A dragon is a thing which breathes flame:
A dragon is a serpent:
From which the conclusion is,
Therefore some serpent or serpents breathe flame:—
an unexceptionable syllogism in the first mode of the third figure, in which both premisses are true and yet the conclusion false; which every logician knows to be an absurdity. The conclusion being false and the syllogism correct, the premisses cannot be true. But the premisses, considered as parts of a definition, are true. Therefore, the premisses considered as parts of a definition cannot be the real ones. The real premisses must be—
A dragon is a really existing thing which breathes flame:
A dragon is a really existing serpent:
which implied premisses being false, the falsity of the conclusion presents no absurdity.
If we would determine what conclusion follows from the same ostensible premisses when the tacit assumption of real existence is left out, let us, according to the recommendation in the Westminster Review, substitute means for is. We then have—
Dragon is a word meaning a thing which breathes flame: