and Has All S _p_? is the form of a
question that we have in our minds when we make an inductive survey on
the above method. I point this out to emphasise the fact that there is
no prerogative in the form All S is P except for syllogistic purposes.

This inductive survey may be made a useful COLLATERAL DISCIPLINE. The
bare forms of Syllogistic are a useless item of knowledge unless they
are applied to concrete thought. And determining the quantity of a
common aphorism or saw, the limits within which it is meant to hold
good, is a valuable discipline in exactness of understanding. In
trying to penetrate to the inner intention of a loose general maxim,
we discover that what it is really intended to assert is a general
connexion of attributes, and a survey of concrete cases leads to
a more exact apprehension of those attributes. Thus in considering
whether _Knowledge is power_ is meant to be asserted of all knowledge,
we encounter along with such examples as the sailor's knowledge that
wetting a rope shortens it, which enabled some masons to raise a stone
to its desired position, or the knowledge of French roads possessed by
the German invaders,--along with such examples as these we encounter
cases where a knowledge of difficulties without a knowledge of the
means of overcoming them is paralysing to action. Samuel Daniel
says:--

Where timid knowledge stands considering
Audacious ignorance has done the deed.

Studying numerous cases where "Knowledge is power" is alleged or
denied, we find that what is meant is that a knowledge of the right
means of doing anything is power--in short, that the predicate is not
made of all knowledge, but only of a species of knowledge.

Take, again, _Custom blunts sensibility_. Putting this in the
concrete, and inquiring what predicate is made about "men accustomed
to anything" (S), we have no difficulty in finding examples where such
men are said to become indifferent to it. We find such illustrations
as Lovelace's famous "Paradox":--

Through foul we follow fair
For had the world one face
And earth been bright as air
We had known neither place.
Indians smell not their nest
The Swiss and Finn taste best
The spices of the East.

So men accustomed to riches are not acutely sensible of their
advantages: dwellers in noisy streets cease to be distracted by the
din: the watchmaker ceases to hear the multitudinous ticking in his
shop: the neighbours of chemical w