ABSTRACT
The western syllogism has the appearance of having sprung all at once into existence, from the head of Aristotle, clad in complete mail. It has about it no marks of the labour of thought which brought it to birth, and seems more like a work of art than an organism with an evolution behind it. The Indian 'syllogism,' on the other hand, is an organism with its history plainly recorded in its structure: an untidy organism, too, with vestigial structures and rudimentary organs which are changing their functions while preserving more or less of their primitive form. And for this reason, perhaps, it may have something to tell us about the 'morphology' of thought which is not so transparently conveyed by the more perfect work of art, the Aristotelian syllogism. The more untidy organism may therefore repay study.
