Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

These documents have naturally excited considerable interest and raised many questions. The papyri of the "sayings" date from the 3rd century and most scholars agree that the "sayings" themselves go back to the 2nd. The year A.D. 140 is generally assigned as the _terminus ad quem_. The problem as to their origin has been keenly discussed. There are two main types of theory. (1) Some suppose that they are excerpts from an uncanonical Gospel. (2) Others think that they represent an independent and original collection of sayings. The first theory has assumed three main forms. (a) Harnack maintains that they were taken from the Gospel according to the Egyptians. This theory, however, is based upon a hypothetical reconstruction of the Gospel in question which has found very few supporters. (b) Others have advocated the Gospel of the Hebrews as the source of the "sayings," on the ground of the resemblance between the first "saying" of the 1903 series and a well-authenticated fragment of that Gospel. The resemblance, however, is not sufficiently clear to support the conclusion. (c) A third view supposes that they are extracts from the Gospel of Thomas--an apocryphal Gospel dealing with the boyhood of Jesus. Beyond the allusion to Thomas in the introductory paragraph to the 1903 series, there seems to be no tangible evidence in support of this view. The second theory, which maintains that the papyri represent an independent collection of "sayings," seems to be the opinion which has found greatest favour. It has won the support of W. Sanday, H. B. Swete, Rendel Harris, W. Lock, Heinrici, &c. There is a considerable diversity of judgment, however, with regard to the value of the collection. (a) Some scholars maintain that the collection goes back to the 1st century and represents one of the earliest attempts to construct an account of the teaching of Jesus. They are therefore disposed to admit to a greater or less extent and with widely varying degrees of confidence the presence of genuine elements in the new matter. (b) Sanday and many others regard the sayings as originating early in the 2nd century and think that, though not "directly dependent on the Canonical Gospels," they have "their origin under conditions of thought which these Gospels had created." The "sayings" must be regarded as expansions of the true tradition, and little value is therefore to be attached to the new material.

With the knowledge at our disposal, it is impossible to reach an assured conclusion between these two views. The real problem, to which at present no solution has been found, is to account for the new material in the "sayings." There seems to be no motive sufficient to explain the additions that have been made to the text of the Gospels. It cannot be proved that the expansions have been made in the interests of any sect or heresy. Unless new discoveries provide the clue, or some reasonable explanation can otherwise be found, there seems to be no reason why we should not regard the "sayings" as containing material which ought to be taken into account in the critical study of the teaching of Jesus.

The 1903 Gospel fragment is so mutilated in many of its parts that it is difficult to decide upon its character and value. It appears to be earlier than 150, and to be taken from a Gospel which followed more or less closely the version of the teaching of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke. The phrase "when ye shall be stripped and not be ashamed" contains an idea which has some affinity with two passages found respectively in the Gospel according to the Egyptians and the so-called Second Epistle of Clement. The resemblance, however, is not sufficiently close to warrant the deduction that either the Gospel of the Egyptians or the Gospel from which the citation in 2 Clement is taken (if these two are distinct) is the source from which our fragment is derived.

The second Gospel fragment (1907) seems to be of later origin than the documents already mentioned. Grenfell and Hunt date the Gospel, from which it is an excerpt, about 200. There is considerable difficulty with regard to some of the details. The statement that an ordinary Jew was required to wash and change his clothes before visiting the inner court of the temple is quite unsupported by any other evidence. Nothing is known about "the place of purification" ([Greek: agneutêrion]) nor "the pool of David" ([Greek: limnê tou Daueid]). Nor does the statement that "the sacred vessels" were visible from the place where Jesus was standing seem at all probable. Grenfell and Hunt conclude therefore--"So great indeed are the divergences between this account and the extant and no doubt well-informed authorities with regard to the topography and ritual of the Temple that it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that much of the local colour is due to the imagination of the author who was aiming chiefly at dramatic effect and was not really well acquainted with the Temple. But if the inaccuracy of the fragment in this important respect is admitted the historical character of the whole episode breaks down and it is probably to be regarded as an apocryphal elaboration of Matt. xv. 1-20 and Mark vii. 1-23."

See the _Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, part i. (1897), part iv. (1904), part v.
(1908). (H. T. A.)

LOGIC ([Greek: logikê], sc. [Greek: technê], the art of reasoning), the name given to one of the four main departments of philosophy, though its sphere is very variously delimited. The present article is divided into 1. _The Problems of Logic_, II. _History_.

I. _The Problems of Logic._

_Introduction._--Logic is the science of the processes of inference, what, then, is inference? It is that mental operation which proceeds by combining two premises so as to cause a consequent conclusion. Some suppose that we may infer from one premise by a so-called "immediate inference." But one premise can only reproduce itself in another form, e.g. all men are some animals; therefore some animals are men. It requires the combination of at least two premises to infer a conclusion different from both. There are as many kinds of inference as there are different ways of combining premises, and in the main three types:--

1. _Analogical Inference_, from particular to particular: e.g. border-war between Thebes and Phocis is evil; border-war between Thebes and Athens is similar to that between Thebes and Phocis; therefore, border-war between Thebes and Athens is evil.

2. _Inductive Inference_, from particular to universal: e.g. border-war between Thebes and Phocis is evil; all border-war is like that between Thebes and Phocis; therefore, all border-war is evil.

3. _Deductive or Syllogistic Inference_, from universal to particular, e.g. all border-war is evil; border-war between Thebes and Athens is border-war; therefore border-war between Thebes and Athens is evil.

In each of these kinds of inference there are three mental judgments capable of being expressed as above in three linguistic propositions; and the two first are the premises which are combined, while the third is the conclusion which is consequent on their combination. Each proposition consists of two terms, the subject and its predicate, united by the copula. Each inference contains three terms. In syllogistic inference the subject of the conclusion is the minor term, and its predicate the major term, while between these two extremes the term common to the two premises is the middle term, and the premise containing the middle and major terms is the major premise, the premise containing the middle and minor terms the minor premise. Thus in the example of syllogism given above, "border-war between Thebes and Athens" is the minor term, "evil" the major term, and "border-war" the middle term. Using S for minor, P for major and M for middle, and preserving these signs for corresponding terms in analogical and inductive inferences, we obtain the following formula of the three inferences:--

_Analogical._ | _Inductive._ | _Deductive or Syllogistic._
| |
S^1 is P | S is P | Every M is P
S^2 is similar | Every M is | S is M
to S^1 | similar to S |
:. S^2 is P. |:. Every M is P. | :. S is P.

The love of unity has often made logicians attempt to resolve these three processes into one. But each process has a peculiarity of its own; they are similar, not the same. Analogical and inductive inference alike begin with a particular premise containing one or more instances; but the former adds a particular premise to draw a particular conclusion, the latter requires a universal premise to draw a universal conclusion. A citizen of Athens, who had known the evils of the border-war between Thebes and Phocis, would readily perceive the analogy of a similar war between Thebes and Athens, and conclude analogously that it would be evil; but he would have to generalize the similarity of all border-wars in order to draw the inductive conclusion that all alike are evil. Induction and deduction differ still more, and are in fact opposed, as one makes a particular premise the evidence of a universal conclusion, the other makes a universal premise evidence of a particular conclusion. Yet they are alike in requiring the generalization of the universal and the belief that there are classes which are whole numbers of similars. On this point both differ from inference by analogy, which proceeds entirely from particular premises to a particular conclusion. Hence we may redivide inference into particular inference by analogy and universal inference by induction and deduction. Universal inference is what we call reasoning; and its two species are very closely connected, because universal conclusions of induction become universal premises of deduction. Indeed, we often induce in order to deduce, ascending from particular to universal and descending from universal to particular in one act as it were; so that we may proceed either directly from particular to particular by analogical inference, or indirectly from particular through universal to particular by an inductive-deductive inference which might be called "perduction." On the whole, then, analogical, inductive and deductive inferences are not the same but three similar and closely connected processes.

The three processes of inference, though different from one another, rest on a common principle of similarity of which each is a different application. Analogical inference requires that one particular is similar to another, induction that a whole number or class is similar to its particular instances, deduction that each particular is similar to the whole number or class. Not that these inferences require us to believe, or assume, or premise or formulate this principle either in general, or in its applied forms: the premises are all that any inference needs the mind to assume. The principle of similarity is used, not assumed by the inferring mind, which in accordance with the similarity of things and the parity of inference spontaneously concludes in the form that similars are similarly determined ("similia similibus convenire"). In applying this principle of similarity, each of the three processes in its own way has to premise both that something is somehow determined and that something is similar, and by combining these premises to conclude that this is similarly determined to that. Thus the very principle of inference by similarity requires it to be a combination of premises in order to draw a conclusion.

The three processes, as different applications of the principle of similarity, consisting of different combinations of premises, cause different degrees of cogency in their several conclusions. Analogy hardly requires as much evidence as induction. Men speculate about the analogy between Mars and the earth, and infer that it is inhabited, without troubling about all the planets. Induction has to consider more instances, and the similarity of a whole number or class. Even so, however, it starts from a particular premise which only contains many instances, and leaves room to doubt the universality of its conclusions. But deduction, starting from a premise about all the members of a class, compels a conclusion about every and each of necessity. One border-war may be similar to another, and the whole number may be similar, without being similarly evil; but if all alike are evil, each is evil of necessity. Deduction or syllogism is superior to analogy and induction in combining premises so as to involve or contain the conclusion. For this reason it has been elevated by some logicians above all other inferences, and for this very same reason attacked by others as no inference at all. The truth is that, though the premises contain the conclusion, neither premise alone contains it, and a man who knows both but does not combine them does not draw the conclusion; it is the synthesis of the two premises which at once contains the conclusion and advances our knowledge; and as syllogism consists, not indeed in the discovery, but essentially in the synthesis of two premises, it is an inference and an advance on each premise and on both taken separately. As again the synthesis contains or involves the conclusion, syllogism has the advantage of compelling assent to the consequences of the premises. Inference in general is a combination of premises to cause a conclusion; deduction is such a combination as to compel a conclusion involved in the combination, and following from the premises of necessity.

Nevertheless, deduction or syllogism is not independent of the other processes of inference. It is not the primary inference of its own premises, but constantly converts analogical and inductive conclusions into its particular and universal premises. Of itself it causes a necessity of consequence, but only a hypothetical necessity; if these premises are true, then this conclusion necessarily follows. To eliminate this "if" ultimately requires other inferences before deduction. Especially, induction to universals is the warrant and measure of deduction from universals. So far as it is inductively true that all border-war is evil, it is deductively true that a given border-war is therefore evil. Now, as an inductive combination of premises does not necessarily involve the inductive conclusion, induction normally leads, not to a necessary, but to a probable conclusion; and whenever its probable conclusions become deductive premises, the deduction only involves a probable conclusion. Can we then infer any certainty at all? In order to answer this question we must remember that there are many degrees of probability, and that induction, and therefore deduction, draw conclusions more or less probable, and rise to the point at which probability becomes moral certainty, or that high degree of probability which is sufficient to guide our lives, and even condemn murderers to death. But can we rise still higher and infer real necessity? This is a difficult question, which has received many answers. Some noölogists suppose a mental power of forming necessary principles of deduction a priori; but fail to show how we can apply principles of mind to things beyond mind. Some empiricists, on the other hand, suppose that induction only infers probable conclusions which are premises of probable deductions; but they give up all exact science. Between these extremes there is room for a third theory, empirical yet providing a knowledge of the really necessary. In some cases of induction concerned with objects capable of abstraction and simplification, we have a power of identification, by which, not a priori but in the act of inducing a conclusion, we apprehend that the things signified by its subject and predicate are one and the same thing which cannot exist apart from itself. Thus by combined induction and identification we apprehend that one and one are the same as two, that there is no difference between a triangle and a three-sided rectilineal figure, that a whole must be greater than its part by being the whole, that inter-resisting bodies necessarily force one another apart, otherwise they would not be inter-resisting but occupy the same place at the same moment. Necessary principles, discovered by this process of induction and identification, become premises of deductive demonstration to conclusions which are not only necessary consequents on the premises, but also equally necessary in reality. Induction thus is the source of deduction, of its truth, of its probability, of its moral certainty; and induction, combined with identification, is the origin of the necessary principles of demonstration or deduction to necessary conclusions.

Analogical inference in its turn is as closely allied with induction. Like induction, it starts from a particular premise, containing one or more examples or instances; but, as it is easier to infer a particular than a universal conclusion, it supplies particular conclusions which in their turn become further particular premises of induction. Its second premise is indeed merely a particular apprehension that one particular is similar to another, whereas the second premise of induction is a universal apprehension that a whole number of particulars is similar to those from which the inference starts; but at bottom these two apprehensions of similarity are so alike as to suggest that the universal premise of induction has arisen as a generalized analogy. It seems likely that man has arrived at the apprehension of a whole individual, e.g. a whole animal including all its parts, and thence has inferred by analogy a whole number, or class, e.g. of animals including all individual animals; and accordingly that the particular analogy of one individual to another has given rise to the general analogy of every to each individual in a class, or whole number of individuals, contained in the second premise of induction. In this case, analogical inference has led to induction, as induction to deduction. Further, analogical inference from particular to particular suggests inductive-deductive inference from particular through universal to particular.

Newton, according to Dr Pemberton, thought in 1666 that the moon moves so like a falling body that it has a similar centripetal force to the earth, 20 years before he demonstrated this conclusion from the laws of motion in the _Principia_. In fact, analogical, inductive and deductive inferences, though different processes of combining premises to cause different conclusions, are so similar and related, so united in principle and interdependent, so consolidated into a system of inference, that they cannot be completely investigated apart, but together constitute a single subject of science. This science of inference in general is logic.

Logic, however, did not begin as a science of all inference. Rather it began as a science of reasoning ([Greek: logos]), of syllogism ([Greek: syllogismos]), of deductive inference. Aristotle was its founder. He was anticipated of course by many generations of spontaneous thinking (_logica naturalis_). Many of the higher animals infer by analogy: otherwise we cannot explain their thinking. Man so infers at first: otherwise we cannot explain the actions of young children, who before they begin to speak give no evidence of universal thinking. It is likely that man began with particular inference and with particular language; and that, gradually generalizing thought and language, he learnt at last to think and say "all," to infer universally, to induce and deduce, to reason, in short, and raise himself above other animals. In ancient times, and especially in Egypt, Babylon and Greece, he went on to develop reason into science or the systematic investigation of definite subjects, e.g. arithmetic of number, geometry of magnitude, astronomy of stars, politics of government, ethics of goods. In Greece he became more and more reflective and conscious of himself, of his body and soul, his manners and morals, his mental operations and especially his reason. One of the characteristics of Greek philosophers is their growing tendency, in investigating any subject, to turn round and ask themselves what should be the method of investigation. In this way the Presocratics and Sophists, and still more Socrates and Plato, threw out hints on sense and reason, on inferential processes and scientific methods which may be called anticipations of logic. But Aristotle was the first to conceive of reasoning itself as a definite subject of a special science, which he called analytics or analytic science, specially designed to analyse syllogism and especially demonstrative syllogism, or science, and to be in fact a science of sciences. He was therefore the founder of the science of logic.

Among the Aristotelian treatises we have the following, which together
constitute this new science of reasoning:--

1. The _Categories_, or names signifying things which can become
predicates;

2. The _De Interpretatione_, or the enumeration of conceptions and
their combinations by (1) nouns and verbs (names), (2) enunciations
(propositions);

3. The _Prior Analytics_, on syllogism;

4. The _Posterior Analytics_, on demonstrative syllogism, or science;

5. The _Topics_, on dialectical syllogism; or argument;

6. The _Sophistical Elenchi_, on sophistical or contentious syllogism,
or sophistical fallacies.

So far as we know, Aristotle had no one name for all these
investigations. "Analytics" is only applied to the _Prior_ and
_Posterior Analytics_, and "logical," which he opposed to
"analytical," only suits the _Topics_ and at most the _Sophistical
Elenchi_; secondly, while he analyzed syllogism into premises, major
and minor, and premises into terms, subject and predicate, he
attempted no division of the whole science; thirdly, he attempted no
order and arrangement of the treatises into a system of logic, but
only of the _Analytics_, _Topics_ and _Sophistical Elenchi_ into a
system of syllogisms. Nevertheless, when his followers had arranged
the treatises into the _Organon_, as they called it to express that it
is an instrument of science, then there gradually emerged a system of
syllogistic logic, arranged in the triple division--terms,
propositions and syllogisms--which has survived to this day as
technical logic, and has been the foundation of all other logics, even
of those which aim at its destruction.

The main problem which Aristotle set before him was the analysis of syllogism, which he defined as "reasoning in which certain things having been posited something different from them of necessity follows by their being those things" (_Prior Analytics_, i. 1). What then did he mean by reasoning, or rather by the Greek word [Greek: logos] of which "reasoning" is an approximate rendering? It was meant (cf. _Post. An._ i. 10) to be both internal, in the soul ([Greek: ho esô logos, en tê psychê]), and external, in language ([Greek: ho exo logos]): hence after Aristotle the Stoics distinguished [Greek: logos endiathetos] and [Greek: prophorikos]. It meant, then, both reason and discourse of reason (cf. Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, i. 2). On its mental side, as reason it meant combination of thoughts. On its linguistic side, as discourse it was used for any combination of names to form a phrase, such as the definition "rational animal," or a book, such as the _Iliad_. It had also the mathematical meaning of _ratio_; and in its use for definition it is sometimes transferred to essence as the object of definition, and has a mixed meaning, which may be expressed by "account." In all its uses, however, the common meaning is combination. When Aristotle called syllogism [Greek: logos], he meant that it is a combination of premises involving a conclusion of necessity. Moreover, he tended to confine the term [Greek: logos] to syllogistic inference. Not that he omitted other inferences ([Greek: pisteis]). On the contrary, to him (cf. _Prior Analytics_, ii. 24) we owe the triple distinction into inference from particular to particular ([Greek: paradeigma], example, or what we call "analogy"), inference from particular to universal ([Greek: epagôgê], induction), and inference from universal to particular ([Greek: syllogismos], syllogism, or deduction). But he thought that inferences other than syllogism are imperfect; that analogical inference is rhetorical induction; and that induction, through the necessary preliminary of syllogism and the sole process of ascent from sense, memory and experience to the principles of science, is itself neither reasoning nor science. To be perfect he thought that all inference must be reduced to syllogism of the first figure, which he regarded as the specially scientific inference. Accordingly, the syllogism appeared to him to be the rational process ([Greek: meta logou]), and the demonstrative syllogism from inductively discovered principles to be science ([Greek: epistêmê]). Hence, without his saying it in so many words, Aristotle's logic perforce became a logic of deductive reasoning, or syllogism. As it happened this deductive tendency helped the development of logic. The obscurer premises of analogy and induction, together with the paucity of experience and the backward state of physical science in Aristotle's time would have baffled even his analytical genius. On the other hand, the demonstrations of mathematical sciences of his time, and the logical forms of deduction evinced in Plato's dialogues, provided him with admirable examples of deduction, which is also the inference most capable of analysis. Aristotle's analysis of the syllogism showed man how to advance by combining his thoughts in trains of deductive reasoning. Nevertheless, the wider question remained for logic: what is the nature of all inference, and the special form of each of its three main processes?

As then the reasoning of the syllogism was the main problem of
Aristotle's logic, what was his analysis of it? In distinguishing
inner and outer reason, or reasoning and discourse, he added that it
is not to outer reason but to inner reason in the soul that
demonstration and syllogism are directed (_Post. An._ i. 10). One
would expect, then, an analysis of mental reasoning into mental
judgments ([Greek: kriseis]) as premises and conclusion. In point of
fact, he analysed it into premises, but then analysed a premise into
terms, which he divided into subject and predicate, with the addition
of the copula "is" or "is not." This analysis, regarded as a whole and
as it is applied in the _Analytics_ and in the other logical
treatises, was evidently intended as a linguistic analysis. So in the
_Categories_, he first divided things said ([Greek: ta legomena]) into
uncombined and combined, or names and propositions, and then divided
the former into categories; and in the _De interpretatione_ he
expressly excluded mental conceptions and their combinations, and
confined himself to nouns and verbs and enunciations, or, as we should
say, to names and propositions. Aristotle apparently intended, or at
all events has given logicians in general the impression, that he
intended to analyse syllogism into propositions as premises, and
premise into names as terms. His logic therefore exhibits the curious
paradox of being an analysis of mental reasoning into linguistic
elements. The explanation is that outer speech is more obvious than
inner thought, and that grammar and poetic criticism, rhetoric and
dialectic preceded logic, and that out of those arts of language arose
the science of reasoning. The sophist Protagoras had distinguished
various kinds of sentences, and Plato had divided the sentence into
noun and verb, signifying a thing and the action of a thing.
Rhetoricians had enumerated various means of persuasion, some of which
are logical forms, e.g. probability and sign, example and enthymeme.
Among the dialecticians, Socrates had used inductive arguments to
obtain definitions as data of deductive arguments against his
opponents, and Plato had insisted on the processes of ascending to and
descending from an unconditional principle by the power of giving and
receiving argument. All these points about speech, eloquence and
argument between man and man were absorbed into Aristotle's theory of
reasoning, and in particular the grammar of the sentence consisting of
noun and verb caused the logic of the proposition consisting of
subject and predicate. At the same time, Aristotle was well aware that
the science of reasoning is no art of language and must take up a
different position towards speech as the expression of thought. In the
_Categories_ he classified names, not, however, as a grammarian by
their structure, but as a logician by their signification. In the _De
interpretatione_, having distinguished the enunciation, or
proposition, from other sentences as that in which there is truth or
falsity, he relegated the rest to rhetoric or poetry, and founded the
logic of the proposition, in which, however, he retained the
grammatical analysis into noun and verb. In the _Analytics_ he took
the final step of originating the logical analysis of the proposition
as premise into subject and predicate as terms mediated by the copula,
and analysed the syllogism into these elements. Thus did he become the
founder of the logical but linguistic analysis of reasoning as
discourse ([Greek: ho exô logos]) into propositions and terms.
Nevertheless, the deeper question remained, what is the logical but
mental analysis of reasoning itself ([Greek: ho esô logos]) into its
mental premises and conclusion?

Aristotle thus was the founder of logic as a science. But he laid too much stress on reasoning as syllogism or deduction, and on deductive science; and he laid too much stress on the linguistic analysis of rational discourse into proposition and terms. These two defects remain ingrained in technical logic to this day. But in the course of the development of the science, logicians have endeavoured to correct those defects, and have diverged into two schools. Some have devoted themselves to induction from sense and experience and widened logic till it has become a general science of inference and scientific method. Others have devoted themselves to the mental analysis of reasoning, and have narrowed logic into a science of conception, judgment and reasoning. The former belong to the school of empirical logic, the latter to the school of conceptual and formal logic. Both have started from points which Aristotle indicated without developing them. But we shall find that his true descendants are the empirical logicians.

Aristotle was the first of the empiricists. He consistently maintained that sense is knowledge of particulars and the origin of scientific knowledge of universals. In his view, sense is a congenital form of judgment ([Greek: dynamis symphytos kritikê], _Post. An._ ii. 19); a sensation of each of the five senses is always true of its proper object; without sense there is no science; sense is the origin of induction, which is the origin of deduction and science. The _Analytics_ end (_Post. An._ ii. 19) with a detailed system of empiricism, according to which sense is the primary knowledge of particulars, memory is the retention of a sensation, experience is the sum of many memories, induction infers universals, and intelligence is the true apprehension of the universal principles of science, which is rational, deductive, demonstrative, from empirical principles.

This empirical groundwork of Aristotle's logic was accepted by the
Epicureans, who enunciated most distinctly the fundamental doctrine
that all sensations are true of their immediate objects, and falsity
begins with subsequent opinions, or what the moderns call
"interpretation." Beneath deductive logic, in the logic of Aristotle
and the canonic of the Epicureans, there already lay the basis of
empirical logic: sensory experience is the origin of all inference and
science. It remained for Francis Bacon to develop these beginnings
into a new logic of induction. He did not indeed accept the
infallibility of sense or of any other operation unaided. He thought,
rather, that every operation becomes infallible by method. Following
Aristotle in this order--sense, memory, intellect--he resolved the
whole process of induction into three ministrations:--

1. The ministration to sense, aided by observation and experiment.

2. The ministration to memory, aided by registering and arranging the
data, of observation and experiment in tables of instances of
agreement, difference and concomitant variations.

3. The ministration to intellect or reason, aided by the negative
elimination by means of contradictory instances of whatever in the
instances is not always present, absent and varying with the given
subject investigated, and finally by the positive inference that
whatever in the instances is always present, absent and varying with
the subject is its essential cause.

Bacon, like Aristotle, was anticipated in this or that point; but, as
Aristotle was the first to construct a system of deduction in the
syllogism and its three figures, so Bacon was the first to construct a
system of induction in three ministrations, in which the requisites of
induction, hitherto recognized only in sporadic hints, were combined
for the first time in one logic of induction. Bacon taught men to
labour in inferring from particular to universal, to lay as much
stress on induction as on deduction, and to think and speak of
inductive reasoning, inductive science, inductive logic. Moreover,
while Aristotle had the merit of discerning the triplicity of
inference, to Bacon we owe the merit of distinguishing the three
processes without reduction:--

1. Inference from particular to particular by Experientia Literata, in
plano;

2. Inference from particular to universal by Inductio, ascendendo;

3. Inference from universal to particular by Syllogism, descendendo.

In short, the comprehensive genius of Bacon widened logic into a
general science of inference.

On the other hand, as Aristotle over-emphasized deduction so Bacon
over-emphasized induction by contending that it is the only process of
discovering universals (_axiomata_), which deduction only applies to
particulars. J. S. Mill in his _Logic_ pointed out this defect, and
without departing from Baconian principles remedied it by quoting
scientific examples, in which deduction, starting from inductive
principles, applies more general to less general universals, e.g. when
the more general law of gravitation is shown to include the less
general laws of planetary gravitation. Mill's logic has the great
merit of copiously exemplifying the principles of the variety of
method according to subject-matter. It teaches us that scientific
method is sometimes induction, sometimes deduction, and sometimes the
consilience of both, either by the inductive verification of previous
deductions, or by the deductive explanation of previous inductions.

It is also most interesting to notice that Aristotle saw further than
Bacon in this direction. The founder of logic anticipated the latest
logic of science, when he recognized, not only the deduction of
mathematics, but also the experience of facts followed by deductive
explanations of their causes in physics.

The consilience of empirical and deductive processes was an Aristotelian discovery, elaborated by Mill against Bacon. On the whole, however, Aristotle, Bacon and Mill, purged from their errors, form one empirical school, gradually growing by adapting itself to the advance of science; a school in which Aristotle was most influenced by Greek deductive Mathematics, Bacon by the rise of empirical physics at the Renaissance, and Mill by the Newtonian combination of empirical facts and mathematical principles in the _Principia_. From studying this succession of empirical logicians, we cannot doubt that sense, memory and experience are the real origin of inference, analogical, inductive and deductive. The deepest problem of logic is the relation of sense and inference. But we must first consider the mental analysis of inference, and this brings us to conceptual and formal logic.

Aristotle's logic has often been called formal logic; it was really a technical logic of syllogism analysed into linguistic elements, and of science rested on an empirical basis. At the same time his psychology, though maintaining his empiricism, contained some seeds of conceptual logic, and indirectly of formal logic. Intellectual development, which according to the logic of the _Analytics_ consists of sense, memory, experience, induction and intellect, according to the psychology of the _De Anima_ consists of sense, imagination and intellect, and one division of intellect is into conception of the undivided and combination of conceptions as one (_De An._ iii. 6). The _De Interpretatione_ opens with a reference to this psychological distinction, implying that names represent conceptions, propositions represent combinations of conceptions. But the same passage relegates conceptions and their combinations to the _De Anima_, and confines the _De Interpretatione_ to names and propositions in conformity with the linguistic analysis which pervades the logical treatises of Aristotle, who neither brought his psychological distinction between conceptions and their combinations into his logic, nor advanced the combinations of conceptions as a definition of judgment ([Greek: krisis]), nor employed the mental distinction between conceptions and judgments as an analysis of inference, or reasoning, or syllogism: he was no conceptual logician. The history of logic shows that the linguistic distinction between terms and propositions was the sole analysis of reasoning in the logical treatises of Aristotle; that the mental distinction between conceptions ([Greek: ennoiai]) and judgments ([Greek: axiômata] in a wide sense) was imported into logic by the Stoics; and that this mental distinction became the logical analysis of reasoning under the authority of St Thomas Aquinas. In his commentary on the _De Interpretatione_, St Thomas, after citing from the _De Anima_ Aristotle's "duplex operatio intellectus," said, "Additur autem et tertia operatio, scilicet ratiocinandi," and concluded that, since logic is a rational science (_rationalis scientia_), its consideration must be directed to all these operations of reason. Hence arose conceptual logic; according to which conception is a simple apprehension of an idea without belief in being or not being, e.g. the idea of man or of running; judgment is a combination of conceptions, adding being or not being, e.g. man is running or not running; and reasoning is a combination of judgments: conversely, there is a mental analysis of reasoning into judgments, and judgment into conceptions, beneath the linguistic analysis of rational discourse into propositions, and propositions into terms. Logic, according to this new school, which has by our time become an old school, has to co-ordinate these three operations, direct them, and, beginning with conceptions, combine conceptions into judgments, and judgments into inference, which thus becomes a complex combination of conceptions, or, in modern parlance, an extension of our ideas. Conceptual logicians were, indeed, from the first aware that sense supplies the data, and that judgment and therefore inference contains belief that things are or are not. But they held, and still hold that sensation and conception are alike mere apprehensions, and that the belief that things are or are not arises somehow after sensation and conception in judgment, from which it passes into inference. At first, they were more sanguine of extracting from these unpromising beginnings some knowledge of things beyond ideas. But at length many of them became formal logicians, who held that logic is the investigation of formal thinking, or consistent conception, judgment and reasoning; that it shows how we infer formal truths of consistency without material truth of signifying things; that, as the science of the form or process, it must entirely abstract from the matter, or objects, of thought; and that it does not tell us how we infer from experience. Thus has logic drifted further and further from the real and empirical logic of Aristotle the founder and Bacon the reformer of the science.

The great merit of conceptual logic was the demand for a mental analysis of mental reasoning, and the direct analysis of reasoning into judgments which are the sole premises and conclusions of reasoning and of all mental inferences. Aristotle had fallen into the paradox of resolving a mental act into verbal elements. The Schoolmen, however, gradually came to realize that the result to their logic was to make it a _sermocionalis scientia_, and to their metaphysics the danger of nominalism. St Thomas made a great advance by making logic throughout a _rationalis scientia_; and logicians are now agreed that reasoning consists of judgments, discourse of propositions. This distinction is, moreover, vital to the whole logic of inference, because we always think all the judgments of which our inference consists, but seldom state all the propositions by which it is expressed. We omit propositions, curtail them, and even express a judgment by a single term, e.g. "Good!" "Fire!". Hence the linguistic expression is not a true measure of inference; and to say that an inference consists of two propositions causing a third is not strictly true. But to say that it is two judgments causing a third is always true, and the very essence of inference, because we must think the two to conclude the third in "the sessions of sweet silent thought." Inference, in short, consists of actual judgments capable of being expressed in propositions.

Inference always consists of judgments. But judgment does not always
consist of conceptions. It is not a combination of conceptions; it
does not arise from conceptions, nor even at first require conception.
Sense is the origin of judgment. One who feels pained or pleased, who
feels hot or cold or resisting in touch, who tastes the flavoured, who
smells the odorous, who hears the sounding, who sees the coloured, or
is conscious, already believes that something sensible exists before
conception, before inference, and before language; and his belief is
true of the immediate object of sense, the sensible thing, e.g. the
hot felt in touch. But a belief in the existence of something is a
judgment and a categorical judgment of existence. Sense, then, outer
and inner, or sensation and consciousness, is the origin of sensory
judgments which are true categorical beliefs in the existence of
sensible things; and primary judgments are such true categorical
sensory beliefs that things exist, and neither require conception nor
are combinations of conceptions. Again, since sense is the origin of
memory and experience, memorial and experiential judgments are
categorical and existential judgments, which so far as they report
sensory judgments are always true. Finally, since sense, memory and
experience are the origin of inference, primary inference is
categorical and existential, starting from sensory, memorial and
experiential judgments as premises, and proceeding to inferential
judgments as conclusions, which are categorical and existential, and
are true, so far as they depend on sense, memory and experience.

Sense, then, is the origin of judgment; and the consequence is that
primary judgments are true, categorical and existential judgments of
sense, and primary inferences are inferences from categorical and
existential premises to categorical and existential conclusions, which
are true so far as they arise from outer and inner sense, and proceed
to things similar to sensible things. All other judgments and
inferences about existing things, or ideas, or names, whether
categorical or hypothetical, are afterthoughts, partly true and partly
false.

Sense, then, because it involves a true belief in existence is fitted
to be the origin of judgment. Conception on the other hand is the
simple apprehension of an idea, particular or universal, but without
belief that anything is or is not, and therefore is unfitted to beget
judgment. Nor could a combination of conceptions make a difference so
fundamental as that between conceiving and believing. The most that it
could do would be to cause an ideal judgment, e.g. that the idea of a
centaur is the idea of a man-horse; and even here some further origin
is needed for the addition of the copula "is."

So far from being a cause, conception is not even a condition of all
judgments; a sensation of hot is sufficient evidence that hot exists,
before the idea of hot is either present or wanted. Conception is,
however, a condition of a memorial judgment: in order to remember
being hot, we require an idea of hot. Memory, however, is not that
idea, but involves a judgment that there previously existed the hot
now represented by the idea, which is about the sensible thing beyond
the conceived idea; and the cause of this memorial judgment is past
sense and present memory. So sense, memory and experience, the sum of
sense and memory, though requiring conception, are the causes of the
experiential judgment that there exist and have existed many similar,
sensible things, and these sensory, memorial and experiential
judgments about the existence of past and present sensible things
beyond conceived ideas become the particular premises of primary
inference. Starting from them, inference is enabled to draw
conclusions which are inferential judgments about the existence of
things similar to sensible things beyond conceived ideas. In rising,
however, from particular to universal inference, induction, as we have
seen, adds to its particular premise, S is P, a universal premise,
every M is similar to S, in order to infer the universal conclusion,
every M is P. This universal premise requires a universal conception
of a class or whole number of similar particulars, as a condition. But
the premise is not that conception; it is a belief that there is a
whole number of particulars similar to those already experienced. The
generalization of a class is not, as the conceptual logic assumes, the
abstraction of a general idea, but an inference from the analogy of a
whole individual thing, e.g. a whole man, to a whole number of similar
individuals, e.g. the whole of men. The general idea of all men or the
combination that the idea of all men is similar to the idea of
particular men would not be enough; the universal premise that all men
in fact are similar to those who have died is required to induce the
universal conclusion that all men in fact die. Universal inference
thus requires particular and universal conceptions as its condition;
but, so far as it arises from sense, memory, experience, and involves
generalization, it consists of judgments which do not consist of
conceptions, but are beliefs in things existing beyond conception.
Inference then, so far as it starts from categorical and existential
premises, causes conclusions, or inferential judgments, which require
conceptions, but are categorical and existential judgments beyond
conception. Moreover, as it becomes more deductive, and causes
conclusions further from sensory experience, these inferential
judgments become causes of inferential conceptions. For example, from
the evidence of molar changes due to the obvious parts of bodies,
science first comes to believe in molecular changes due to
imperceptible particles, and then tries to conceive the ideas of
particles, molecules, atoms, electrons. The conceptual logic supposes
that conception always precedes judgment; but the truth is that
sensory judgment begins and inferential judgment ends by preceding
conception. The supposed triple order--conception, judgment,
reasoning--is defective and false. The real order is sensation and
sensory judgment, conception, memory and memorial judgment, experience
and experiential judgment, inference, inferential judgment,
inferential conception. This is not all: inferential conceptions are
inadequate, and finally fail. They are often symbolical; that is, we
conceive one thing only by another like it, e.g. atoms by minute
bodies not nearly small enough. Often the symbol is not like. What
idea can the physicist form of intraspatial ether? What believer in
God pretends to conceive Him as He really is? We believe many things
that we cannot conceive; as Mill said, the inconceivable is not the
incredible; and the point of science is not what we can conceive but
what we should believe on evidence. Conception is the weakest,
judgment the strongest power of man's mind. Sense before conception is
the original cause of judgment; and inference from sense enables
judgment to continue after conception ceases. Finally, as there is
judgment without conception, so there is conception without judgment.
We often say "I understand, but do not decide." But this suspension of
judgment is a highly refined act, unfitted to the beginning of
thought. Conception begins as a condition of memory, and after a long
continuous process of inference ends in mere ideation. The conceptual
logic has made the mistake of making ideation a stage in thought prior
to judgment.

It was natural enough that the originators of conceptual logic, seeing
that judgments can be expressed by propositions, and conceptions by
terms, should fall into the error of supposing that, as propositions
consist of terms, so judgments consist of conceptions, and that there
is a triple mental order--conception, judgment, reasoning--parallel to
the triple linguistic order--term, proposition, discourse. They
overlooked the fact that man thinks long before he speaks, makes
judgments which he does not express at all, or expresses them by
interjections, names and phrases, before he uses regular propositions,
and that he does not begin by conceiving and naming, and then proceed
to believing and proposing. Feeling and sensation, involving believing
or judging, come before conception and language. As conceptions are
not always present in judgment, as they are only occasional
conditions, and as they are unfitted to cause beliefs or judgments,
and especially judgments of existence, and as judgments both precede
conceptions in sense and continue after them in inference, it follows
that conceptions are not the constituents of judgment, and judgment is
not a combination of conceptions. Is there then any analysis of
judgment? Paradoxical as it may sound, the truth seems to be that
primary judgment, beginning as it does with the simplest feeling and
sensation, is not a combination of two mental elements into one, but
is a division of one sensible thing into the thing itself and its
existence and the belief that it is determined as existing, e.g. that
hot exists, cold exists, the pained exists, the pleased exists. Such a
judgment has a cause, namely sense, but no mental elements.
Afterwards come judgments of complex sense, e.g. that the existing hot
is burning or becoming more or less hot, &c. Thus there is a
combination of sensations causing the judgment; but the judgment is
still a division of the sensible thing into itself and its being, and
a belief that it is so determined. Afterwards follow judgments arising
from more complex causes, e.g. memory, experience, inference. But
however complicated these mental causes, there still remain these
points common to all judgment:--(1) The mental causes of judgment are
sense, memory, experience and inference; while conception is a
condition of some judgments. (2) A judgment is not a combination
either of its causes or of its conditions, e.g. it is not a
combination of sensations any more than of ideas. (3) A judgment is a
unitary mental act, dividing not itself but its object into the object
itself and itself as determined, and signifying that it is so
determined. (4) A primary judgment is a judgment that a sensible thing
is determined as existing; but later judgments are concerned with
either existing things, or with ideas, or with words, and signify that
they are determined in all sorts of ways. (5) When a judgment is
expressed by a proposition, the proposition expresses the results of
the division by two terms, subject and predicate, and by the copula
that what is signified by the subject is what is signified by the
predicate; and the proposition is a combination of the two terms; e.g.
border war is evil. (6) A complex judgment is a combination of two
judgments, and may be copulative, e.g. you and I are men, or
hypothetical, or disjunctive, &c.

Empirical logic, the logic of Aristotle and Bacon, is on the right way. It is the business of the logician to find the causes of the judgments which form the premises and the conclusions of inference, reasoning and science. What knowledge do we get by sense, memory and experience, the first mental causes of judgment? What is judgment, and what its various kinds? What is inference, how does it proceed by combining judgments as premises to cause judgments as conclusions, and what are its various kinds? How does inference draw conclusions more or less probable up to moral certainty? How does it by the aid of identification convert probable into necessary conclusions, which become necessary principles of demonstration? How is categorical succeeded by conditional inference? What is scientific method as a system of inferences about definite subjects? How does inference become the source of error and fallacy? How does the whole process from sense to inference discover the real truth of judgments, which are true so far as they signify things known by sense, memory, experience and inference? These are the fundamental questions of the science of inference. Conceptual logic, on the other hand, is false from the start. It is not the first business of logic to direct us how to form conceptions signified by terms, because sense is a prior cause of judgment and inference. It is not the second business of logic to direct us how out of conceptions to form judgments signified by propositions, because the real causes of judgments are sense, memory, experience and inference. It is, however, the main business of logic to direct us how out of judgments to form inferences signified by discourse; and this is the one point which conceptual logic has contributed to the science of inference. But why spoil the further mental analysis of inference by supposing that conceptions are constituents of judgment and therefore of inference, which thus becomes merely a complex combination of conceptions, an extension of ideas? The mistake has been to convert three operations of mind into three processes in a fixed order--conception, judgment, inference. Conception and judgment are decisions: inference alone is a process, from decisions to decision, from judgments to judgment. Sense, not conception, is the origin of judgment. Inference is the process which from judgments about sensible things proceeds to judgments about things similar to sensible things. Though some conceptions are its conditions and some judgments its causes, inference itself in its conclusions causes many more judgments and conceptions. Finally, inference is an extension, not of ideas, but of beliefs, at first about existing things, afterwards about ideas, and even about words; about anything in short about which we think, in what is too fancifully called "the universe of discourse."