A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
Some additional remarks, in reply to minor objections, are appended.[16]
§ 9. The preceding considerations enable us to understand the true
nature of what is termed, by recent writers, Formal Logic, and the
relation between it and Logic in the widest sense. Logic, as I conceive
it, is the entire theory of the ascertainment of reasoned or inferred
truth. Formal Logic, therefore, which Sir William Hamilton from his own
point of view, and Archbishop Whately from his, have represented as the
whole of Logic properly so called, is really a very subordinate part of
it, not being directly concerned with the process of Reasoning or
Inference in the sense in which that process is a part of the
Investigation of Truth. What, then, is Formal Logic? The name seems to
be properly applied to all that portion of doctrine which relates to the
equivalence of different modes of expression; the rules for determining
when assertions in a given form imply or suppose the truth or falsity of
other assertions. This includes the theory of the Import of
Propositions, and of their Conversion, Æquipollence, and Opposition; of
those falsely called Inductions (to be hereafter spoken of[17]), in
which the apparent generalization is a mere abridged statement of cases
known individually; and finally, of the syllogism: while the theory of
Naming, and of (what is inseparably connected with it) Definition,
though belonging still more to the other and larger kind of logic than
to this, is a necessary preliminary to this. The end aimed at by Formal
Logic, and attained by the observance of its precepts, is not truth, but
consistency. It has been seen that this is the only direct purpose of
the rules of the syllogism; the intention and effect of which is simply
to keep our inferences or conclusions in complete consistency with our
general formulæ or directions for drawing them. The Logic of Consistency
is a necessary auxiliary to the logic of truth, not only because what is
inconsistent with itself or with other truths cannot be true, but also
because truth can only be successfully pursued by drawing inferences
from experience, which, if warrantable at all, admit of being
generalized, and, to test their warrantableness, require to be exhibited
in a generalized form; after which the correctness of their application
to particular cases is a question which specially concerns the Logic of
Consistency. This Logic, not requiring any preliminary knowledge of the
processes or conclusions of the various sciences, may be studied with
benefit in a much earlier stage of education than the Logic of Truth:
and the practice which has empirically obtained of teaching it apart,
through elementary treatises which do not attempt to include anything
else, though the reasons assigned for the practice are in general very
far from philosophical, admits of a philosophical justification.
CHAPTER IV.
OF TRAINS OF REASONING, AND DEDUCTIVE SCIENCES.