[400] Formal Logic, ch. xxi, § 7.
[401] e.g. the ‘accidental’ distribution of variations in biology, for which see Humanism, pp. 146–50, and the postulates of causality and determinism in science generally (Formal Logic, ch. xx, § 6, and Studies in Humanism, ch. xviii, § 4).
[402] Cf. [§ 8] and Formal Logic, ch. x.
[403] The ‘novelty’ which is claimed for the conclusion of a syllogism is only one case of this: in the traditional interpretation it is hopelessly at variance with the demand that it shall also follow from its premisses of necessity. Cf. Formal Logic, ch. xvi, §§ 8–10.
[404] Usually, but wrongly, called ‘dispassionate’ or ‘disinterested’. What is wanted is, not that the inquiring mind should take no interest in the conclusions it considers, but that, though it cares keenly and even passionately for one of them, it should yet be capable of sufficient self-control to consider fairly the case against the conclusion it favours. This mental attitude is probably best secured by caring more for truth than for a party victory, and is denominated a ‘disinterested love of truth for its own sake’. But even so we love what we deem the truth, because it is the best thing to believe, and better (on the whole and in the end) than anything else that is propounded.