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nydus/The Game of LogicPublic

This instructional book presents a logic game played with a diagram and nine counters. It explains how to express propositions through the relationship between things and their attributes.

Page 40 of 126
Table of Contents

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

The result is

                     -------
                    |   | 1 |
                    |---|---|
                    |   |   |
                     -------

Our 'Conclusion', then, must be got out of the rather meager piece of information that there is a red counter in the xy'-Square. Hence our Conclusion is "some x are y' ", i.e. "some new Cakes are not-nice (Cakes)": or, if you prefer to take y' as your Subject, "some not-nice Cakes are new (Cakes)"; but the other looks neatest.

We will now write out the whole Syllogism, putting the symbol &there4[*] for "therefore", and omitting "Cakes", for the sake of brevity, at the end of each Proposition.

[*][NOTE from Brett: The use of "&there4" is a rather arbitrary selection. There is no font available in general practice which renders the "therefore" symbol correction (three dots in a triangular formation). This can be done, however, in HTML, so if this document is read in a browser, then the symbol will be properly recognized. This is a poor man's excuse.]

          "Some new Cakes are unwholesome;
           No nice Cakes are unwholesome
           &there4 Some new Cakes are not-nice."

And you have now worked out, successfully, your first 'SYLLOGISM'. Permit me to congratulate you, and to express the hope that it is but the beginning of a long and glorious series of similar victories!

We will work out one other Syllogism--a rather harder one than the last--and then, I think, you may be safely left to play the Game by yourself, or (better) with any friend whom you can find, that is able and willing to take a share in the sport.

Let us see what we can make of the two Premisses--

              "All Dragons are uncanny;
               All Scotchmen are canny."

Remember, I don't guarantee the Premisses to be FACTS. In the first place, I never even saw a Dragon: and, in the second place, it isn't of the slightest consequence to us, as LOGICIANS, whether our Premisses are true or false: all WE have to do is to make out whether they LEAD LOGICALLY TO THE CONCLUSION, so that, if THEY were true, IT would be true also.

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