A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
All B is C No B is C Some B is C All B is C Some B No B is C
is not C
All B is A All B is A All B is A Some B is A All B is A Some B is A
therefore therefore therefore therefore therefore therefore
Some A is C Some A Some A is C Some A is C Some A Some A
is not C is not C is not C
FOURTH FIGURE.
All C is B All C is B Some C is B No C is B No C is B
All B is A No B is A All B is A All B is A Some B is A
therefore therefore therefore therefore therefore
Some A is C Some A is not C Some A is C Some A is not C Some A is not C
In these exemplars, or blank forms for making syllogisms, no place is
assigned to _singular_ propositions; not, of course, because such
propositions are not used in ratiocination, but because, their predicate
being affirmed or denied of the whole of the subject, they are ranked,
for the purposes of the syllogism, with universal propositions. Thus,
these two syllogisms--
All men are mortal, All men are mortal,
All kings are men, Socrates is a man,
therefore therefore
All kings are mortal, Socrates is mortal,
are arguments precisely similar, and are both ranked in the first mood
of the first figure.
The reasons why syllogisms in any of the above forms are legitimate,
that is, why, if the premises are true, the conclusion must inevitably
be so, and why this is not the case in any other possible mood, (that
is, in any other combination of universal and particular, affirmative
and negative propositions,) any person taking interest in these
inquiries may be presumed to have either learned from the common school
books of the syllogistic logic, or to be capable of discovering for
himself. The reader may, however, be referred, for every needful
explanation, to Archbishop Whately's _Elements of Logic_, where he will
find stated with philosophical precision, and explained with remarkable
perspicuity, the whole of the common doctrine of the syllogism.
All valid ratiocination; all reasoning by which, from general
propositions previously admitted, other propositions equally or less
general are inferred; may be exhibited in some of the above forms. The
whole of Euclid, for example, might be thrown without difficulty into a
series of syllogisms, regular in mood and figure.
Though a syllogism framed according to any of these formulæ is a valid
argument, all correct ratiocination admits of being stated in syllogisms
of the first figure alone. The rules for throwing an argument in any of
the other figures into the first figure, are called rules for the
_reduction_ of syllogisms. It is done by the _conversion_ of one or
other, or both, of the premises. Thus an argument in the first mood of
the second figure, as--
No C is B
All A is B
therefore
No A is C,