There is some reason to believe that the syllogistic form, as a _test_ of valid arguments, may be entirely dispensed with, if we can secure accuracy of data, and intelligibility in terms. It is not contended now that we discover new truths by the syllogism. The syllogism is allowed to be only a form of _stating_ a truth. Example:-- No predacious animals are ruminant, The lion is predacious, therefore The lion is not ruminant. * Whately's Logic, Anal. Out. chap. 1, sec. 3. Of course, if we know that no animal that lives by prey chews the cud, and know, also, that the lion lives by prey, we know that the lion does not chew the cud. This conclusion, as Lord Kames contends, and Dr. Whately admits, is not a truth _inferred_ from the fundamental premises, but _included_ in it. Smart, whom Mr. J. S. Mill calls acute and often profound, remarks--'Every one, as to the _mere_ act of reasoning, _reasons rightly_: we may reason from wrong premises, or mistake right ones; we may be unable to infer from proper ones; but from such premises as we do reason from, we reason _correctly_: for all premises contain their conclusion; and in knowing the premises, we therefore know the conclusion. The art wanted is one that will enable us to use language perspicuously in expressing our premises:' and he might have added--_direct us in selecting proper materials of which to make premises_. The strength and weakness of the syllogism as an instrument of reasoning will now be understood. Whately remarks, that 'since all reasoning may be resolved into syllogisms, and since in a syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclusion, it follows at once that no new truth can be elicited by any process of reasoning.'* We therefore no longer look to the syllogism to discover truth, its value is in stating it. In this sense it is worthy of all attention. It is the form of nature. * Logic, p. 223. Of such a syllogism as the one quoted-- No predacious animals are ruminant, The lion is predacious, therefore The lion is not ruminant. It has been insisted by some logicians that the genius required for its construction was _invention_. Having made a general proposition like the first, we then have to invent or find out a middle term as the second--but if we bear in mind that the general affirmation of the first proposition relates to a class of (predacious animals in this case) objects which include the middle term, the necessity of invention is consequently dispensed with. We need only look well to what we have there. Simplicity will be promoted by returning to our previous remark, viz.--that reasoning is asserting a proposition, and then showing why it is true--in other words, adducing the fact or facts, on which the assertion rests.