An Immediate Inference may seem to be little else than a verbal transformation; some Logicians dispute its claims to be called an inference at all, on the ground that it is identical with the pretended evidence. If we attend to the meaning, say they, an immediate inference does not really express any new judgment; the fact expressed by it is either the same as its evidence, or is even less significant. If from _No men are gods_ we prove that _No gods are men_, this is nugatory; if we prove from it that _Some men are not gods_, this is to emasculate the sense, to waste valuable information, to lose the commanding sweep of our universal proposition. Still, in Logic, it is often found that an immediate inference expresses our knowledge in a more convenient form than that of the evidentiary proposition, as will appear in the chapter on Syllogisms and elsewhere. And by transforming an universal into a particular proposition, as _No men are gods_, therefore, _Some men are not gods_,--we get a statement which, though weaker, is far more easily proved; since a single instance suffices. Moreover, by drawing all possible immediate inferences from a given proposition, we see it in all its aspects, and learn all that is implied in it. A Mediate Inference, on the other hand, depends for its evidence upon a plurality of other propositions (two or more) which are connected together on logical principles. If we argue-- No men are gods; Alexander the Great is a man; ∴ Alexander the Great is not a god: this is a Mediate Inference. The evidence consists of two propositions connected by the term 'man,' which is common to both (a Middle Term), mediating between 'gods' and 'Alexander.' Mediate Inferences comprise Syllogisms with their developments, and Inductions; and to discuss them further at present would be to anticipate future chapters. We must now deal with the principles or conditions on which Immediate Inferences are valid: commonly called the "Laws of Thought."