful examination of ordinary writings, it will thus be found that the meanings of terms joined by “and,” “or” vary from absolute identity up to absolute contrariety. There is no logical condition of distinctness at all, and when we do choose exclusive alternatives, it is because our subject demands it. The matter, not the form of an71 expression, points out whether terms are exclusive or not.‍68 In bills, policies, and other kinds of legal documents, it is sometimes necessary to express very distinctly that alternatives are not exclusive. The form and/or is then used, and, as Mr. J. J. Murphy has remarked, this form coincides exactly in meaning with the symbol ꖌ.

In the first edition of this work (vol. i., p. 81), I took the disjunctive proposition “Matter is solid, or liquid, or gaseous,” and treated it as an instance of exclusive alternatives, remarking that the same portion of matter cannot be at once solid and liquid, properly speaking, and that still less can we suppose it to be solid and gaseous, or solid, liquid, and gaseous all at the same time. But the experiments of Professor Andrews show that, under certain conditions of temperature and pressure, there is no abrupt change from the liquid to the gaseous state. The same substance may be in such a state as to be indifferently described as liquid and gaseous. In many cases, too, the transition from solid to liquid is gradual, so that the properties of solidity are at least partially joined with those of liquidity. The proposition then, instead of being an instance of exclusive alternatives, seems to afford an excellent instance to the opposite effect. When such doubts can arise, it is evidently impossible to treat alternatives as absolutely exclusive by the logical nature of the relation. It becomes purely a question of the matter of the proposition.

The question, as we shall afterwards see more fully, is one of the greatest theoretical importance, because it concerns the true distinction between the sciences of Logic and Mathematics. It is the foundation of number that every unit shall be distinct from every other unit; but Boole imported the conditions of number into the science of Logic, and produced a system which, though wonderful in its results, was not a system of logic at all.

Laws of the Disjunctive Relation.

In considering the combination or synthesis of terms (p. 30), we found that certain laws, those of Simplicity72 and Commutativeness, must be observed. In uniting terms by the disjunctive symbol we shall find that the same or closely similar laws hold true. The alternatives of either member of a disjunctive proposition are certainly commutative. Just as we cannot properly distinguish between rich and rare gems and rare and rich gems, so we must consider as identical the expression rich or rare gems, and rare or rich gems. In our symbolic language we may say

The order of statement, in short, has no effect upon the meaning of an aggregate of alternatives, so that the Law of Commutativeness holds true of the disjunctive symbol.

As we have admitted the possibility of joining as alternatives terms which are not really different, the question arises, How shall we treat two or more alternatives when they are clearly shown to be the same? If we have it asserted that P is Q or R, and it is afterwards proved that Q is but another name for R, the result is that P is either R or R. How shall we interpret such a statement? What would be the meaning, for instance, of “wreath or anadem” if, on referring to a dictionary, we found anadem described as a wreath? I take it to be self-evident that the meaning would then become simply “wreath.” Accordingly we may affirm the general law

Any number of identical alternatives may always be reduced to, and are logically equivalent to, any one of those alternatives. This is a law which distinguishes mathematical terms from logical terms, because it obviously does not apply to the former. I propose to call it the Law of Unity, because it must really be involved in any definition of a mathematical unit. This law is closely analogous to the Law of Simplicity, AA = A; and the nature of the connection is worthy of attention.

Few or no logicians except De Morgan have adequately noticed the close relation between combined and disjunctive terms, namely, that every disjunctive term is the negative of a corresponding combined term, and vice versâ. Consider the term

73

How shall we describe the class of things which are not malleable-dense-metals? Whatever is included under that term must have all the qualities of malleability, denseness, and metallicity. Wherever any one or more of the qualities is wanting, the combined term will not apply. Hence the negative of the whole term is

In the above the conjunction or must clearly be interpreted as unexclusive; for there may readily be objects which are both not-malleable, and not-dense, and perhaps not-metallic at the same time. If in fact we were required to use or in a strictly exclusive manner, it would be requisite to specify seven distinct alternatives in order to describe the negative of a combination of three terms. The negatives of four or five terms would consist of fifteen or thirty-one alternatives. This consideration alone is sufficient to prove that the meaning of or cannot be always exclusive in common language.

Expressed symbolically, we may say that the negative of

Reciprocally the negative of

Every disjunctive term, then, is the negative of a combined term, and vice versâ.

Apply this result to the combined term AAA, and its negative is

Since AAA is by the Law of Simplicity equivalent to A, so a ꖌ a ꖌ a must be equivalent to a, and the Law of Unity holds true. Each law thus necessarily presupposes the other.

Symbolic expression of the Law of Duality.

We may now employ our symbol of alternation to express in a clear and formal manner the third Fundamental Law of Thought, which I have called the Law of Duality (p. 6). Taking A to represent any class or74 object or quality, and B any other class, object or quality, we may always assert that A either agrees with B, or does not agree. Thus we may say

This is a formula which will henceforth be constantly employed, and it lies at the basis of reasoning.

The reader may perhaps wish to know why A is inserted in both alternatives of the second member of the identity, and why the law is not stated in the form

But if he will consider the contents of the last section (p. 73), he will see that the latter expression cannot be correct, otherwise no term could have a corresponding negative term. For the negative of B ꖌ b is bB, or a self-contradictory term; thus if A were identical with B ꖌ b, its negative a would be non-existent. To say the least, this result would in most cases be an absurd one, and I see much reason to think that in a strictly logical point of view it would always be absurd. In all probability we ought to assume as a fundamental logical axiom that every term has its negative in thought. We cannot think at all without separating what we think about from other things, and these things necessarily form the negative notion.‍69 It follows that any proposition of the form A = B ꖌ b is just as self-contradictory as one of the form A = Bb.

It is convenient to recapitulate in this place the three Laws of Thought in their symbolic form, thus

Various Forms of the Disjunctive Proposition.

Disjunctive propositions may occur in a great variety of forms, of which the old logicians took insufficient notice. There may be any number of alternatives, each of which may be a combination of any number of simple terms. A proposition, again, may be disjunctive in one or both members. The proposition

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is an example of the doubly disjunctive form. The meaning of such a proposition is that whatever falls under any one or more alternatives on one side must fall under one or more alternatives on the other side. From what has been said before, it is apparent that the proposition

will correspond to

each member of the latter being the negative of a member of the former proposition.

As an instance of a complex disjunctive proposition I may give Senior’s definition of wealth, which, briefly stated, amounts to the proposition “Wealth is what is transferable, limited in supply, and either productive of pleasure or preventive of pain.”‍70

The definition takes the form

but if we develop the alternatives by a method to be afterwards more fully considered, it becomes

An example of a still more complex proposition is found in De Morgan’s writings,‍71 as follows:—“He must have been rich, and if not absolutely mad was weakness itself, subjected either to bad advice or to most unfavourable circumstances.”

If we assign the letters of the alphabet in succession, thus,

the proposition will take the form

and if we develop the alternatives, expressing some of the different cases which may happen, we obtain

The above gives the strict logical interpretation of the sentence, and the first alternative ABC is capable of development into eight cases, according as D, E and F are or are not present. Although from our knowledge of the matter, we may infer that weakness of character cannot be asserted of a person absolutely mad, there is no explicit statement to this effect.

Inference by Disjunctive Propositions.

Before we can make a free use of disjunctive propositions in the processes of inference we must consider how disjunctive terms can be combined together or with simple terms. In the first place, to combine a simple term with a disjunctive one, we must combine it with every alternative of the disjunctive term. A vegetable, for instance, is either a herb, a shrub, or a tree. Hence an exogenous vegetable is either an exogenous herb, or an exogenous shrub, or an exogenous tree. Symbolically stated, this process of combination is as follows,

Secondly, to combine two disjunctive terms with each other, combine each alternative of one with each alternative of the other. Since flowering plants are either exogens or endogens, and are at the same time either herbs, shrubs or trees, it follows that there are altogether six alternatives—namely, exogenous herbs, exogenous shrubs, exogenous trees, endogenous herbs, endogenous shrubs, endogenous trees. This process of combination is shown in the general form

It is hardly necessary to point out that, however numerous the terms combined, or the alternatives in those terms, we may effect the combination, provided each alternative is combined with each alternative of the other terms, as in the algebraic process of multiplication.

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Some processes of deduction may be at once exhibited. We may always, for instance, unite the same qualifying term to each side of an identity even though one or both members of the identity be disjunctive. Thus let

Now it is self-evident that

and in one side of this identity we may for A substitute its equivalent B ꖌ C, obtaining

Since “a gaseous element is either hydrogen, or oxygen, or nitrogen, or chlorine, or fluorine,” it follows that “a free gaseous element is either free hydrogen, or free oxygen, or free nitrogen, or free chlorine, or free fluorine.”

This process of combination will lead to most useful inferences when the qualifying adjective combined with both sides of the proposition is a negative of one or more alternatives. Since chlorine is a coloured gas, we may infer that “a colourless gaseous element is either (colourless) hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, or fluorine.” The alternative chlorine disappears because colourless chlorine does not exist. Again, since “a tooth is either an incisor, canine, bicuspid, or molar,” it follows that “a not-incisor tooth is either canine, bicuspid, or molar.” The general rule is that from the denial of any of the alternatives the affirmation of the remainder can be inferred. Now this result clearly follows from our process of substitution; for if we have the proposition

and we insert this expression for A on one side of the self-evident identity

we obtain Ab = ABb ꖌ AbC ꖌ AbD;

and, as the first of the three alternatives is self-contradictory, we strike it out according to the law of contradiction: there remains

Thus our system fully includes and explains that mood of the Disjunctive Syllogism technically called the modus tollendo ponens.

But the reader must carefully observe that the Disjunctive Syllogism of the mood ponendo tollens, which affirms78 one alternative, and thence infers the denial of the rest, cannot be held true in this system. If I say, indeed, that

it seems evident that “water which is salt is not fresh.” But this inference really proceeds from our knowledge that water cannot be at once salt and fresh. This inconsistency of the alternatives, as I have fully shown, will not always hold. Thus, if I say

it will obviously not follow that

nor that

Our symbolic method gives only true conclusions; for if we take

the proposition (1) is of the form

but these inferences are not equivalent to the false ones (2) and (3).

We can readily represent disjunctive reasoning by the modus ponendo tollens, when it is valid, by expressing the inconsistency of the alternatives explicitly. Thus if we resort to our instance of

and take

then the premise is apparently of the form

but in reality there is an unexpressed condition that “what is salt is not fresh,” from which follows, by a process of inference to be afterwards described, that “what is fresh is not salt.” We have then, in letter-terms, the two propositions

If we substitute these descriptions in the original proposition, we obtain

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uniting B to each side we infer

that is,

I should weary the reader if I attempted to illustrate the multitude of forms which disjunctive reasoning may take; and as in the next chapter we shall be constantly treating the subject, I must here restrict myself to a single instance. A very common process of reasoning consists in the determination of the name of a thing by the successive exclusion of alternatives, a process called by the old name abscissio infiniti. Take the case:

Let us assign the letter-symbols thus—

Assuming that the alternatives copper or gold are intended to be exclusive, as just explained in the case of fresh and salt water, the premises may be stated in the forms

Substituting for C in (1) by means of (2) we get

From (3) and (4) we may infer likewise

and if in this we substitute for B its equivalent just stated, it follows that

The first of the alternatives being contradictory the result is

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which contains a full description of “this specimen,” as furnished in the premises, but by ellipsis asserts that it is gold. It will be observed that in the symbolic expression (1) I have explicitly stated what is certainly implied, that copper is not gold, and gold not copper, without which condition the inference would not hold good.

The forms of deductive reasoning as yet considered, are mostly cases of Direct Deduction as distinguished from those which we are now about to treat. The method of Indirect Deduction may be described as that which points out what a thing is, by showing that it cannot be anything else. We can define a certain space upon a map, either by colouring that space, or by colouring all except the space; the first mode is positive, the second negative. The difference, it will be readily seen, is exactly analogous to that between the direct and indirect modes of proof in geometry. Euclid often shows that two lines are equal, by showing that they cannot be unequal, and the proof rests upon the known number of alternatives, greater, equal or less, which are alone conceivable. In other cases, as for instance in the seventh proposition of the first book, he shows that two lines must meet in a particular point, by showing that they cannot meet elsewhere.

In logic we can always define with certainty the utmost number of alternatives which are conceivable. The Law of Duality (pp. 6, 74) enables us always to assert that any quality or circumstance whatsoever is either present or absent. Whatever may be the meaning of the terms A and B it is certainly true that

These are universal tacit premises which may be employed in the solution of every problem, and which are such invariable and necessary conditions of all thought,82 that they need not be specially laid down. The Law of Contradiction is a further condition of all thought and of all logical symbols; it enables, and in fact obliges, us to reject from further consideration all terms which imply the presence and absence of the same quality. Now, whenever we bring both these Laws of Thought into explicit action by the method of substitution, we employ the Indirect Method of Inference. It will be found that we can treat not only those arguments already exhibited according to the direct method, but we can include an infinite multitude of other arguments which are incapable of solution by any other means.

Some philosophers, especially those of France, have held that the Indirect Method of Proof has a certain inferiority to the direct method, which should prevent our using it except when obliged. But there are many truths which we can prove only indirectly. We can prove that a number is a prime only by the purely indirect method of showing that it is not any of the numbers which have divisors, and the remarkable process known as Eratosthenes’ Sieve is the only mode by which we can select the prime numbers.‍72 It bears a strong analogy to the indirect method here to be described. We can prove that the side and diameter of a square are incommensurable, but only in the negative or indirect manner, by showing that the contrary supposition inevitably leads to contradiction.‍73 Many other demonstrations in various branches of the mathematical sciences proceed upon a like method. Now, if there is only one important truth which must be, and can only be, proved indirectly, we may say that the process is a necessary and sufficient one, and the question of its comparative excellence or usefulness is not worth discussion. As a matter of fact I believe that nearly half our logical conclusions rest upon its employment.

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Simple Illustrations.

In tracing out the powers and results of this method, we will begin with the simplest possible instance. Let us take a proposition of the common form, A = AB, say,

and let us investigate its full meaning. Any person who has had the least logical training, is aware that we can draw from the above proposition an apparently different one, namely,

While some logicians, as for instance De Morgan,‍74 have considered the relation of these two propositions to be purely self-evident, and neither needing nor allowing analysis, a great many more persons, as I have observed while teaching logic, are at first unable to perceive the close connection between them. I believe that a true and complete system of logic will furnish a clear analysis of this process, which has been called Contrapositive Conversion; the full process is as follows:‍—

Firstly, by the Law of Duality we know that

If it be metal, we know that it is by the premise an element; we should thus be supposing that the same thing is an element and a not-element, which is in opposition to the Law of Contradiction. According to the only other alternative, then, the not-element must be a not-metal.

To represent this process of inference symbolically we take the premise in the form

We observe that by the Law of Duality the term not-B is thus described

For A in this proposition we substitute its description as given in (1), obtaining

But according to the Law of Contradiction the term ABb must be excluded from thought, or

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Hence it results that b is either nothing at all, or it is ab; and the conclusion is

As it will often be necessary to refer to a conclusion of this kind I shall call it, as is usual, the Contrapositive Proposition of the original. The reader need hardly be cautioned to observe that from all A’s are B’s it does not follow that all not-A’s are not-B’s. For by the Law of Duality we have

and it will not be found possible to make any substitution in this by our original premise A = AB. It still remains doubtful, therefore, whether not-metal is element or not-element.

The proof of the Contrapositive Proposition given above is exactly the same as that which Euclid applies in the case of geometrical notions. De Morgan describes Euclid’s process as follows‍75:—“From every not-B is not-A he produces Every A is B, thus: If it be possible, let this A be not-B, but every not-B is not-A, therefore this A is not-A, which is absurd: whence every A is B.” Now De Morgan thinks that this proof is entirely needless, because common logic gives the inference without the use of any geometrical reasoning. I conceive however that logic gives the inference only by an indirect process. De Morgan claims “to see identity in Every A is B and every not-B is not-A, by a process of thought prior to syllogism.” Whether prior to syllogism or not, I claim that it is not prior to the laws of thought and the process of substitutive inference, by which it may be undoubtedly demonstrated.

Employment of the Contrapositive Proposition.

We can frequently employ the contrapositive form of a proposition by the method of substitution; and certain moods of the ancient syllogism, which we have hitherto passed over, may thus be satisfactorily comprehended in our system. Take for instance the following syllogism in the mood Camestres:‍—

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Let us take

The premises are of the forms

Now, by the process of contraposition we obtain from the second premise

and we can substitute this expression for c in (1), obtaining

or “Whales are not true fish, not respiring water.”

The mood Cesare does not really differ from Camestres except in the order of the premises, and it could be exhibited in an exactly similar manner.

The mood Baroko gave much trouble to the old logicians, who could not reduce it to the first figure in the same manner as the other moods, and were obliged to invent, specially for it and for Bokardo, a method of Indirect Reduction closely analogous to the indirect proof of Euclid. Now these moods require no exceptional treatment in this system. Let us take as an instance of Baroko, the argument

Treating the little word some as an indeterminate adjective of selection, to which we assign a symbol like any other adjective, let

The premises then become

Now from (1) we obtain by the indirect method the contrapositive proposition

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and if we substitute this expression for c in (2) we have

the full meaning of which is that “some nebulæ do not give continuous spectra and are not heated solids.”

We might similarly apply the contrapositive in many other instances. Take the argument, “All fixed stars are self-luminous; but some of the heavenly bodies are not self-luminous, and are therefore not fixed stars.” Taking our terms

we have the premises

Now from (1) we can draw the contrapositive

and substituting this expression for b in (2) we obtain

which expresses the conclusion of the argument that some heavenly bodies are not fixed stars.

Contrapositive of a Simple Identity.

The reader should carefully note that when we apply the process of Indirect Inference to a simple identity of the form

we may obtain further results. If we wish to know what is the term not-B, we have as before, by the Law of Duality,

and substituting for A we obtain

But we may now also draw a second contrapositive; for we have

and substituting for B its equivalent A we have

Hence from the single identity A = B we can draw the two propositions

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and observing that these propositions have a common term ab we can make a new substitution, getting

This result is in strict accordance with the fundamental principles of inference, and it may be a question whether it is not a self-evident result, independent of the steps of deduction by which we have reached it. For where two classes are coincident like A and B, whatever is true of the one is true of the other; what is excluded from the one must be excluded from the other similarly. Now as a bears to A exactly the same relation that b bears to B, the identity of either pair follows from the identity of the other pair. In every identity, equality, or similarity, we may argue from the negative of the one side to the negative of the other. Thus at ordinary temperatures

hence obviously

or since

it follows that whatever star is not the brightest is not Sirius, and vice versâ. Every correct definition is of the form A = B, and may often require to be applied in the equivalent negative form.

Let us take as an illustration of the mode of using this result the argument following:

Here we have a definition (1), and a comparison of a thing with that definition (2), leading to exclusion of the thing from the class defined.

Taking the terms

the premises are plainly of the forms

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Now by the Indirect method we obtain from (1) the Contrapositive

and inserting in (2) the equivalent for b we have

or “the letter w is not a vowel.”

Miscellaneous Examples of the Method.

We can apply the Indirect Method of Inference however many may be the terms involved or the premises containing those terms. As the working of the method is best learnt from examples, I will take a case of two premises forming the syllogism Barbara: thus

If we want to ascertain what inference is possible concerning the term Iron, we develop the term by the Law of Duality. Iron must be either metal or not-metal; iron which is metal must be either element or not-element; and similarly iron which is not-metal must be either element or not-element. There are then altogether four alternatives among which the description of iron must be contained; thus

Our first premise informs us that iron is a metal, and if we substitute this description in (γ) and (δ) we shall have self-contradictory combinations. Our second premise likewise informs us that metal is element, and applying this description to (β) we again have self-contradiction, so that there remains only (α) as a description of iron—our inference is

To represent this process of reasoning in general symbols, let

The premises of the problem take the forms

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By the Law of Duality we have

Now, if we insert for A in the second side of (3) its description in (4), we obtain what I shall call the development of A with respect to B and C, namely

Wherever the letters A or B appear in the second side of (5) substitute their equivalents given in (1) and (2), and the results stated at full length are

The last three alternatives break the Law of Contradiction, so that

This conclusion is, indeed, no more than we could obtain by the direct process of substitution, that is by substituting for B in (1), its description in (2) as in p. 55; it is the characteristic of the Indirect process that it gives all possible logical conclusions, both those which we have previously obtained, and an immense number of others or which the ancient logic took little or no account. From the same premises, for instance, we can obtain a description of the class not-element or c. By the Law of Duality we can develop c into four alternatives, thus

If we substitute for A and B as before, we get

and, striking out the terms which break the Law of Contradiction, there remains

or what is not element is also not iron and not metal. This Indirect Method of Inference thus furnishes a complete solution of the following problem—Given any number of logical premises or conditions, required the description of any class of objects, or of any term, as governed by those conditions.

The steps of the process of inference may thus be concisely stated—

1. By the Law of Duality develop the utmost number of alternatives which may exist in the description of the90 required class or term as regards the terms involved in the premises.

2. For each term in these alternatives substitute its description as given in the premises.

3. Strike out every alternative which is then found to break the Law of Contradiction.

4. The remaining terms may be equated to the term in question as the desired description.

Mr. Venn’s Problem.

The need of some logical method more powerful and comprehensive than the old logic of Aristotle is strikingly illustrated by Mr. Venn in his most interesting and able article on Boole’s logic.‍76 An easy example, originally got, as he says, by the aid of my method as simply described in the Elementary Lessons in Logic, was proposed in examination and lecture-rooms to some hundred and fifty students as a problem in ordinary logic. It was answered by, at most, five or six of them. It was afterwards set, as an example on Boole’s method, to a small class who had attended a few lectures on the nature of these symbolic methods. It was readily answered by half or more of their number.

The problem was as follows:—“The members of a board were all of them either bondholders, or shareholders, but not both; and the bondholders as it happened, were all on the board. What conclusion can be drawn?” The conclusion wanted is, “No shareholders are bondholders.” Now, as Mr. Venn says, nothing can look simpler than the following reasoning, when stated:—“There can be no bondholders who are shareholders; for if there were they must be either on the board, or off it. But they are not on it, by the first of the given statements; nor off it, by the second.” Yet from the want of any systematic mode of treating such a question only five or six of some hundred and fifty students could succeed in so simple a problem.

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By symbolic statement the problem is instantly solved. Taking

the premises are evidently

The class C or shareholders may in respect of A and B be developed into four alternatives,

But substituting for A in the first and for B in the third alternative we get

The first, second, and fourth alternatives in the above are self-contradictory combinations, and only these; striking them out there remain

the required answer. This symbolic reasoning is, I believe, the exact equivalent of Mr. Venn’s reasoning, and I do not believe that the result can be attained in a simpler manner. Mr. Venn adds that he could adduce other similar instances, that is, instances showing the necessity of a better logical method.

Abbreviation of the Process.

Before proceeding to further illustrations of the use of this method, I must point out how much its practical employment can be simplified, and how much more easy it is than would appear from the description. When we want to effect at all a thorough solution of a logical problem it is best to form, in the first place, a complete series of all the combinations of terms involved in it. If there be two terms A and B, the utmost variety of combinations in which they can appear are

The term A appears in the first and second; B in the first and third; a in the third and fourth; and b in the second and fourth. Now if we have any premise, say

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we must ascertain which of these combinations will be rendered self-contradictory by substitution; the second and third will have to be struck out, and there will remain only

Hence we draw the following inferences

Exactly the same method must be followed when a question involves a greater number of terms. Thus by the Law of Duality the three terms A, B, C, give rise to eight conceivable combinations, namely

The development of the term A is formed by the first four of these; for B we must select (α), (β), (ε), (ζ); C consists of (α), (γ), (ε), (η); b of (γ), (δ), (η), (θ), and so on.

Now if we want to investigate completely the meaning of the premises

we examine each of the eight combinations as regards each premise; (γ) and (δ) are contradicted by (1), and (β) and (ζ) by (2), so that there remain only

To describe any term under the conditions of the premises (1) and (2), we have simply to draw out the proper combinations from this list; thus, A is represented only by ABC, that is to say

For B we have two alternatives thus stated,

and for b we have

When we have a problem involving four distinct terms we need to double the number of combinations, and as we add each new term the combinations become twice as numerous. Thus

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and so on.

I propose to call any such series of combinations the Logical Alphabet. It holds in logical science a position the importance of which cannot be exaggerated, and as we proceed from logical to mathematical considerations, it will become apparent that there is a close connection between these combinations and the fundamental theorems of mathematical science. For the convenience of the reader who may wish to employ the Alphabet in logical questions, I have had printed on the next page a complete series of the combinations up to those of six terms. At the very commencement, in the first column, is placed a single letter X, which might seem to be superfluous. This letter serves to denote that it is always some higher class which is divided up. Thus the combination AB really means ABX, or that part of some larger class, say X, which has the qualities of A and B present. The letter X is omitted in the greater part of the table merely for the sake of brevity and clearness. In a later chapter on Combinations it will become apparent that the introduction of this unit class is requisite in order to complete the analogy with the Arithmetical Triangle there described.

The reader ought to bear in mind that though the Logical Alphabet seems to give mere lists of combinations, these combinations are intended in every case to constitute the development of a term of a proposition. Thus the four combinations AB, Ab, aB, ab really mean that any class X is described by the following proposition,

If we select the A’s, we obtain the following proposition

Thus whatever group of combinations we treat must be conceived as part of a higher class, summum genus or universe symbolised in the term X; but, bearing this in mind, it is needless to complicate our formulæ by always introducing the letter. All inference consists in passing from propositions to propositions, and combinations per se94 have no meaning. They are consequently to be regarded in all cases as forming parts of propositions.

The Logical Alphabet.

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In a theoretical point of view we may conceive that the Logical Alphabet is infinitely extended. Every new quality or circumstance which can belong to an object, subdivides each combination or class, so that the number of such combinations, when unrestricted by logical conditions, is represented by an infinitely high power of two. The extremely rapid increase in the number of subdivisions obliges us to confine our attention to a few qualities at a time.

When contemplating the properties of this Alphabet I am often inclined to think that Pythagoras perceived the deep logical importance of duality; for while unity was the symbol of identity and harmony, he described the number two as the origin of contrasts, or the symbol of diversity, division and separation. The number four, or the Tetractys, was also regarded by him as one of the chief elements of existence, for it represented the generating virtue whence come all combinations. In one of the golden verses ascribed to Pythagoras, he conjures his pupil to be virtuous:‍77

Now four and the higher powers of duality do represent in this logical system the numbers of combinations which can be generated in the absence of logical restrictions. The followers of Pythagoras may have shrouded their master’s doctrines in mysterious and superstitious notions, but in many points these doctrines seem to have some basis in logical philosophy.

The Logical Slate.

To a person who has once comprehended the extreme significance and utility of the Logical Alphabet the indirect process of inference becomes reduced to the repetition of a few uniform operations of classification, selection, and elimination of contradictories. Logical deduction, even in the most complicated questions, becomes a matter of mere routine, and the amount of96 labour required is the only impediment, when once the meaning of the premises is rendered clear. But the amount of labour is often found to be considerable. The mere writing down of sixty-four combinations of six letters each is no small task, and, if we had a problem of five premises, each of the sixty-four combinations would have to be examined in connection with each premise. The requisite comparison is often of a very tedious character, and considerable chance of error intervenes.

I have given much attention, therefore, to lessening both the manual and mental labour of the process, and I shall describe several devices which may be adopted for saving trouble and risk of mistake.

In the first place, as the same sets of combinations occur over and over again in different problems, we may avoid the labour of writing them out by having the sets of letters ready printed upon small sheets of writing-paper. It has also been suggested by a correspondent that, if any one series of combinations were marked upon the margin of a sheet of paper, and a slit cut between each pair of combinations, it would be easy to fold down any particular combination, and thus strike it out of view. The combinations consistent with the premises would then remain in a broken series. This method answers sufficiently well for occasional use.

A more convenient mode, however, is to have the series of letters shown on p. 94, engraved upon a common school writing slate, of such a size, that the letters may occupy only about a third of the space on the left hand side of the slate. The conditions of the problem can then be written down on the unoccupied part of the slate, and the proper series of combinations being chosen, the contradictory combinations can be struck out with the pencil. I have used a slate of this kind, which I call a Logical Slate, for more than twelve years, and it has saved me much trouble. It is hardly possible to apply this process to problems of more than six terms, owing to the large number of combinations which would require examination.

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Abstraction of Indifferent Circumstances.

There is a simple but highly important process of inference which enables us to abstract, eliminate or disregard all circumstances indifferently present and absent. Thus if I were to state that “a triangle is a three-sided rectilinear figure, either large or not large,” these two alternatives would be superfluous, because, by the Law of Duality, I know that everything must be either large or not large. To add the qualification gives no new knowledge, since the existence of the two alternatives will be understood in the absence of any information to the contrary. Accordingly, when two alternatives differ only as regards a single component term which is positive in one and negative in the other, we may reduce them to one term by striking out their indifferent part. It is really a process of substitution which enables us to do this; for having any proposition of the form

we know by the Law of Duality that

As the second member of this is identical with the second member of (1) we may substitute, obtaining

This process of reducing useless alternatives may be applied again and again; for it is plain that

communicates no more information than that A is B. Abstraction of indifferent terms is in fact the converse process to that of development described in p. 89; and it is one of the most important operations in the whole sphere of reasoning.

The reader should observe that in the proposition

we cannot abstract C and infer

but from

we may abstract all reference to the term C.

It ought to be carefully remarked, however, that alternatives which seem to be without meaning often imply important knowledge. Thus if I say that “a triangle is a98 three-sided rectilinear figure, with or without three equal angles,” the last alternatives really express a property of triangles, namely, that some triangles have three equal angles, and some do not have them. If we put P = “Some,” meaning by the indefinite adjective “Some,” one or more of the undefined properties of triangles with three equal angles, and take

then the knowledge implied is expressed in the two propositions

These may also be thrown into the form of one proposition, namely,

but these alternatives cannot be reduced, and the proposition is quite different from

Illustrations of the Indirect Method.

A great variety of arguments and logical problems might be introduced here to show the comprehensive character and powers of the Indirect Method. We can treat either a single premise or a series of premises.

Take in the first place a simple definition, such as “a triangle is a three-sided rectilinear figure.” Let

then the definition is of the form

If we take the series of eight combinations of three letters in the Logical Alphabet (p. 94) and strike out those which are inconsistent with the definition, we have the following result:‍—

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For the description of the class C we have

that is, “a rectilinear figure is either a triangle and three-sided, or not a triangle and not three-sided.”

For the class b we have

To the second side of this we may apply the process of simplification by abstraction described in the last section; for by the Law of Duality

and as we have two propositions identical in the second side of each we may substitute, getting

or what is not three-sided is not a triangle (whether it be rectilinear or not).

Second Example.

Let us treat by this method the following argument:‍—

Taking our letters thus—

the premises are of the forms

No immediate substitution can be made; but if we take the contrapositive of (2) (see p. 86), namely

we can substitute in (1) obtaining the conclusion

But the same result may be obtained by taking the eight combinations of A, B, C, of the Logical Alphabet; it will be found that only three combinations, namely,

are consistent with the premises, whence it results that

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or by the process of Ellipsis before described (p. 57)

Third Example.

As a somewhat more complex example I take the argument thus stated, one which could not be thrown into the syllogistic form:‍—

There is more implied in this statement than is distinctly asserted, the full meaning being as follows:

Taking our letters thus—

we may state the premises in the forms

To obtain a complete solution of the question we take the sixteen combinations of A, B, C, D, and striking out those which are inconsistent with the premises, there remain only

The expression for not-opaque things consists of the three combinations containing d, thus

In ordinary language, what is not-opaque is either metal which is gold, and then not-silver, or silver and then not-gold, or else it is not-metal and neither gold nor silver.

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Fourth Example.

A good example for the illustration of the Indirect Method is to be found in De Morgan’s Formal Logic (p. 123), the premises being substantially as follows:‍—

From A follows B, and from C follows D; but B and D are inconsistent with each other; therefore A and C are inconsistent.

The meaning no doubt is that where A is, B will be found, or that every A is a B, and similarly every C is a D; but B and D cannot occur together. The premises therefore appear to be of the forms

On examining the series of sixteen combinations, only five are found to be consistent with the above conditions, namely,

In these combinations the only A which appears is joined to c, and similarly C is joined to a, or A is inconsistent with C.

Fifth Example.

A more complex argument, also given by De Morgan,‍78 contains five terms, and is as stated below, except that the letters are altered.

The meaning of the above premises is difficult to interpret, but seems to be capable of expression in the following symbolic forms—

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As five terms enter into these premises it is requisite to treat their thirty-two combinations, and it will be found that fourteen of them remain consistent with the premises, namely

If we examine the first four combinations, all of which contain A, we find that they none of them contain D; or again, if we select those which contain D, we have only two, thus—

Hence it is clear that no A is D, and vice versâ no D is A. We might draw many other conclusions from the same premises; for instance—

or D and E never meet but in the absence of A, B, and C.

Fallacies analysed by the Indirect Method.

It has been sufficiently shown, perhaps, that we can by the Indirect Method of Inference extract the whole truth from a series of propositions, and exhibit it anew in any required form of conclusion. But it may also need to be shown by examples that so long as we follow correctly the almost mechanical rules of the method, we cannot fall into any of the fallacies or paralogisms which are often committed in ordinary discussion. Let us take the example of a fallacious argument, previously treated by the Method of Direct Inference (p. 62),

and let us ascertain whether any precise conclusion can be drawn concerning the relation of granite and basalt. Taking as before

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the premises become

Of the eight conceivable combinations of A, B, C, five agree with these conditions, namely

Selecting the combinations which contain A, we find the description of granite to be

that is, granite is not a sedimentary rock, and is either basalt or not-basalt. If we want a description of basalt the answer is of like form

that is basalt is not a sedimentary rock, and is either granite or not-granite. As it is already perfectly evident that basalt must be either granite or not, and vice versâ, the premises fail to give us any information on the point, that is to say the Method of Indirect Inference saves us from falling into any fallacious conclusions. This example sufficiently illustrates both the fallacy of Negative premises and that of Undistributed Middle of the old logic.

The fallacy called the Illicit Process of the Major Term is also incapable of commission in following the rules of the method. Our example was (p. 65)

The false conclusion is that “fixed stars are not subject to gravity.” The terms are

And the premises are

The combinations which remain uncontradicted on comparison with these premises are

For fixed star we have the description

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that is, “a fixed star is not a planet, but is either subject or not, as the case may be, to gravity.” Here we have no conclusion concerning the connection of fixed stars and gravity.

The Logical Abacus.

The Indirect Method of Inference has now been sufficiently described, and a careful examination of its powers will show that it is capable of giving a full analysis and solution of every question involving only logical relations. The chief difficulty of the method consists in the great number of combinations which may have to be examined; not only may the requisite labour become formidable, but a considerable chance of mistake arises. I have therefore given much attention to modes of facilitating the work, and have succeeded in reducing the method to an almost mechanical form. It soon appeared obvious that if the conceivable combinations of the Logical Alphabet, for any number of letters, instead of being printed in fixed order on a piece of paper or slate, were marked upon light movable pieces of wood, mechanical arrangements could readily be devised for selecting any required class of the combinations. The labour of comparison and rejection might thus be immensely reduced. This idea was first carried out in the Logical Abacus, which I have found useful in the lecture-room for exhibiting the complete solution of logical problems. A minute description of the construction and use of the Abacus, together with figures of the parts, has already been given in my essay called The Substitution of Similars,‍79 and I will here give only a general description.

The Logical Abacus consists of a common school black-board placed in a sloping position and furnished with four horizontal and equi-distant ledges. The combinations of the letters shown in the first four columns of the Logical Alphabet are printed in somewhat large type, so that each letter is about an inch from the neighbouring one, but the letters are placed one above the other instead of being in horizontal lines as in p. 94. Each combination of letters is separately fixed to the surface of105 a thin slip of wood one inch broad and about one-eighth inch thick. Short steel pins are then driven in an inclined position into the wood. When a letter is a large capital representing a positive term, the pin is fixed in the upper part of its space; when the letter is a small italic representing a negative term, the pin is fixed in the lower part of the space. Now, if one of the series of combinations be ranged upon a ledge of the black-board, the sharp edge of a flat rule can be inserted beneath the pins belonging to any one letter—say A, so that all the combinations marked A can be lifted out and placed upon a separate ledge. Thus we have represented the act of thought which separates the class A from what is not-A. The operation can be repeated; out of the A’s we can in like manner select those which are B’s, obtaining the AB’s; and in like manner we may select any other classes such as the aB’s, the ab’s, or the abc’s.

If now we take the series of eight combinations of the letters A, B, C, a, b, c, and wish to analyse the argument anciently called Barbara, having the premises

we proceed as follows—We raise the combinations marked a, leaving the A’s behind; out of these A’s we move to a lower ledge such as are b’s, and to the remaining AB’s we join the a’s which have been raised. The result is that we have divided all the combinations into two classes, namely, the Ab’s which are incapable of existing consistently with premise (1), and the combinations which are consistent with the premise. Turning now to the second premise, we raise out of those which agree with (1) the b’s, then we lower the Bc’s; lastly we join the b’s to the BC’s. We now find our combinations arranged as below.

The lower line contains all the combinations which are inconsistent with either premise; we have carried out in a106 mechanical manner that exclusion of self-contradictories which was formerly done upon the slate or upon paper. Accordingly, from the combinations remaining in the upper line we can draw any inference which the premises yield. If we raise the A’s we find only one, and that is C, so that A must be C. If we select the c’s we again find only one, which is a and also b; thus we prove that not-C is not-A and not-B.

When a disjunctive proposition occurs among the premises the requisite movements become rather more complicated. Take the disjunctive argument

The premises are represented accurately as follows:‍—

As there are four terms, we choose the series of sixteen combinations and place them on the highest ledge of the board but one. We raise the a’s and out of the A’s, which remain, we lower the b’s. But we are not to reject all the Ab’s as contradictory, because by the first premise A’s may be either B’s or C’s or D’s. Accordingly out of the Ab’s we must select the c’s, and out of these again the d’s, so that only Abcd will remain to be rejected finally. Joining all the other fifteen combinations together again, and proceeding to premise (2), we raise the a’s and lower the AC’s, and thus reject the combinations inconsistent with (2); similarly we reject the AD’s which are inconsistent with (3). It will be found that there remain, in addition to all the eight combinations containing a, only one containing A, namely

whence it is apparent that A must be B, the ordinary conclusion of the argument.

In my “Substitution of Similars” (pp. 56–59) I have described the working upon the Abacus of two other logical problems, which it would be tedious to repeat in this place.

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The Logical Machine.

Although the Logical Abacus considerably reduced the labour of using the Indirect Method, it was not free from the possibility of error. I thought moreover that it would afford a conspicuous proof of the generality and power of the method if I could reduce it to a purely mechanical form. Logicians had long been accustomed to speak of Logic as an Organon or Instrument, and even Lord Bacon, while he rejected the old syllogistic logic, had insisted, in the second aphorism of his “New Instrument,” that the mind required some kind of systematic aid. In the kindred science of mathematics mechanical assistance of one kind or another had long been employed. Orreries, globes, mechanical clocks, and such like instruments, are really aids to calculation and are of considerable antiquity. The Arithmetical Abacus is still in common use in Russia and China. The calculating machine of Pascal is more than two centuries old, having been constructed in 1642–45. M. Thomas of Colmar manufactures an arithmetical machine on Pascal’s principles which is employed by engineers and others who need frequently to multiply or divide. To Babbage and Scheutz is due the merit of embodying the Calculus of Differences in a machine, which thus became capable of calculating the most complicated tables of figures. It seemed strange that in the more intricate science of quantity mechanism should be applicable, whereas in the simple science of qualitative reasoning, the syllogism was only called an instrument by a figure of speech. It is true that Swift satirically described the Professors of Laputa as in possession of a thinking machine, and in 1851 Mr. Alfred Smee actually proposed the construction of a Relational machine and a Differential machine, the first of which would be a mechanical dictionary and the second a mode of comparing ideas; but with these exceptions I have not yet met with so much as a suggestion of a reasoning machine. It may be added that Mr. Smee’s designs, though highly ingenious, appear to be impracticable, and in any case they do not attempt the performance of logical inference.‍80

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The Logical Abacus soon suggested the notion of a Logical Machine, which, after two unsuccessful attempts, I succeeded in constructing in a comparatively simple and effective form. The details of the Logical Machine have been fully described by the aid of plates in the Philosophical Transactions,‍81 and it would be needless to repeat the account of the somewhat intricate movements of the machine in this place.

The general appearance of the machine is shown in a plate facing the title-page of this volume. It somewhat resembles a very small upright piano or organ, and has a keyboard containing twenty-one keys. These keys are of two kinds, sixteen of them representing the terms or letters A, a, B, b, C, c, D, d, which have so often been employed in our logical notation. When letters occur on the left-hand side of a proposition, formerly called the subject, each is represented by a key on the left-hand half of the keyboard; but when they occur on the right-hand side, or as it used to be called the predicate of the proposition, the letter-keys on the right-hand side of the keyboard are the proper representatives. The five other keys may be called operation keys, to distinguish them from the letter or term keys. They stand for the stops, copula, and disjunctive conjunctions of a proposition. The middle key of all is the copula, to be pressed when the verb is or the sign = is met. The key to the extreme right-hand is called the Full Stop, because it should be pressed when a proposition is completed, in fact in the proper place of the full stop. The key to the extreme left-hand is used to terminate an argument or to restore the machine to its initial condition; it is called the Finis key. The last keys but one on the right and left complete the whole series, and represent the conjunction or in its unexclusive meaning, or the sign ꖌ which I have employed, according as it occurs in the right or left hand side of the proposition. The whole keyboard is arranged as shown on the next page—

109

To work the machine it is only requisite to press the keys in succession as indicated by the letters and signs of a symbolical proposition. All the premises of an argument are supposed to be reduced to the simple notation which has been employed in the previous pages. Taking then such a simple proposition as

we press the keys A (left), copula, A (right), B (right), and full stop.

If there be a second premise, for instance

we press in like manner the keys—

The process is exactly the same however numerous the premises may be. When they are completed the operator will see indicated on the face of the machine the exact combinations of letters which are consistent with the premises according to the principles of thought.

As shown in the figure opposite the title-page, the machine exhibits in front a Logical Alphabet of sixteen combinations, exactly like that of the Abacus, except that the letters of each combination are separated by a certain interval. After the above problem has been worked upon the machine the Logical Alphabet will have been modified so as to present the following appearance—

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The operator will readily collect the various conclusions in the manner described in previous pages, as, for instance that A is always C, that not-C is not-B and not-A; and not-B is not-A but either C or not-C. The results are thus to be read off exactly as in the case of the Logical Slate, or the Logical Abacus.

Disjunctive propositions are to be treated in an exactly similar manner. Thus, to work the premises

it is only necessary to press in succession the keys

The combinations then remaining will be as follows

On pressing the left-hand key A, all the possible combinations which do not contain A will disappear, and the description of A may be gathered from what remain, namely that it is always D. The full-stop key restores all combinations consistent with the premises and any other selection may be made, as say not-D, which will be found to be always not-A, not-B, and not-C.

At the end of every problem, when no further questions need be addressed to the machine, we press the Finis key, which has the effect of bringing into view the whole of the conceivable combinations of the alphabet. This key in fact obliterates the conditions impressed upon the machine by moving back into their ordinary places those combinations which had been rejected as inconsistent with the premises. Before beginning any new problem it is requisite to observe that the whole sixteen combinations are visible. After the Finis key has been used the machine represents a mind endowed with powers of thought, but wholly devoid of knowledge. It would not in that condition give any answer but such as would consist in the primary laws of thought themselves. But when any proposition is worked upon the keys, the machine analyses and digests the meaning of it and becomes charged with the knowledge embodied in that proposition. Accordingly it is able to return as an answer any description of a term111 or class so far as furnished by that proposition in accordance with the Laws of Thought. The machine is thus the embodiment of a true logical system. The combinations are classified, selected or rejected, just as they should be by a reasoning mind, so that at each step in a problem, the Logical Alphabet represents the proper condition of a mind exempt from mistake. It cannot be asserted indeed that the machine entirely supersedes the agency of conscious thought; mental labour is required in interpreting the meaning of grammatical expressions, and in correctly impressing that meaning on the machine; it is further required in gathering the conclusion from the remaining combinations. Nevertheless the true process of logical inference is really accomplished in a purely mechanical manner.

It is worthy of remark that the machine can detect any self-contradiction existing between the premises presented to it; should the premises be self-contradictory it will be found that one or more of the letter-terms disappears entirely from the Logical Alphabet. Thus if we work the two propositions, A is B, and A is not-B, and then inquire for a description of A, the machine will refuse to give it by exhibiting no combination at all containing A. This result is in agreement with the law, which I have explained, that every term must have its negative (p. 74). Accordingly, whenever any one of the letters A, B, C, D, a, b, c, d, wholly disappears from the alphabet, it may be safely inferred that some act of self-contradiction has been committed.

It ought to be carefully observed that the logical machine cannot receive a simple identity of the form A = B except in the double form of A = B and B = A. To work the proposition A = B, it is therefore necessary to press the keys—

The same double operation will be necessary whenever the proposition is not of the kind called a partial identity (p. 40). Thus AB = CD, AB = AC, A = B ꖌ C, A ꖌ B = C ꖌ D, all require to be read from both ends separately.

The proper rule for using the machine may in fact be given in the following way:—(1) Read each proposition as it stands, and play the corresponding keys: (2) Convert the112 proposition and read and play the keys again in the transposed order of the terms. So long as this rule is observed the true result must always be obtained. There can be no mistake. But it will be found that in the case of partial identities, and some other similar forms of propositions, the transposed reading has no effect upon the combinations of the Logical Alphabet. One reading is in such cases all that is practically needful. After some experience has been gained in the use of the machine, the worker naturally saves himself the trouble of the second reading when possible.

It is no doubt a remarkable fact that a simple identity cannot be impressed upon the machine except in the form of two partial identities, and this may be thought by some logicians to militate against the equational mode of representing propositions.

Before leaving the subject I may remark that these mechanical devices are not likely to possess much practical utility. We do not require in common life to be constantly solving complex logical questions. Even in mathematical calculation the ordinary rules of arithmetic are generally sufficient, and a calculating machine can only be used with advantage in peculiar cases. But the machine and abacus have nevertheless two important uses.

In the first place I hope that the time is not very far distant when the predominance of the ancient Aristotelian Logic will be a matter of history only, and when the teaching of logic will be placed on a footing more worthy of its supreme importance. It will then be found that the solution of logical questions is an exercise of mind at least as valuable and necessary as mathematical calculation. I believe that these mechanical devices, or something of the same kind, will then become useful for exhibiting to a class of students a clear and visible analysis of logical problems of any degree of complexity, the nature of each step being rendered plain to the eyes of the students. I often used the machine or abacus for this purpose in my class lectures while I was Professor of Logic at Owens College.

Secondly, the more immediate importance of the machine seems to consist in the unquestionable proof which it affords that correct views of the fundamental principles of113 reasoning have now been attained, although they were unknown to Aristotle and his followers. The time must come when the inevitable results of the admirable investigations of the late Dr. Boole must be recognised at their true value, and the plain and palpable form in which the machine presents those results will, I hope, hasten the time. Undoubtedly Boole’s life marks an era in the science of human reason. It may seem strange that it had remained for him first to set forth in its full extent the problem of logic, but I am not aware that anyone before him had treated logic as a symbolic method for evolving from any premises the description of any class whatsoever as defined by those premises. In spite of several serious errors into which he fell, it will probably be allowed that Boole discovered the true and general form of logic, and put the science substantially into the form which it must hold for evermore. He thus effected a reform with which there is hardly anything comparable in the history of logic between his time and the remote age of Aristotle.

Nevertheless, Boole’s quasi-mathematical system could hardly be regarded as a final and unexceptionable solution of the problem. Not only did it require the manipulation of mathematical symbols in a very intricate and perplexing manner, but the results when obtained were devoid of demonstrative force, because they turned upon the employment of unintelligible symbols, acquiring meaning only by analogy. I have also pointed out that he imported into his system a condition concerning the exclusive nature of alternatives (p. 70), which is not necessarily true of logical terms. I shall have to show in the next chapter that logic is really the basis of the whole science of mathematical reasoning, so that Boole inverted the true order of proof when he proposed to infer logical truths by algebraic processes. It is wonderful evidence of his mental power that by methods fundamentally false he should have succeeded in reaching true conclusions and widening the sphere of reason.

The mechanical performance of logical inference affords a demonstration both of the truth of Boole’s results and of the mistaken nature of his mode of deducing them. Conclusions which he could obtain only by pages of intricate calculation, are exhibited by the machine after one or114 two minutes of manipulation. And not only are those conclusions easily reached, but they are demonstratively true, because every step of the process involves nothing more obscure than the three fundamental Laws of Thought.

The Order of Premises.

Before quitting the subject of deductive reasoning, I may remark that the order in which the premises of an argument are placed is a matter of logical indifference. Much discussion has taken place at various times concerning the arrangement of the premises of a syllogism; and it has been generally held, in accordance with the opinion of Aristotle, that the so-called major premise, containing the major term, or the predicate of the conclusion, should stand first. This distinction however falls to the ground in our system, since the proposition is reduced to an identical form, in which there is no distinction of subject and predicate. In a strictly logical point of view the order of statement is wholly devoid of significance. The premises are simultaneously coexistent, and are not related to each other according to the properties of space and time. Just as the qualities of the same object are neither before nor after each other in nature (p. 33), and are only thought of in some one order owing to the limited capacity of mind, so the premises of an argument are neither before nor after each other, and are only thought of in succession because the mind cannot grasp many ideas at once. The combinations of the logical alphabet are exactly the same in whatever order the premises be treated on the logical slate or machine. Some difference may doubtless exist as regards convenience to human memory. The mind may take in the results of an argument more easily in one mode of statement than another, although there is no real difference in the logical results. But in this point of view I think that Aristotle and the old logicians were clearly wrong. It is more easy to gather the conclusion that “all A’s are C’s” from “all A’s are B’s and all B’s are C’s,” than from the same propositions in inverted order, “all B’s are C’s and all A’s are B’s.”

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The Equivalence of Propositions.

One great advantage which arises from the study of this Indirect Method of Inference consists in the clear notion which we gain of the Equivalence of Propositions. The older logicians showed how from certain simple premises we might draw an inference, but they failed to point out whether that inference contained the whole, or only a part, of the information embodied in the premises. Any one proposition or group of propositions may be classed with respect to another proposition or group of propositions, as

Taking the proposition “All men are mortals” as the original, then “All immortals are not men” is its equivalent; “Some mortals are men” is inferrible, or capable of inference, but is not equivalent; “All not-men are not mortals” cannot be inferred, but is consistent, that is, may be true at the same time; “All men are immortals” is of course contradictory.

One sufficient test of equivalence is capability of mutual inference. Thus from

I can infer

and vice versâ from the latter I can pass back to the former. In short, A = B is equivalent to a = b. Again, from the union of the two propositions, A = AB and B = AB, I get A = B, and from this I might as easily deduce the two with which I started. In this case one proposition is equivalent to two other propositions. There are in fact no less than four modes in which we may express the identity of two classes A and B, namely,

FIRST MODE.	SECOND MODE.	THIRD MODE.		FOURTH MODE.
A = B	a = b	A = AB		a = ab
		B = AB		b = ab

The Indirect Method of Inference furnishes a universal and clear criterion as to the relationship of propositions. The import of a statement is always to be measured by116 the combinations of terms which it destroys. Hence two propositions are equivalent when they remove the same combinations from the Logical Alphabet, and neither more nor less. A proposition is inferrible but not equivalent to another when it removes some but not all the combinations which the other removes, and none except what this other removes. Again, propositions are consistent provided that they jointly allow each term and the negative of each term to remain somewhere in the Logical Alphabet. If after all the combinations inconsistent with two propositions are struck out, there still appears each of the letters A, a, B, b, C, c, D, d, which were there before, then no inconsistency between the propositions exists, although they may not be equivalent or even inferrible. Finally, contradictory propositions are those which taken together remove any one or more letter-terms from the Logical Alphabet.

What is true of single propositions applies also to groups of propositions, however large or complicated; that is to say, one group may be equivalent, inferrible, consistent, or contradictory as regards another, and we may similarly compare one proposition with a group of propositions.

To give in this place illustrations of all the four kinds of relation would require much space: as the examples given in previous sections or chapters may serve more or less to explain the relations of inference, consistency, and contradiction, I will only add a few instances of equivalent propositions or groups.

In the following list each proposition or group of propositions is exactly equivalent in meaning to the corresponding one in the other column, and the truth of this statement may be tested by working out the combinations of the alphabet, which ought to be found exactly the same in the case of each pair of equivalents.

A =	Ab					B =	aB
A =	b					a =	B
A =	BC					a =	b ꖌ c
A =	AB ꖌ AC					b =	ab ꖌ AbC
A ꖌ B =	B ꖌ d					ab =	cd
A ꖌ c =	B ꖌ d					aC =	bD
A =	ABc ꖌ AbC					A =	AB ꖌ AC
						AB =	ABc117
A =	B					A =	B
B =	C					A =	C
A =	AB					A =	AC
B =	BC					B =	A ꖌ aBC

Although in these and many other cases the equivalents of certain propositions can readily be given, yet I believe that no uniform and infallible process can be pointed out by which the exact equivalents of premises can be ascertained. Ordinary deductive inference usually gives us only a portion of the contained information. It is true that the combinations consistent with a set of premises may always be thrown into the form of a proposition which must be logically equivalent to those premises; but the difficulty consists in detecting the other forms of propositions which will be equivalent to the premises. The task is here of a different character from any which we have yet attempted. It is in reality an inverse process, and is just as much more troublesome and uncertain than the direct process, as seeking is compared with hiding. Not only may several different answers equally apply, but there is no method of discovering any of those answers except by repeated trial. The problem which we have here met is really that of induction, the inverse of deduction; and, as I shall soon show, induction is always tentative, and, unless conducted with peculiar skill and insight, must be exceedingly laborious in cases of complexity.

De Morgan was unfortunately led by this equivalence of propositions into the most serious error of his ingenious system of Logic. He held that because the proposition “All A’s are all B’s,” is but another expression for the two propositions “All A’s are B’s” and “All B’s are A’s,” it must be a composite and not really an elementary form of proposition.‍82 But on taking a general view of the equivalence of propositions such an objection seems to have no weight. Logicians have, with few exceptions, persistently upheld the original error of Aristotle in rejecting from their science the one simple relation of identity on which all more complex logical relations must really rest.

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The Nature of Inference.

The question, What is Inference? is involved, even to the present day, in as much uncertainty as that ancient question, What is Truth? I shall in more than one part of this work endeavour to show that inference never does more than explicate, unfold, or develop the information contained in certain premises or facts. Neither in deductive nor inductive reasoning can we add a tittle to our implicit knowledge, which is like that contained in an unread book or a sealed letter. Sir W. Hamilton has well said, “Reasoning is the showing out explicitly that a proposition not granted or supposed, is implicitly contained in something different, which is granted or supposed.”‍83

Professor Bowen has explained‍84 with much clearness that the conclusion of an argument states explicitly what is virtually or implicitly thought. “The process of reasoning is not so much a mode of evolving a new truth, as it is of establishing or proving an old one, by showing how much was admitted in the concession of the two premises taken together.” It is true that the whole meaning of these statements rests upon that of such words as “explicit,” “implicit,” “virtual.” That is implicit which is wrapped up, and we render it explicit when we unfold it. Just as the conception of a circle involves a hundred important geometrical properties, all following from what we know, if we have acuteness to unfold the results, so every fact and statement involves more meaning than seems at first sight. Reasoning explicates or brings to conscious possession what was before unconscious. It does not create, nor does it destroy, but it transmutes and throws the same matter into a new form.

The difficult question still remains, Where does novelty of form begin? Is it a case of inference when we pass from “Sincerity is the parent of truth” to “The parent of truth is sincerity?” The old logicians would have called this change conversion, one case of immediate inference. But as all identity is necessarily reciprocal, and the very meaning of such a proposition is that the two terms are119 identical in their signification, I fail to see any difference between the statements whatever. As well might we say that x = y and y = x are different equations.

Another point of difficulty is to decide when a change is merely grammatical and when it involves a real logical transformation. Between a table of wood and a wooden table there is no logical difference (p. 31), the adjective being merely a convenient substitute for the prepositional phrase. But it is uncertain to my mind whether the change from “All men are mortal” to “No men are not mortal” is purely grammatical. Logical change may perhaps be best described as consisting in the determination of a relation between certain classes of objects from a relation between certain other classes. Thus I consider it a truly logical inference when we pass from “All men are mortal” to “All immortals are not-men,” because the classes immortals and not-men are different from mortals and men, and yet the propositions contain at the bottom the very same truth, as shown in the combinations of the Logical Alphabet.

The passage from the qualitative to the quantitative mode of expressing a proposition is another kind of change which we must discriminate from true logical inference. We state the same truth when we say that “mortality belongs to all men,” as when we assert that “all men are mortals.” Here we do not pass from class to class, but from one kind of term, the abstract, to another kind, the concrete. But inference probably enters when we pass from either of the above propositions to the assertion that the class of immortal men is zero, or contains no objects.

It is of course a question of words to what processes we shall or shall not apply the name “inference,” and I have no wish to continue the trifling discussions which have already taken place upon the subject. What we need to do is to define accurately the sense in which we use the word “inference,” and to distinguish the relation of inferrible propositions from other possible relations. It seems to be sufficient to recognise four modes in which two apparently different propositions may be related. Thus two propositions may be—

1. Tautologous or identical, involving the same relation between the same terms and classes, and only differing in120 the order of statement; thus “Victoria is the Queen of England” is tautologous with “The Queen of England is Victoria.”

2. Grammatically related, when the classes or objects are the same and similarly related, and the only difference is in the words; thus “Victoria is the Queen of England” is grammatically equivalent to “Victoria is England’s Queen.”

3. Equivalents in qualitative and quantitative form, the classes being the same, but viewed in a different manner.

4. Logically inferrible, one from the other, or it may be equivalent, when the classes and relations are different, but involve the same knowledge of the possible combinations.

We enter in this chapter upon the second great department of logical method, that of Induction or the Inference of general from particular truths. It cannot be said that the Inductive process is of greater importance than the Deductive process already considered, because the latter process is absolutely essential to the existence of the former. Each is the complement and counterpart of the other. The principles of thought and existence which underlie them are at the bottom the same, just as subtraction of numbers necessarily rests upon the same principles as addition. Induction is, in fact, the inverse operation of deduction, and cannot be conceived to exist without the corresponding operation, so that the question of relative importance cannot arise. Who thinks of asking whether addition or subtraction is the more important process in arithmetic? But at the same time much difference in difficulty may exist between a direct and inverse operation; the integral calculus, for instance, is infinitely more difficult than the differential calculus of which it is the inverse. Similarly, it must be allowed that inductive investigations are of a far higher degree of difficulty and complexity than any questions of deduction; and it is this fact no doubt which led some logicians, such as Francis Bacon, Locke, and J. S. Mill, to erroneous opinions concerning the exclusive importance of induction.

Hitherto we have been engaged in considering how from certain conditions, laws, or identities governing the combinations of qualities, we may deduce the nature of the122 combinations agreeing with those conditions. Our work has been to unfold the results of what is contained in any statements, and the process has been one of Synthesis. The terms or combinations of which the character has been determined have usually, though by no means always, involved more qualities, and therefore, by the relation of extension and intension, fewer objects than the terms in which they were described. The truths inferred were thus usually less general than the truths from which they were inferred.

In induction all is inverted. The truths to be ascertained are more general than the data from which they are drawn. The process by which they are reached is analytical, and consists in separating the complex combinations in which natural phenomena are presented to us, and determining the relations of separate qualities. Given events obeying certain unknown laws, we have to discover the laws obeyed. Instead of the comparatively easy task of finding what effects will follow from a given law, the effects are now given and the law is required. We have to interpret the will by which the conditions of creation were laid down.

Induction an Inverse Operation

I have already asserted that induction is the inverse operation of deduction, but the difference is one of such great importance that I must dwell upon it. There are many cases in which we can easily and infallibly do a certain thing but may have much trouble in undoing it. A person may walk into the most complicated labyrinth or the most extensive catacombs, and turn hither and thither at his will; it is when he wishes to return that doubt and difficulty commence. In entering, any path served him; in leaving, he must select certain definite paths, and in this selection he must either trust to memory of the way he entered or else make an exhaustive trial of all possible ways. The explorer entering a new country makes sure his line of return by barking the trees.

The same difficulty arises in many scientific processes. Given any two numbers, we may by a simple and infallible process obtain their product; but when a large number123 is given it is quite another matter to determine its factors. Can the reader say what two numbers multiplied together will produce the number 8,616,460,799? I think it unlikely that anyone but myself will ever know; for they are two large prime numbers, and can only be rediscovered by trying in succession a long series of prime divisors until the right one be fallen upon. The work would probably occupy a good computer for many weeks, but it did not occupy me many minutes to multiply the two factors together. Similarly there is no direct process for discovering whether any number is a prime or not; it is only by exhaustively trying all inferior numbers which could be divisors, that we can show there is none, and the labour of the process would be intolerable were it not performed systematically once for all in the process known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes, the results being registered in tables of prime numbers.

The immense difficulties which are encountered in the solution of algebraic equations afford another illustration. Given any algebraic factors, we can easily and infallibly arrive at the product; but given a product it is a matter of infinite difficulty to resolve it into factors. Given any series of quantities however numerous, there is very little trouble in making an equation which shall have those quantities as roots. Let a, b, c, d, &c., be the quantities; then (x - a)(x - b)(x - c)(x - d) . . . = 0 is the equation required, and we only need to multiply out the expression on the left hand by ordinary rules. But having given a complex algebraic expression equated to zero, it is a matter of exceeding difficulty to discover all the roots. Mathematicians have exhausted their highest powers in carrying the complete solution up to the fourth degree. In every other mathematical operation the inverse process is far more difficult than the direct process, subtraction than addition, division than multiplication, evolution than involution; but the difficulty increases vastly as the process becomes more complex. Differentiation, the direct process, is always capable of performance by fixed rules, but as these rules produce considerable variety of results, the inverse process of integration presents immense difficulties, and in an infinite majority of cases surpasses the present resources of mathematicians. There124 are no infallible and general rules for its accomplishment; it must be done by trial, by guesswork, or by remembering the results of differentiation, and using them as a guide.

Coming more nearly to our own immediate subject, exactly the same difficulty exists in determining the law which certain things obey. Given a general mathematical expression, we can infallibly ascertain its value for any required value of the variable. But I am not aware that mathematicians have ever attempted to lay down the rules of a process by which, having given certain numbers, one might discover a rational or precise formula from which they proceed. The reader may test his power of detecting a law, by contemplation of its results, if he, not being a mathematician, will attempt to point out the law obeyed by the following numbers:

These numbers are sometimes in low terms, but unexpectedly spring up to high terms; in absolute magnitude they are very variable. They seem to set all regularity and method at defiance, and it is hardly to be supposed that anyone could, from contemplation of the numbers, have detected the relations between them. Yet they are derived from the most regular and symmetrical laws of relation, and are of the highest importance in mathematical analysis, being known as the numbers of Bernoulli.

Compare again the difficulty of decyphering with that of cyphering. Anyone can invent a secret language, and with a little steady labour can translate the longest letter into the character. But to decypher the letter, having no key to the signs adopted, is a wholly different matter. As the possible modes of secret writing are infinite in number and exceedingly various in kind, there is no direct mode of discovery whatever. Repeated trial, guided more or less by knowledge of the customary form of cypher, and resting entirely on the principles of probability and logical induction, is the only resource. A peculiar tact or skill is requisite for the process, and a few men, such as Wallis or Wheatstone, have attained great success.

Induction is the decyphering of the hidden meaning of natural phenomena. Given events which happen in certain125 definite combinations, we are required to point out the laws which govern those combinations. Any laws being supposed, we can, with ease and certainty, decide whether the phenomena obey those laws. But the laws which may exist are infinite in variety, so that the chances are immensely against mere random guessing. The difficulty is much increased by the fact that several laws will usually be in operation at the same time, the effects of which are complicated together. The only modes of discovery consist either in exhaustively trying a great number of supposed laws, a process which is exhaustive in more senses than one, or else in carefully contemplating the effects, endeavouring to remember cases in which like effects followed from known laws. In whatever manner we accomplish the discovery, it must be done by the more or less conscious application of the direct process of deduction.

The Logical Alphabet illustrates induction as well as deduction. In considering the Indirect Process of Inference we found that from certain propositions we could infallibly determine the combinations of terms agreeing with those premises. The inductive problem is just the inverse. Having given certain combinations of terms, we need to ascertain the propositions with which the combinations are consistent, and from which they may have proceeded. Now, if the reader contemplates the following combinations,

he will probably remember at once that they belong to the premises A = AB, B = BC (p. 92). If not, he will require a few trials before he meets with the right answer, and every trial will consist in assuming certain laws and observing whether the deduced results agree with the data. To test the facility with which he can solve this inductive problem, let him casually strike out any of the combinations of the fourth column of the Logical Alphabet, (p. 94), and say what laws the remaining combinations obey, observing that every one of the letter-terms and their negatives ought to appear in order to avoid self-contradiction in the premises (pp. 74, 111). Let him say, for instance, what laws are embodied in the combinations

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The difficulty becomes much greater when more terms enter into the combinations. It would require some little examination to ascertain the complete conditions fulfilled in the combinations

The reader may discover easily enough that the principal laws are C = e, and A = Ae; but he would hardly discover without some trouble the remaining law, namely, that BD = BDe.

The difficulties encountered in the inductive investigations of nature, are of an exactly similar kind. We seldom observe any law in uninterrupted and undisguised operation. The acuteness of Aristotle and the ancient Greeks did not enable them to detect that all terrestrial bodies tend to fall towards the centre of the earth. A few nights of observation might have convinced an astronomer viewing the solar system from its centre, that the planets travelled round the sun; but the fact that our place of observation is one of the travelling planets, so complicates the apparent motions of the other bodies, that it required all the sagacity of Copernicus to prove the real simplicity of the planetary system. It is the same throughout nature; the laws may be simple, but their combined effects are not simple, and we have no clue to guide us through their intricacies. “It is the glory of God,” said Solomon, “to conceal a thing, but the glory of a king to search it out.” The laws of nature are the invaluable secrets which God has hidden, and it is the kingly prerogative of the philosopher to search them out by industry and sagacity.

Inductive Problems for Solution by the Reader.

In the first edition (vol. ii. p. 370) I gave a logical problem involving six terms, and requested readers to discover the laws governing the combinations given. I received satisfactory replies from readers both in the United States and in England. I formed the combinations127 deductively from four laws of correction, but my correspondents found that three simpler laws, equivalent to the four more complex ones, were the best answer; these laws are as follows: a = ac, b = cd, d = Ef.

In case other readers should like to test their skill in the inductive or inverse problem, I give below several series of combinations forming problems of graduated difficulty.

Induction of Simple Identities.

Many important laws of nature are expressible in the form of simple identities, and I can at once adduce them as examples to illustrate what I have said of the difficulty of the inverse process of induction. Two phenomena are conjoined. Thus all gravitating matter is exactly coincident with all matter possessing inertia; where one128 property appears, the other likewise appears. All crystals of the cubical system, are all the crystals which do not doubly refract light. All exogenous plants are, with some exceptions, those which have two cotyledons or seed-leaves.

A little reflection will show that there is no direct and infallible process by which such complete coincidences may be discovered. Natural objects are aggregates of many qualities, and any one of those qualities may prove to be in close connection with some others. If each of a numerous group of objects is endowed with a hundred distinct physical or chemical qualities, there will be no less than 1/2(100 × 99) or 4950 pairs of qualities, which may be connected, and it will evidently be a matter of great intricacy and labour to ascertain exactly which qualities are connected by any simple law.

One principal source of difficulty is that the finite powers of the human mind are not sufficient to compare by a single act any large group of objects with another large group. We cannot hold in the conscious possession of the mind at any one moment more than five or six different ideas. Hence we must treat any more complex group by successive acts of attention. The reader will perceive by an almost individual act of comparison that the words Roma and Mora contain the same letters. He may perhaps see at a glance whether the same is true of Causal and Casual, and of Logica and Caligo. To assure himself that the letters in Astronomers make No more stars, that Serpens in akuleo is an anagram of Joannes Keplerus, or Great gun do us a sum an anagram of Augustus de Morgan, it will certainly be necessary to break up the act of comparison into several successive acts. The process will acquire a double character, and will consist in ascertaining that each letter of the first group is among the letters of the second group, and vice versâ, that each letter of the second is among those of the first group. In the same way we can only prove that two long lists of names are identical, by showing that each name in one list occurs in the other, and vice versâ.

This process of comparison really consists in establishing two partial identities, which are, as already shown (p. 58), equivalent in conjunction to one simple identity. We first ascertain the truth of the two propositions A = AB,129 B = AB, and we then rise by substitution to the single law A = B.

There is another process, it is true, by which we may get to exactly the same result; for the two propositions A = AB, a = ab are also equivalent to the simple identity A = B. If then we can show that all objects included under A are included under B, and also that all objects not included under A are not included under B, our purpose is effected. By this process we should usually compare two lists if we are allowed to mark them. For each name in the first list we should strike off one in the second, and if, when the first list is exhausted, the second list is also exhausted, it follows that all names absent from the first must be absent from the second, and the coincidence must be complete.

These two modes of proving an identity are so closely allied that it is doubtful how far we can detect any difference in their powers and instances of application. The first method is perhaps more convenient when the phenomena to be compared are rare. Thus we prove that all the musical concords coincide with all the more simple numerical ratios, by showing that each concord arises from a simple ratio of undulations, and then showing that each simple ratio gives rise to one of the concords. To examine all the possible cases of discord or complex ratio of undulation would be impossible. By a happy stroke of induction Sir John Herschel discovered that all crystals of quartz which cause the plane of polarization of light to rotate are precisely those crystals which have plagihedral faces, that is, oblique faces on the corners of the prism unsymmetrical with the ordinary faces. This singular relation would be proved by observing that all plagihedral crystals possessed the power of rotation, and vice versâ all crystals possessing this power were plagihedral. But it might at the same time be noticed that all ordinary crystals were devoid of the power. There is no reason why we should not detect any of the four propositions A = AB, B = AB, a = ab, b = ab, all of which follow from A = B (p. 115).

Sometimes the terms of the identity may be singular objects; thus we observe that diamond is a combustible gem, and being unable to discover any other that is, we affirm‍—

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In a similar manner we ascertain that

Two or three objects may occasionally enter into the induction, as when we learn that

Induction of Partial Identities.

We found in the last section that the complete identity of two classes is almost always discovered not by direct observation of the fact, but by first establishing two partial identities. There are also a multitude of cases in which the partial identity of one class with another is the only relation to be discovered. Thus the most common of all inductive inferences consists in establishing the fact that all objects having the properties of A have also those of B, or that A = AB. To ascertain the truth of a proposition of this kind it is merely necessary to assemble together, mentally or physically, all the objects included under A, and then observe whether B is present in each of them, or, which is the same, whether it would be impossible to select from among them any not-B. Thus, if we mentally assemble together all the heavenly bodies which move with apparent rapidity, that is to say, the planets, we find that they all possess the property of not scintillating. We cannot analyse any vegetable substance without discovering that it contains carbon and hydrogen, but it is not true that all substances containing carbon and hydrogen are vegetable substances.

The great mass of scientific truths consists of propositions of this form A = AB. Thus in astronomy we learn that all the planets are spheroidal bodies; that they all revolve in one direction round the sun; that they all shine by reflected light; that they all obey the law of gravitation. But of course it is not to be asserted that all bodies obeying the law of gravitation, or shining by131 reflected light, or revolving in a particular direction, or being spheroidal in form, are planets. In other sciences we have immense numbers of propositions of the same form, as, for instance, all substances in becoming gaseous absorb heat; all metals are elements; they are all good conductors of heat and electricity; all the alkaline metals are monad elements; all foraminifera are marine organisms; all parasitic animals are non-mammalian; lightning never issues from stratous clouds; pumice never occurs where only Labrador felspar is present; milkmaids do not suffer from small-pox; and, in the works of Darwin, scientific importance may attach even to such an apparently trifling observation as that “white tom-cats having blue eyes are deaf.”

The process of inference by which all such truths are obtained may readily be exhibited in a precise symbolic form. We must have one premise specifying in a disjunctive form all the possible individuals which belong to a class; we resolve the class, in short, into its constituents. We then need a number of propositions, each of which affirms that one of the individuals possesses a certain property. Thus the premises must be of the forms

Now, if we substitute for each alternative of the first premise its description as found among the succeeding premises, we obtain

or

But for the aggregate of alternatives we may now substitute their equivalent as given in the first premise, namely A, so that we get the required result:

We should have reached the same result if the first premise had been of the form

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We can always prove a proposition, if we find it more convenient, by proving its equivalent. To assert that all not-B’s are not-A’s, is exactly the same as to assert that all A’s are B’s. Accordingly we may ascertain that A = AB by first ascertaining that b = ab. If we observe, for instance, that all substances which are not solids are also not capable of double refraction, it follows necessarily that all double refracting substances are solids. We may convince ourselves that all electric substances are nonconductors of electricity, by reflecting that all good conductors do not, and in fact cannot, retain electric excitation. When we come to questions of probability it will be found desirable to prove, as far as possible, both the original proposition and its equivalent, as there is then an increased area of observation.

The number of alternatives which may arise in the division of a class varies greatly, and may be any number from two upwards. Thus it is probable that every substance is either magnetic or diamagnetic, and no substance can be both at the same time. The division then must be made in the form

If now we can prove that all magnetic substances are capable of polarity, say B = BD, and also that all diamagnetic substances are capable of polarity, C = CD, it follows by substitution that all substances are capable of polarity, or A = AD. We commonly divide the class substance into the three subclasses, solid, liquid, and gas; and if we can show that in each of these forms it obeys Carnot’s thermodynamic law, it follows that all substances obey that law. Similarly we may show that all vertebrate animals possess red blood, if we can show separately that fish, reptiles, birds, marsupials, and mammals possess red blood, there being, as far as is known, only five principal subclasses of vertebrata.

Our inductions will often be embarrassed by exceptions, real or apparent. We might affirm that all gems are incombustible were not diamonds undoubtedly combustible. Nothing seems more evident than that all the metals are opaque until we examine them in fine films, when gold and silver are found to be transparent. All plants absorb carbonic acid except certain fungi; all the bodies of the133 planetary system have a progressive motion from west to east, except the satellites of Uranus and Neptune. Even some of the profoundest laws of matter are not quite universal; all solids expand by heat except india-rubber, and possibly a few other substances; all liquids which have been tested expand by heat except water below 4° C. and fused bismuth; all gases have a coefficient of expansion increasing with the temperature, except hydrogen. In a later chapter I shall consider how such anomalous cases may be regarded and classified; here we have only to express them in a consistent manner by our notation.

Let us take the case of the transparency of metals, and assign the terms thus:‍—

Our premises will be

and so on for the rest of the metals. Now evidently

and by substitution as before we shall obtain

or in words, “All metals not gold nor silver are opaque;” at the same time we have

or “Metals which are either gold or silver are not opaque.”

In some cases the problem of induction assumes a much higher degree of complexity. If we examine the properties of crystallized substances we may find some properties which are common to all, as cleavage or fracture in definite planes; but it would soon become requisite to break up the class into several minor ones. We should divide crystals according to the seven accepted systems—and we should then find that crystals of each system possess many common properties. Thus crystals of the Regular or Cubical system expand equally by heat, conduct heat and electricity with uniform rapidity, and are of like elasticity in all directions; they have but one index of134 refraction for light; and every facet is repeated in like relation to each of the three axes. Crystals of the system having one principal axis will be found to possess the various physical powers of conduction, refraction, elasticity, &c., uniformly in directions perpendicular to the principal axis; in other directions their properties vary according to complicated laws. The remaining systems in which the crystals possess three unequal axes, or have inclined axes, exhibit still more complicated results, the effects of the crystal upon light, heat, electricity, &c., varying in all directions. But when we pursue induction into the intricacies of its application to nature we really enter upon the subject of classification, which we must take up again in a later part of this work.

Solution of the Inverse or Inductive Problem, involving Two Classes.

It is now plain that Induction consists in passing back from a series of combinations to the laws by which such combinations are governed. The natural law that all metals are conductors of electricity really means that in nature we find three classes of objects, namely—

It comes to the same thing if we say that it excludes the existence of the class, “metals not-conductors.” In the same way every other law or group of laws will really mean the exclusion from existence of certain combinations of the things, circumstances or phenomena governed by those laws. Now in logic, strictly speaking, we treat not the phenomena, nor the laws, but the general forms of the laws; and a little consideration will show that for a finite number of things the possible number of forms or kinds of law governing them must also be finite. Using general terms, we know that A and B can be present or absent in four ways and no more—thus:

therefore every possible law which can exist concerning the relation of A and B must be marked by the exclusion of one or more of the above combinations. The number135 of possible laws then cannot exceed the number of selections which we can make from these four combinations. Since each combination may be present or absent, the number of cases to be considered is 2 × 2 × 2 × 2, or sixteen; and these cases are all shown in the following table, in which the sign 0 indicates absence or non-existence of the combination shown at the left-hand column in the same line, and the mark 1 its presence:‍—

Thus in column sixteen we find that all the conceivable combinations are present, which means that there are no special laws in existence in such a case, and that the combinations are governed only by the universal Laws of Identity and Difference. The example of metals and conductors of electricity would be represented by the twelfth column; and every other mode in which two things or qualities might present themselves is shown in one or other of the columns. More than half the cases may indeed be at once rejected, because they involve the entire absence of a term or its negative. It has been shown to be a logical principle that every term must have its negative (p. 111), and when this is not the case, inconsistency between the conditions of combination must exist. Thus if we laid down the two following propositions, “Graphite conducts electricity,” and “Graphite does not conduct electricity,” it would amount to asserting the impossibility of graphite existing at all; or in general terms, A is B and A is not B result in destroying altogether the combinations containing A, a case shown in the fourth column of the above table. We therefore restrict our attention to those cases which may be represented in natural phenomena when at least two combinations are present, and which correspond to those columns of the136 table in which each of A, a, B, b appears. These cases are shown in the columns marked with an asterisk.

We find that seven cases remain for examination, thus characterised—

It has already been pointed out that a proposition of the form A = AB destroys one combination, Ab, so that this is the form of law applying to the twelfth column. But by changing one or more of the terms in A = AB into its negative, or by interchanging A and B, a and b, we obtain no less than eight different varieties of the one form; thus—

The reader of the preceding sections will see that each proposition in the lower line is logically equivalent to, and is in fact the contrapositive of, that above it (p. 83). Thus the propositions A = Ab and B = aB both give the same combinations, shown in the eighth column of the table, and trial shows that the twelfth, eighth, fifteenth and fourteenth columns are thus accounted for. We come to this conclusion then—The general form of proposition A = AB admits of four logically distinct varieties, each capable of expression in two modes.

In two columns of the table, namely the seventh and tenth, we observe that two combinations are missing. Now a simple identity A = B renders impossible both Ab and aB, accounting for the tenth case; and if we change B into b the identity A = b accounts for the seventh case. There may indeed be two other varieties of the simple identity, namely a = b and a = B; but it has already been shown repeatedly that these are equivalent respectively to A = B and A = b (p. 115). As the sixteenth column has already been accounted for as governed by no special conditions, we come to the following general conclusion:—The laws governing the combinations of two terms must be capable of expression either in a partial identity or a simple identity; the partial identity is capable of only four logically distinct varieties, and the simple identity of two. Every logical relation between two terms137 must be expressed in one of these six forms of law, or must be logically equivalent to one of them.

In short, we may conclude that in treating of partial and complete identity, we have exhaustively treated the modes in which two terms or classes of objects can be related. Of any two classes it can be said that one must either be included in the other, or must be identical with it, or a like relation must exist between one class and the negative of the other. We have thus completely solved the inverse logical problem concerning two terms.‍85

The Inverse Logical Problem involving Three Classes.

No sooner do we introduce into the problem a third term C, than the investigation assumes a far more complex character, so that some readers may prefer to pass over this section. Three terms and their negatives may be combined, as we have frequently seen, in eight different combinations, and the effect of laws or logical conditions is to destroy any one or more of these combinations. Now we may make selections from eight things in 2⁸ or 256 ways; so that we have no less than 256 different cases to treat, and the complete solution is at least fifty times as troublesome as with two terms. Many series of combinations, indeed, are contradictory, as in the simpler problem, and may be passed over, the test of consistency being that each of the letters A, B, C, a, b, c, shall appear somewhere in the series of combinations.

My mode of solving the problem was as follows:—Having written out the whole of the 256 series of combinations, I examined them separately and struck out such as did not fulfil the test of consistency. I then chose some form of proposition involving two or three terms, and varied it in every possible manner, both by the circular interchange of letters (A, B, C into B, C, A and then into C, A, B), and by the substitution for any one or more of the terms of the corresponding negative terms.138 For instance, the proposition AB = ABC can be first varied by circular interchange so as to give BC = BCA and then CA = CAB. Each of these three can then be thrown into eight varieties by negative change. Thus AB = ABC gives aB = aBC, Ab = AbC, AB = ABc, ab = abC, and so on. Thus there may possibly exist no less than twenty-four varieties of the law having the general form AB = ABC, meaning that whatever has the properties of A and B has those also of C. It by no means follows that some of the varieties may not be equivalent to others; and trial shows, in fact, that AB = ABC is exactly the same in meaning as Ac = Abc or Bc = Bca. Thus the law in question has but eight varieties of distinct logical meaning. I now ascertain by actual deductive reasoning which of the 256 series of combinations result from each of these distinct laws, and mark them off as soon as found. I then proceed to some other form of law, for instance A = ABC, meaning that whatever has the qualities of A has those also of B and C. I find that it admits of twenty-four variations, all of which are found to be logically distinct; the combinations being worked out, I am able to mark off twenty-four more of the list of 256 series. I proceed in this way to work out the results of every form of law which I can find or invent. If in the course of this work I obtain any series of combinations which had been previously marked off, I learn at once that the law giving these combinations is logically equivalent to some law previously treated. It may be safely inferred that every variety of the apparently new law will coincide in meaning with some variety of the former expression of the same law. I have sufficiently verified this assumption in some cases, and have never found it lead to error. Thus as AB = ABC is equivalent to Ac = Abc, so we find that ab = abC is equivalent to ac = acB.

Among the laws treated were the two A = AB and A = B which involve only two terms, because it may of course happen that among three things two only are in special logical relation, and the third independent; and the series of combinations representing such cases of relation are sure to occur in the complete enumeration. All single propositions which I could invent having been treated, pairs of propositions were next investigated. Thus139 we have the relations, “All A’s are B’s, and all B’s are C’s,” of which the old logical syllogism is the development. We may also have “all A’s are all B’s, and all B’s are C’s,” or even “all A’s are all B’s, and all B’s are all C’s.” All such premises admit of variations, greater or less in number, the logical distinctness of which can only be determined by trial in detail. Disjunctive propositions either singly or in pairs were also treated, but were often found to be equivalent to other propositions of a simpler form; thus A = ABC ꖌ Abc is exactly the same in meaning as AB = AC.

This mode of exhaustive trial bears some analogy to that ancient mathematical process called the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Having taken a long series of the natural numbers, Eratosthenes is said to have calculated out in succession all the multiples of every number, and to have marked them off, so that at last the prime numbers alone remained, and the factors of every number were exhaustively discovered. My problem of 256 series of combinations is the logical analogue, the chief points of difference being that there is a limit to the number of cases, and that prime numbers have no analogue in logic, since every series of combinations corresponds to a law or group of conditions. But the analogy is perfect in the point that they are both inverse processes. There is no mode of ascertaining that a number is prime but by showing that it is not the product of any assignable factors. So there is no mode of ascertaining what laws are embodied in any series of combinations but trying exhaustively the laws which would give them. Just as the results of Eratosthenes’ method have been worked out to a great extent and registered in tables for the convenience of other mathematicians, I have endeavoured to work out the inverse logical problem to the utmost extent which is at present practicable or useful.

I have thus found that there are altogether fifteen conditions or series of conditions which may govern the combinations of three terms, forming the premises of fifteen essentially different kinds of arguments. The following table contains a statement of these conditions, together with the numbers of combinations which are contradicted or destroyed by each, and the numbers of logically distinct140 variations of which the law is capable. There might be also added, as a sixteenth case, that case where no special logical condition exists, so that all the eight combinations remain.

There are sixty-three series of combinations derived from self-contradictory premises, which with 192, the sum of the numbers of distinct logical variations stated in the third column of the table, and with the one case where there are no conditions or laws at all, make up the whole conceivable number of 256 series.

We learn from this table, for instance, that two propositions of the form A = AB, B = BC, which are such as constitute the premises of the old syllogism Barbara, exclude as impossible four of the eight combinations in which three terms may be united, and that these propositions are capable of taking twenty-four variations by transpositions of the terms or the introduction of negatives. This table then presents the results of a complete analysis of all the possible logical relations arising in the case of three terms, and the old syllogism forms but one out of fifteen typical forms. Generally speaking, every form can be converted into apparently different propositions; thus the fourth type A = B, B = BC may appear in the form A = ABC, a = ab, or again in the form of three propositions A = AB, B = BC, aB = aBc; but all these sets of premises yield identically the same series of combinations,141 and are therefore of equivalent logical meaning. The fifth type, or Barbara, can also be thrown into the equivalent forms A = ABC, aB = aBC and A = AC, B = A ꖌ aBC. In other cases I have obtained the very same logical conditions in four modes of statements. As regards mere appearance and form of statement, the number of possible premises would be very great, and difficult to exhibit exhaustively.

The most remarkable of all the types of logical condition is the fourteenth, namely, A = BC ꖌ bc. It is that which expresses the division of a genus into two doubly marked species, and might be illustrated by the example—“Component of the physical universe = matter, gravitating, or not-matter (ether), not-gravitating.” It is capable of only two distinct logical variations, namely, A = BC ꖌ bc and A = Bc ꖌ bC. By transposition or negative change of the letters we can indeed obtain six different expressions of each of these propositions; but when their meanings are analysed, by working out the combinations, they are found to be logically equivalent to one or other of the above two. Thus the proposition A = BC ꖌ bc can be written in any of the following five other modes,

I do not think it needful to publish at present the complete table of 193 series of combinations and the premises corresponding to each. Such a table enables us by mere inspection to learn the laws obeyed by any set of combinations of three things, and is to logic what a table of factors and prime numbers is to the theory of numbers, or a table of integrals to the higher mathematics. The table already given (p. 140) would enable a person with but little labour to discover the law of any combinations. If there be seven combinations (one contradicted) the law must be of the eighth type, and the proper variety will be apparent. If there be six combinations (two contradicted), either the second, eleventh, or twelfth type applies, and a certain number of trials will disclose the proper type and variety. If there be but two combinations the law must be of the third type, and so on.

The above investigations are complete as regards the possible logical relations of two or three terms. But142 when we attempt to apply the same kind of method to the relations of four or more terms, the labour becomes impracticably great. Four terms give sixteen combinations compatible with the laws of thought, and the number of possible selections of combinations is no less than 2¹⁶ or 65,536. The following table shows the extraordinary manner in which the number of possible logical relations increases with the number of terms involved.

Some years of continuous labour would be required to ascertain the types of laws which may govern the combinations of only four things, and but a small part of such laws would be exemplified or capable of practical application in science. The purely logical inverse problem, whereby we pass from combinations to their laws, is solved in the preceding pages, as far as it is likely to be for a long time to come; and it is almost impossible that it should ever be carried more than a single step further.

In the first edition, vol i. p. 158, I stated that I had not been able to discover any mode of calculating the number of cases in which inconsistency would be implied in the selection of combinations from the Logical Alphabet. The logical complexity of the problem appeared to be so great that the ordinary modes of calculating numbers of combinations failed, in my opinion, to give any aid, and exhaustive examination of the combinations in detail seemed to be the only method applicable. This opinion, however, was mistaken, for both Mr. R. B. Hayward, of Harrow, and Mr. W. H. Brewer have calculated the numbers of inconsistent cases both for three and for four terms, without much difficulty. In the case of four terms they find that there are 1761 inconsistent selections and 63,774 consistent, which with one case where no143 condition exists, make up the total of 65,536 possible selections.

The inconsistent cases are distributed in the manner shown in the following table:‍—