Note 8 — Chapter III · OF THE FUNCTIONS AND LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM.

It is hardly necessary to say, that I am not contending for any such absurdity as that we actually "ought to have known" and considered the case of every individual man, past, present, and future, before affirming that all men are mortal: although this interpretation has been, strangely enough, put upon the preceding observations. There is no difference between me and Archbishop Whately, or any other defender of the syllogism, on the practical part of the matter; I am only pointing out an inconsistency in the logical theory of it, as conceived by almost all writers. I do not say that a person who affirmed, before the Duke of Wellington was born, that all men are mortal, knew that the Duke of Wellington was mortal; but I do say that he asserted it; and I ask for an explanation of the apparent logical fallacy, of adducing in proof of the Duke of Wellington's mortality, a general statement which presupposes it. Finding no sufficient resolution of this difficulty in any of the writers on Logic, I have attempted to supply one.