A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
The third induction having shown that BE and CD coincide, and the second
that AB, AC, coincide, the angles ABE and ACD are thereby brought within
the fourth formula, and accordingly coincide.
FIFTH FORMULA. _Things which coincide are equal._
The angles ABE and ACD are brought within this formula by the induction
immediately preceding. This train of reasoning being also applicable,
_mutatis mutandis_, to the angles EBC, DCB, these also are brought
within the fifth formula. And, finally,
SIXTH FORMULA. _The differences of equals are equal._
The angle ABC being the difference of ABE, CBE, and the angle ACB being
the difference of ACD, DCB; which have been proved to be equals; ABC and
ACB are brought within the last formula by the whole of the previous
process.
The difficulty here encountered is chiefly that of figuring to ourselves
the two angles at the base of the triangle ABC as remainders made by
cutting one pair of angles out of another, while each pair shall be
corresponding angles of triangles which have two sides and the
intervening angle equal. It is by this happy contrivance that so many
different inductions are brought to bear upon the same particular case.
And this not being at all an obvious thought, it may be seen from an
example so near the threshold of mathematics, how much scope there may
well be for scientific dexterity in the higher branches of that and
other sciences, in order so to combine a few simple inductions, as to
bring within each of them innumerable cases which are not obviously
included in it; and how long, and numerous, and complicated may be the
processes necessary for bringing the inductions together, even when each
induction may itself be very easy and simple. All the inductions
involved in all geometry are comprised in those simple ones, the formulæ
of which are the Axioms, and a few of the so-called Definitions. The
remainder of the science is made up of the processes employed for
bringing unforeseen cases within these inductions; or (in syllogistic
language) for proving the minors necessary to complete the syllogisms;
the majors being the definitions and axioms. In those definitions and
axioms are laid down the whole of the marks, by an artful combination of
which it has been found possible to discover and prove all that is
proved in geometry. The marks being so few, and the inductions which
furnish them being so obvious and familiar; the connecting of several of
them together, which constitutes Deductions, or Trains of Reasoning,
forms the whole difficulty of the science, and with a trifling
exception, its whole bulk; and hence Geometry is a Deductive Science.