A Logic Of Facts

George Jacob Holyoake

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Chapter 15 TECHNICAL TERMS.

08-13 18:35

Chapter 1 ***

* Or, Fakoro, as indeed all the particulars in this place

recited.

** Or, Dokamo. but a brief summary of the subjects

comprised in his logic in reference to the syllogism.

***Bruce. These references to Fakoro and Dokamo are Whately's.

Lord Kames cites from the father of logic the following syllogism, which will bear repetition as an extraordinary instance of that assumption for which the Logic of the Schools provides no remedy:-

Heavy bodies naturally tend to the centre of the universe.

We know, by experience, that heavy bodies tend to the centre of the earth.

Therefore the centre of the earth is the centre of the universe.

But by what experience did Aristotle discover the centre of the universe, so as to become aware that heavy bodies naturally tend there? On what facts rest the measurement of the radii from our earth to the boundless circumference of space? How did he ascertain the limits of that which has no limits? Yet, strange to say, the Logic of the Schools prides itself in leaving us where the Stagyrite left us.

'When mankind began to reason on the phenomena of nature, they were solicitous to abstract, and they formed general propositions from a limited observation. Though these propositions were assumed, they were admitted as true. They were not examined by appeals to nature, but by comparison with other propositions.'*

In this syllogism from Aristotle, there is the usual compliance with accredited rules, and the same defiance of common sense. Such examples are deemed perfect reasoning and legitimate argument; but is it not a mockery to encourage the belief that we can have reason and argument, without the truth? Only this shallow consolation remains to us. If the logician of the schoole does not enlighten the understanding, he is at least reputed not to offend the taste, and he wins the equivocal praise of Butler:-

'He'll run in debt by disputation,

And pay with ratiocination;

All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure, he will do.'

Syllogisms are to truth what rhyme is to poetry. 'It is a well known fact that verse, faultless in form, may be utterly destitute of poetic fire or feeling.'**

* Bruce.

** A. J. D. D'Orsey, Eng. Gram., part 2, article Prosody.

According to the Logic of the Schools, 'the question respecting the validity of an argument is not whether the conclusion be true, but whether it follows from the premises adduced.' It was the bitter experience of Bordon of the delusiveness of such partial logic that induced him to exclaim, 'one fact is worth fifty arguments.'

With such authorities, 'a valid argument is that which it so stated that its conclusiveness is evident from the mere form of the expression.' But since it is admitted that if the data reasoned upon be incorrect, no logical skill can secure a correct result; it is evident that however faultless the form, the inquirer after truth is in no way nearer his object, unless he be instructed how to lay a foundation of faultless facts. He then, who is in love with truth rather than logomachy, will admit, in spite of the most ingenious analogies, that there is some room for a logic of facts, as well as a logic of words.