Another thing is plain to the average intelligence, perhaps plainer than to a proficient in the use of the Syllogism. Clearly we cannot infer with certainty that a woman is clever because she is ugly, unless it is the case that all ugly women are clever. But a Syllogiser, seeing that no certain conclusion can be drawn except upon this condition, is apt to dismiss the argument as altogether worthless. This may be specified as an error incident to the practice of the Syllogism, that it inclines us to look for necessarily conclusive premisses, and to deny all weight to anything short of this. Now in ordinary life it is comparatively seldom that such premisses can be found. We are obliged to proceed on maxims that are not of universal scope, and which lend only a more or less strong colour of probability to cases that can be brought under them. "A little learning is a dangerous thing;" "Haste makes waste;" "Slowness of speech is a sign of depth of thought;" "Vivacity is a sign of shallowness:" such are the "endoxes" or commonplaces of popular knowledge that men bring to bear in daily life. They are not true for all cases, but some of them are true for most or for a good many, and they may be applied with a certain probability though they are not rigidly conclusive. The plain man's danger is that he apply them unthinkingly as universals: the formal logician's danger is that, seeing them to be inapplicable as universals, he dismisses them as being void of all argumentative force. It helps to fix the limits of Formal Logic to remember that it lies outside its bounds to determine the degree of probability attaching to the application of approximate truths, such as are the staple of arguments in ordinary affairs. Formal Logic, we may repeat, is not concerned with degrees of truth or falsehood, probability or improbability. It merely shows the interdependency of certain arguments, the consistency of conclusion with premisses. This, however, is a function that might easily be underrated. Its value is more indirect than direct. In showing what is required for a certain conclusion, it puts us on the road to a more exact estimate of the premisses alleged, a sounder judgment of their worth. Well begun is half done: in undertaking the examination of any argument from authority, a formal syllogism is a good beginning. CHAPTER VII. CONDITIONAL ARGUMENTS.--HYPOTHETICAL SYLLOGISM, DISJUNCTIVE SYLLOGISM, AND DILEMMA.