A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)
John Stuart Mill · en
The reviewer denies that there is a _petitio principii_ in the
syllogism, or that the proposition, All men are mortal, asserts or
assumes that Socrates is mortal. In support of this denial, he
argues that we may, and in fact do, admit the general proposition
that all men are mortal, without having particularly examined the
case of Socrates, and even without knowing whether the individual
so named is a man or not. But this of course was never denied.
That we can and do draw conclusions concerning cases specifically
unknown to us, is the datum from which all who discuss this
subject must set out. The question is, in what terms the evidence,
or ground, on which we draw these conclusions, may best be
designated—whether it is most correct to say, that the unknown
case is proved by known cases, or that it is proved by a general
proposition, including both sets of cases, the unknown and the
known? I contend for the former mode of expression. I hold it an
abuse of language to say, that the proof that Socrates is mortal,
is that all men are mortal. Turn it in what way we will, this
seems to me to be asserting that a thing is the proof of itself.
Whoever pronounces the words, All men are mortal, has affirmed
that Socrates is mortal, though he may never have heard of
Socrates; for since Socrates, whether known to be so or not,
really is a man, he is included in the words, All men, and in
every assertion of which they are the subject. If the reviewer
does not see that there is a difficulty here, I can only advise
him to reconsider the subject until he does: after which he will
be a more competent judge of the success or failure of an attempt
to remove the difficulty.(35) That he had reflected very little on
the point when he wrote his remarks, is shown by his oversight
respecting the _dictum de omni et nullo_. He acknowledges that
this maxim as commonly expressed,—“Whatever is true of a class, is
true of everything included in the class,” is a mere identical
proposition, since the class _is_ nothing but the things included
in it. But he thinks this defect would be cured by wording the
maxim thus,—“Whatever is true of a class, is true of everything
which _can be shown_ to be a member of the class:” as if a thing
could “be shown” to be a member of the class without being one. If
a class means the sum of all the things included in the class, the
things which “can be shown” to be included in it are a part of
these; it is the sum of them too, and the _dictum_ is as much an
identical proposition with respect to them as to the rest. One
would almost imagine that, in the reviewer’s opinion, things are
not members of a class until they are called up publicly to take
their place in it—that so long, in fact, as Socrates is not known