A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
A third case is where, the antecedent having affirmed a predicate of a
given subject, the consequent affirms of the same subject something
already connoted by the former predicate: as, Socrates is a man,
therefore Socrates is a living creature; where all that is connoted by
living creature was affirmed of Socrates when he was asserted to be a
man. If the propositions are negative, we must invert their order, thus:
Socrates is not a living creature, therefore he is not a man; for if we
deny the less, the greater, which includes it, is already denied by
implication. These, therefore, are not really cases of inference; and
yet the trivial examples by which, in manuals of Logic, the rules of the
syllogism are illustrated, are often of this ill-chosen kind; formal
demonstrations of conclusions to which whoever understands the terms
used in the statement of the data, has already, and consciously,
assented.
The most complex case of this sort of apparent inference is what is
called the Conversion of propositions; which consists in turning the
predicate into a subject, and the subject into a predicate, and framing
out of the same terms thus reversed, another proposition, which must be
true if the former is true. Thus, from the particular affirmative
proposition, Some A is B, we may infer that Some B is A. From the
universal negative, No A is B, we may conclude that No B is A. From the
universal affirmative proposition, All A is B, it cannot be inferred
that all B is A; though all water is liquid, it is not implied that all
liquid is water; but it is implied that some liquid is so; and hence the
proposition, All A is B, is legitimately convertible into Some B is A.
This process, which converts an universal proposition into a particular,
is termed conversion _per accidens_. From the proposition, Some A is not
B, we cannot even infer that some B is not A; though some men are not
Englishmen, it does not follow that some Englishmen are not men. The
only mode usually recognised of converting a particular negative
proposition, is in the form, Some A is not B, therefore, something which
is not B is A; and this is termed conversion by contraposition. In this
case, however, the predicate and subject are not merely reversed, but
one of them is changed. Instead of [A] and [B], the terms of the new
proposition are [a thing which is not B], and [A]. The original
proposition, Some A _is not_ B, is first changed into a proposition
æquipollent with it, Some A _is_ "a thing which is not B;" and the
proposition, being now no longer a particular negative, but a particular
affirmative, _admits_ of conversion in the first mode, or as it is
called, _simple_ conversion.[1]