But if, in the above example, the writer had drawn the Conclusion "All misers are selfish" (that is, "All are "), this would be going beyond his legitimate rights (since it would assert the existence of , which is not contained in the Premisses), and you would very properly say "Fallacious Conclusion!"
Now, when you read other treatises on Logic, you will meet with various kinds of (so-called) 'Fallacies' , which are by no means always so. For example, if you were to put before one of these Logicians the Pair of Premisses
| "No honest men cheat; | |
| No dishonest men are trustworthy." |
and were to ask him what Conclusion followed, he would probably say "None at all! Your Premisses offend against two distinct Rules, and are as fallacious as they can well be!" Then suppose you were bold enough to say "The Conclusion is 'No men who cheat are trustworthy'," I fear your Logical friend would turn away hastilyperhaps angry, perhaps only scornful: in any case, the result would be unpleasant. I advise you not to try the experiment!
"But why is this?" you will say. "Do you mean to tell us that all these Logicians are wrong?" Far from it, dear Reader! From their point of view, they are perfectly right. But they do not include, in their system, anything like all the possible forms of Syllogisms.
