Deductive Logic Part 15

-- 401. The cla.s.ses which are arrived at by an act of division may themselves be divided into smaller cla.s.ses. This further process is called Subdivision.

-- 402. Let it be noticed that Rule 1 applies only to a single act of division. The moment that we begin to subdivide we not only may, but must, adopt a new basis of division; since the old one has, 'ex hypothesi,' been exhausted. Thus, having divided men according to the colour of their skins, if we wish to subdivide any of the cla.s.ses, we must look out for some fresh attribute wherein some men of the same complexion differ from others, e.g. we might divide black men into woolly-haired blacks, such as the Negroes, and straight-haired blacks, like the natives of Australia.

-- 403. We will now take an instance of division and subdivision, with a view to ill.u.s.trating some of the technical terms which are used in connection with the process. Keeping closely to our proper subject, we will select as an instance a division of the products of thought, which it is the province of logic to investigate.

Product of thought _______________|____________________________ | | | Term Proposition Inference ____|___ ______|_____ _____|______ | | | | | | Singular Common Universal Particular Immediate Mediate ___|___ ___|___ | | | | A E I O

Here we have first a threefold division of the products of thought based on their comparative complexity. The first two of these, namely, the term and the proposition, are then subdivided on the basis of their respective quant.i.ties. In the case of inference the basis of the division is again the degree of complexity. The subdivision of the proposition is carried a step further than that of the others. Having exhausted our old basis of quant.i.ty, we take a new attribute, namely, quality, on which to found the next step of subdivision.

-- 404. Now in such a scheme of division and subdivision as the foregoing, the highest cla.s.s taken is known as the Summum Genus. Thus the summum genus is the same thing as the divided whole, viewed in a different relation. The term which is called the divided whole with reference to a single act of division, is called the summum genus whenever subdivision has taken place.

-- 405. The cla.s.ses at which the division stops, that is, any which are not subdivided, are known as the Infimae Species.

-- 406. All cla.s.ses intermediate between the summum genus and the infimae species are called Subaltern Genera or Subaltern Species, according to the way they are looked at, being genera in relation to the cla.s.ses below them and species in relation to the cla.s.ses above them.

-- 407. Any cla.s.ses which fall immediately under the same genus are called Cognate Species, e.g. singular and common terms are cognate species of term.

-- 408. The cla.s.ses under which any lower cla.s.s successively falls are called Cognate Genera. The relation of cognate species to one another is like that of children of the same parents, whereas cognate genera resemble a line of ancestry.

-- 409. The Specific Difference of anything is the attribute or attributes which distinguish it from its cognate species. Thus the specific difference of a universal proposition is that the predicate is known to apply to the whole of the subject. A specific difference is said to const.i.tute the species.

-- 410. The specific difference of a higher cla.s.s becomes a Generic Difference with respect to the cla.s.s below it. A generic difference then may be said to be the distinguishing attribute of the whole cla.s.s to which a given species belongs. The generic difference is common to species that are cognate to one another, whereas the specific difference is peculiar to each. It is the generic difference of an A proposition that it is universal, the specific difference that it is affirmative.

-- 411. The same distinction is observed between the specific and generic properties of a thing. A Specific Property is an attribute which flows from the difference of a thing itself; a Generic Property is an attribute which flows from the difference of the genus to which the thing belongs. It is a specific property of an E proposition that its predicate is distributed, a generic property that its contrary cannot be true along with it (-- 465); for this last characteristic flows from the nature of the universal proposition generally.

-- 412. It now remains to say a few words as to the place in logic of the process of division. Since the attributes in which members of the same cla.s.s differ from one another cannot possibly be indicated by their common name, they must be sought for by the aid of experience; or, to put the same thing in other words, since all the infimae species are alike contained under the summum genus, their distinctive attributes can be no more than separable accidents when viewed in relation to the summum genus. Hence division, being always founded on the possession or non-possession of accidental attributes, seems to lie wholly outside the sphere of formal logic. This however is not quite the case, for, in virtue of the Law of Excluded Middle, there is always open to us, independently of experience, a hypothetical division by dichotomy. By dichotomy is meant a division into two cla.s.ses by a pair of contradictory terms, e.g. a division of the cla.s.s, man, into white and not-white. Now we cannot know, independently of experience, that any members of the cla.s.s, man, possess whiteness; but we may be quite sure, independently of all experience, that men are either white or not. Hence division by dichotomy comes strictly within the province of formal logic. Only it must be noticed that both sides of the division must be hypothetical.

For experience alone can tell us, on the one hand, that there are any men that are white, and on the other, that there are any but white men.

-- 413. What we call a division on a single basis is in reality the compressed result of a scheme of division and subdivision by dichotomy, in which a fresh principle has been introduced at every step. Thus when we divide men, on the basis of colour, into white, black, brown, red and yellow, we may be held to have first divided men into white and not-white, and then to have subdivided the men that are not-white into black and not-black, and so on. From the strictly formal point of view this division can only be represented as follows--

Men ___________________|_____ | | White (if any) Not-white (if any) _________________|_____ | | Black (if any) Not-black (if any) __________________|____ | | Brown (if any) Not-brown (if any) ____________________|____ | | Red (if any) Not-red (if any).

-- 414. Formal correctness requires that the last term in such a series should be negative. We have here to keep the term 'not-red' open, to cover any blue or green men that might turn up. It is only experience that enables us to subst.i.tute the positive term 'yellow' for 'not-red,' since we know as a matter of fact that there are no men but those of the five colours given in the original division.

-- 415. Any correct logical division always admits of being arrived at by the longer process of division and subdivision by dichotomy. For instance, the term quadrilateral, or four-sided rectilinear figure, is correctly divided into square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid and trapezium. The steps of which this division consists are as follows--

Quadrilateral __________|_________ | | Parallelogram Trapezium _____|_____________________ | | Rectangle Non-rectangle ___|___ _____|_____ | | | | Square Oblong Rhombus Rhomboid.

-- 416. In reckoning up the infimae species in such a scheme, we must of course be careful not to include any cla.s.s which has been already subdivided; but no harm is done by mixing an undivided cla.s.s, like trapezium, with the subdivisions of its cognate species.

-- 417. The two processes of definition and division are intimately connected with one another. Every definition suggests a division by dichotomy, and every division supplies us at once with a complete definition of all its members.

-- 418. Definition itself, so far as concerns its content, is, as we have already seen, extraneous to formal logic: but when once we have elicited a genus and difference out of the material elements of thought, we are enabled, without any further appeal to experience, to base thereon a division by dichotomy. Thus when man has been defined as a rational animal, we have at once suggested to us a division of animal into rational and irrational.

-- 419. Again, the addition of the attributes, rational and irrational respectively, to the common genus, animal, ipso facto supplies us with definitions of the species, man and brute. Similarly, when we subdivided rectangle into square and oblong on the basis of the equality or inequality of the adjacent sides, we were by so doing supplied with a definition both of square and oblong--'A square is a rectangle having all its sides equal,' and 'An oblong is a rectangle which has only its opposite sides equal.'

-- 420. The definition of a square just given amounts to the same thing as Euclid's definition, but it complies with a rule which has value as a matter of method, namely, that the definition should state the Proximate Genus of the thing defined.

-- 421. Since definition and division are concerned with the intension and extension of terms, they are commonly treated of under the first part of logic: but as the treatment of the subject implies a familiarity with the Heads of Predicables, which in their turn imply the proposition, it seems more desirable to deal with them under the second.

-- 422. We have already had occasion to distinguish division from Enumeration. The latter is the statement of the individual things to which a name applies. In enumeration, as in division, the wider term is predicable of each of the narrower ones.

-- 423. Part.i.tion is the mapping out of a physical whole into its component parts, as when we say that a tree consists of roots, stem, and branches. In a part.i.tion the name of the whole is not predicable of each of the parts.

-- 424. Distinction is the separation from one another of the various meanings of an equivocal term. The term distinguished is predicable indeed of each of the members, but of each in a different sense. An equivocal term is in fact not one but several terms, as would quickly appear, if we were to use definitions in place of names.

-- 425. We have seen that a logical whole is a genus viewed in relation to its underlying species. From this must be distinguished a metaphysical whole, which is a substance viewed in relation to its attributes, or a cla.s.s regarded in the same way. Logically, man is a part of the cla.s.s, animal; metaphysically, animal is contained in man. Thus a logical whole is a whole in extension, while a metaphysical whole is a whole in intension. From the former point of view species is contained in genus; from the latter genus is contained in species.

PART III.--OF INFERENCES.

CHAPTER I.

_Of Inferences in General_.

-- 426. To infer is to arrive at some truth, not by direct experience, but as a consequence of some truth or truths already known. If we see a charred circle on the gra.s.s, we infer that somebody has been lighting a fire there, though we have not seen anyone do it. This conclusion is arrived at in consequence of our previous experience of the effects of fire.

-- 427. The term Inference is used both for a process and for a product of thought.

As a process inference may be defined as the pa.s.sage of the mind from one or more propositions to another.

As a product of thought inference may be loosely declared to be the result of comparing propositions.

-- 428. Every inference consists of two parts--

(1) the truth or truths already known;

(2) the truth which we arrive at therefrom.

The former is called the Antecedent, the latter the Consequent. But this use of the terms 'antecedent' and 'consequent' must be carefully distinguished from the use to which they were put previously, to denote the two parts of a complex proposition.

-- 429. Strictly speaking, the term inference, as applied to a product of thought, includes both the antecedent and consequent: but it is often used for the consequent to the exclusion of the antecedent. Thus, when we have stated our premisses, we say quite naturally, 'And the inference I draw is so and so.'

-- 430. Inferences are either Inductive or Deductive. In induction we proceed from the less to the more general; in deduction from the more to the less general, or, at all events, to a truth of not greater generality than the one from which we started. In the former we work up to general principles; in the latter we work down from them, and elicit the particulars which they contain.

-- 431. Hence induction is a real process from the known to the unknown, whereas deduction is no more than the application of previously existing knowledge; or, to put the same thing more technically, in an inductive inference the consequent is not contained in the antecedent, in a deductive inference it is.

-- 432. When, after observing that gold, silver, lead, and other metals, are capable of being reduced to a liquid state by the application of heat, the mind leaps to the conclusion that the same will hold true of some other metal, as platinum, or of all metals, we have then an inductive inference, in which the conclusion, or consequent, is a new proposition, which was not contained in those that went before. We are led to this conclusion, not by reason, but by an instinct which teaches us to expect like results, under like circ.u.mstances. Experience can tell us only of the past: but we allow it to affect our notions of the future through a blind belief that 'the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.' Take away this conviction, and the bridge is cut which connects the known with the unknown, the past with the future. The commonest acts of daily life would fail to be performed, were it not for this a.s.sumption, which is itself no product of the reason. Thus man's intellect, like his faculties generally, rests upon a basis of instinct. He walks by faith, not by sight.

-- 433. It is a mistake to talk of inductive reasoning, as though it were a distinct species from deductive. The fact is that inductive inferences are either wholly instinctive, and so unsusceptible of logical vindication, or else they may be exhibited under the form of deductive inferences. We cannot be justified in inferring that platinum will be melted by heat, except where we have equal reason for a.s.serting the same thing of copper or any other metal. In fact we are justified in drawing an individual inference only when we can lay down the universal proposition, 'Every metal can be melted by heat.' But the moment this universal proposition is stated, the truth of the proposition in the individual instance flows from it by way of deductive inference. Take away the universal, and we have no logical warrant for arguing from one individual case to another. We do so, as was said before, only in virtue of that vague instinct which leads us to antic.i.p.ate like results from like appearances.