here the proposition is a major, and the middle term man is expressly separated from the class perfect.
All heroes are men—
here it is a minor, and the middle term man is expressly connected with class hero.
A connective relation to the major, and a disjunctive relation to the minor are impossible in negative syllogisms. The exceptions to this are only apparent. The two most prominent are the formulæ Camestres and Camenes, in both of which it is the minor premiss wherein the relation is disjunctive. But this is an accident; an accident arising out of the fact of the major and minor being convertible.
Bokardo is in a different predicament. Bokardo, along with Baroko, is the only formula containing a particular negative as a premiss. Now the particular negatives are, for so many of the purposes of logic, particular affirmatives, that they may be neglected for the present; the object at present being to ascertain the rules for the structure of truly and unquestionably negative syllogisms. Of these we may predicate that—their minor proposition is always either actually affirmative or capable of becoming so by transposition.
To go further into the relations between the middle term and the minor, would be to travel beyond the field under present notice; the immediate object of the present paper being to explain the import of the word distributed. That it may, both logically and etymologically, mean related to two classes is clear—clear as a matter of fact. Whether, however, related to two classes be the meaning that the history of logic gives us, is a point upon which I abstain from giving an opinion. I only suggest that, in elementary treatises, the terms universal and distributed should be separated more widely than they are; one series of remarks upon—
a. Distribution as a condition of inference, being followed by another on—
b. Universality of the middle term in one premiss as a sign of distribution.
So much for the extent to which the present remarks suggest the purely practical question as to how the teaching of Aristotelian logic may be improved. There is another, however, beyond it; one of a more theoretical, indeed of an eminently theoretical, nature. It raises doubts as to the propriety of the word all itself; doubts as to the propriety of the term universal.