It is thus made plain that some college men are within the class of those who are successful in business, while some college men are not within that class. Now, all that we know about Henry Winslow is that he is a college man. Therefore we cannot tell whether he belongs to that part of the class of college men who are successful in business, or to that part of the class of college men which is not included in the class of men who are successful in business. We may represent the complete fallacy as follows:
In order to eliminate the logical fallacy contained in the foregoing syllogism it would be necessary to include the middle term in the major term of the major premise. The relation of the terms of the major premise would then be represented by the diagram above.
The completed syllogism would then read as follows:
1. All college men are successful in business.
2. Henry Winslow is a college man.
3. Therefore Henry Winslow is successful in business.
The student must not delude himself with the false impression that he has remedied the defect and that the syllogism may therefore be used as the basis of a sound argument. On the contrary he must now treat the result of his efforts as a new syllogism and begin the search for fallacies all over again. The first step in this process, as we have already seen, is to inquire into the truth of the facts contained in the premises. Let us first examine the major premise. Is it true that all college men are successful in business? A little investigation and reflection will prove that it is not. Therefore the argument is still as fallacious as it was in the beginning. We have merely changed the logical fallacy into a material fallacy. The result of our investigation has been to disclose the fallacy of an enthymeme which reads, “Henry Winslow is successful in business because he is a college man.”