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Von Domarus (1954) and Arieti (19SSa, 19SSb) have asserted that an important aspect of schizophrenic thinking disorder is a certain kind of error in syllogistic reasoning. Arieti calls this error tendency "Von Domarus' principle" (or "paleologic") and describes it as follows: "Whereas the normal person accepts identity only upon the basis of identical subjects, the paleologician accepts identity based upon identical predicates" (p. 194). For example, given the premises:Stags are swift, Certain Indians are swift Von Domarus and Arieti both state that on the basis of the common predicate of swiftness, schizophrenics will conclude that "Certain Indians are stags," while normal people will not. Arieti adds (19SSb, p. 57) that "Of course this principle of Von Domarus must be viewed as determined by an inability to abstract."However, other investigators (Chapman & Chapman, 1959;Sells, 1936) have reported strong error preferences of this sort by normals in syllogisms identical in figure and mood 3 with the above. Chapman & Chap-

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