We require, then, in the propositional calculus, no indefinables except the two kinds of implication—remembering, however, that formal implication is a complex notion, whose analysis remains to be undertaken. As regards our two indefinables, we require certain indemonstrable propositions, which hitherto I have not succeeded in reducing to less than ten. Some indemonstrables there must be; and some propositions, such as the syllogism, must be of that number, since no demonstration is possible without them. But concerning others, it may be doubted whether they are indemonstrable or merely undemonstrated; and it should be observed that the method of supposing an axiom false, and deducing the consequences of this assumption, which has been found admirable in such cases as the axiom of parallels, is here not universally available. For all our axioms are principles of deduction; and if they are true, the consequences which appear to follow from the employment of an opposite principle will not really follow, so that arguments from the supposition of the falsity of an axiom are here subject to special fallacies. Thus the number of indemonstrable propositions may be capable of further reduction, and in regard to some of them I know of no grounds for regarding them as indemonstrable except that they have hitherto remained undemonstrated.(§ 17 ¶ 1)