Hinton - The Fourth Dimension.pdf

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THE FOURTH DIMENSION
us into the complexities incident on its application in
classificatory science, let us follow Mrs. Alicia Boole Stott
in her representation of the syllogism by its means. She
will be interested to find that the curious gap she detected
has a significance.
A syllogism consists of two statements, the major and
the minor premiss, with the conclusion that can be drawn
from them. Thus, to take an instance, fig. 49. It is
evident, from looking at the successive figures that, if we
know that the region M lies altogether within the region
P, and also know that the region S lies altogether within
the region M, we can conclude that the region S lies
altogether within the region P. M is P,
M
S M
S P
Fig. 49.
major premiss; S is M, minor premiss; S
is P, conclusion. Given the first two data
we must conclude that S lies in P. The
conclusion S is P involves two terms, S and
P, which are respectively called the subject
and the predicate, the letters S and P
being chosen with reference to the parts
the notions they designate play in the
conclusion. S is the subject of the conclusion,
P is the predicate of the conclusion.
The major premiss we take to be, that
which does not involve S, and here we
always write it first.
There are several varieties of statement
possessing different degrees of universality and manners of
assertiveness. These different forms of statement are
called the moods.
We will take the major premiss as one variable, as a
thing capable of different modifications of the same kind,
the minor premiss as another, and the different moods we
will consider as defining the variations which these
variables undergo.