I can conceive only one way out of this difficulty, viz., that what really forms the proof is the other part of the assertion: the portion of it, the truth of which has been ascertained previously: and that the unproved part is bound up in one formula with the proved part in mere anticipation, and as a memorandum of the nature of the conclusions which we are prepared to prove. With respect to the minor premise in its formal shape, the minor as it stands in the syllogism, predicating of Socrates a definite class name, I readily admit that it is no more a necessary part of reasoning than the major. When there is a major, doing its work by means of a class name, minors are needed to interpret it: but reasoning can be carried on without either the one or the other. They are not the conditions of reasoning, but a precaution against erroneous reasoning. The only minor premise necessary to reasoning in the example under consideration, is, Socrates is like A, B, C, and the other individuals who are known to have died. And this is the only universal type of that step in the reasoning process which is represented by the minor.

Experience, however, of the uncertainty of this loose mode of inference, teaches the expediency of determining beforehand what kind of likeness to the cases observed, is necessary to bring an unobserved case within the same predicate; and the answer to this question is the major. The minor then identifies the precise kind of likeness possessed by Socrates, as being the kind required by the formula. Thus the syllogistic major and the syllogistic minor start into existence together, and are called forth by the same exigency. When we conclude from personal experience without referring to any record—to any general theorems, either written, or traditional, or mentally registered by ourselves as conclusions of our own drawing—we do not use, in our thoughts, either a major or a minor, such as the syllogism puts into words. When, however, we revise this rough inference from particulars to particulars, and substitute a careful one, the revision consists in selecting two syllogistic premises. But this neither alters nor adds to the evidence we had before; it only puts us in a better position for judging whether our inference from particulars to particulars is well grounded.