Fig. 2. A tentative justification.
Smoke that goes downwards is heavier than air
Particles of moisture are heavier than air.
∴ Particles of moisture may be in the descending smoke.
A universal conclusion in this figure would be formally bad. But we do not care for that, because we only mean it to be tentative, and we do not draw a universal affirmative {148} conclusion. We express its badness by querying it, or by saying “may be.” The reason why it is formally bad is that nothing general has been said in the premisses about the middle term or reason, so that it is possible that the two Subjects do not touch each other within it, i.e. that the suggested special cause, moisture, is not connected with the special effect, the sinking of the smoke. The general reason “heavier than air” may include both special suggested cause and special suggested effect without their touching. Smoke and moisture may both sink in air, but for different and unconnected reasons. Still, when a special cause is suggested which is probably present in part, and which would act in the way required by the general character of the effect, there is a certain probability that it is the operative cause, subject to further analysis; and the argument has substantive value, though bad in form. The only good arguments in this figure have negative conclusions, e.g.—
Smoke that is heavier than air goes downwards.
Smoke on dry days does not go downwards.
∴ Smoke on dry days is not heavier than air.
This conclusion is formal, because the negative throws the second Subject altogether outside the Predicate, and so outside the first Subject. The one content always has a characteristic which can never attach to the other, and consequently it is clear that some genuine underlying difference keeps them apart. Such an inference would corroborate the suggestion previously obtained that the presence of moisture was the active cause of the descending smoke on days when rain was coming.
Fig. 1. A completely reasoned judgment.
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All particles that sink in the air in damp weather more
than in dry, are loaded with moisture when they sink.
Smoke that descends before rain is an example of particles
that sink in the air in damp weather more than in dry.
∴ Smoke that descends before rain is loaded with moisture when it descends (and therefore its sinking is not accidentally a sign of rain, but is really connected with the cause of rain).
The major premise belongs only to this figure. In the other it is mere tradition to call it so, and their two premisses are the same in kind, and contribute equally to the conclusion, and for that reason the affirmative conclusion was not general or not formal. If your general conclusion is to follow by mere form, you must show your principle as explicitly covering your conclusion. But if you do this, then of course you are charged with begging the question. And, in a sense, that is what you mean to do, when you set out to make your argument complete by its mere form. If you have bonâ fide to construct a combination of your data, you cannot predict whether the conclusion will take this form or that form. Using a major premise meant, “We have got a principle that covers the conclusion, and so explains the case before us.” Granting that the major premise involves the minor premise and conclusion, that is just the reason why it is imperative to express them. The meaning of the Syllogism is that it analyses the whole actual thought; the fault is to suppose that novelty is the point of inference. The Syllogism shows you how you must understand either premise in order that it may cover {150} the conclusion. Or, starting from the conclusion as a current popular belief, or as an isolated observation or suggestion by an individual observer (and this is practically the way in which our science on any subject as a rule takes its rise), the characteristic process through the three stages described above consists in first noting the given circumstances under which, according to the prima facie belief or observation, the conjunction in question takes place (“yesterday,” i.e. “in the state of the atmosphere yesterday”); secondly in analysing or considering those given circumstances, to find within them something which looks like a general property, a law, or causal operation, which may attach the conjunction in question to the systematic whole of our experience (the presence of something heavier than air in the atmosphere); and thirdly, in the exhibition of this ground or reason as a principle, in the light of which the primary belief or observation (probably a good deal modified) becomes a part of our systematic intelligible world.
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