man has been entrapped, without having considered and
understood its full force. When you admitted the major
premiss, you asserted the conclusion, 'but,' says
Archbishop Whately, 'you asserted it by implication
merely; this, however, can here only mean that you
asserted it unconsciously--that you did not know you
were asserting it; but if so, the difficulty revives in
this shape. Ought you not to have known? Were you
warranted in asserting the general proposition without
having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing
which it fairly includes? And if not, what, then, is the
syllogistic art but a contrivance for catching you in a
trap, and holding you fast in it?'

"From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue.
The proposition, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal,
is evidently an inference, it is got at as a conclusion
from something else; but do we, in reality, conclude it
from the proposition--All men are mortal? I answer, No.

"The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking
the distinction between the two parts of the process of
philosophizing--the inferring part and the registering
part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the
former. The mistake is that of referring a man to his
own notes for the _origin_ of his knowledge. If a man is
asked a question, and is at the moment unable to answer
it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum
which he carries about with him. But if he were asked
how the fact came to his knowledge, he would scarcely
answer, because it was set down in his note-book.

"Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington
is mortal, is immediately an inference from the
proposition, All men are mortal, whence do we derive our
knowledge of that general truth? No supernatural aid
being supposed, the answer must be, from observation.
Now, all which men can observe are individual cases.
From these all general truths must be drawn, and into
these they may be again resolved; for a general truth is
but an aggregate of particular truths--a comprehensive
expression, by which an indefinite number of individual
facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general
proposition is not merely a compendious form for
recording and preserving in the memory a number of
particular facts, all