The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘Pragmatism’

In corollarial reasoning, the premisses act as stimulus to a suggestion according to general logical associations. But in theoric demonstration, it is necessary that associations should be introduced of which the premisses afford not the slightest hint. To this result two mental events must take place of natures as unlike each other as either is unlike an associative suggestion. Namely, in the first place, the ideas to be associated must be brought together in the mind, either by some accidental experience, or by the force of a natural or acquired instinct, or in consequence of a profound study of the forms of such associations. In any case, however, it will be a novel and original thought, cleverly shot upon the wing. In the second place an examination by means of experiments in the imagination must sufficiently show that the theoric association will involve no falsity.