In one of Lord Kames's sketches, there is an amusing and instructive collection of facts to illustrate the progress of reason; a phrase, by which he seems to mean chiefly the progress of good sense, or of that quality of the intellect which is very significantly expressed by the epithet enlightened. To what is this progress (which has been going on with such unexampled rapidity during the two last centuries) to be ascribed? Not surely to any improvement in the art of reasoning; for many of the most melancholy weaknesses which he has recorded, were exhibited by men, distinguished by powers of discussion, and a reach of thought, which have never been surpassed; while, on the other hand, the same weakness would now be treated with contempt by the lowest of the vulgar. The principal cause, I apprehend, has been, the general diffusion of knowledge (and more especially of experimental knowledge) by the art of printing: in consequence of which, those prejudices which had so long withstood the assaults both of argument and of ridicule, have been gradually destroyed by their mutual collision, or lost in the infinite multiplicity of elementary truths which are identified with the operations of the infant understanding. To examine the process by which truth has been slowly and insensibly cleared from that admixture of error, with which, during the long night of Gothic ignorance, it was contaminated and disfigured, would form a very interesting subject of philosophical speculation. At present, it is sufficient to remark, how little we are indebted for our emancipation from this intellectual bondage, to those qualities which it was the professed object of the school logic to cultivate; and that, in the same proportion in which liberality and light have spread over Europe, this branch of study has sunk in the general estimation.

Of the inefficacy of mere reasoning in bringing men to an agreement on those questions which, in all ages, have furnished to the learned the chief matter of controversy, a very just idea seems to have been formed by the ingenious author of the following lines; who has, at the same time, hinted at a remedy against a numerous and important class of speculative errors, more likely to

succeed than any which is to be derived from the most skilful application of Aristotle's rules; or, indeed, from any direct argumentative refutation, how conclusive and satisfactory soever it may appear to an unbiassed judgment. It must, at the same time, be owned, that this remedy is not without danger; and that the same habits which are so useful in correcting the prejudices of the monastic bigot, and so instructive to all whose principles are sufficiently fortified by reflection, can scarcely fail to produce pernicious effects, where they operate upon a character not previously formed and confirmed by a judicious education.

“En parcourant au loin la planète ou nous sommes,

Que verrons nous ? les torts et les travers des hommes !
Ici c'est un synode, et là c'est un divan,
Nous verrons le Mufti, le Derviche, l'Iman,
Le Bonze, le Lama, le Talapoin, le Pope,
Les antiques Rabbins et les Abbés d'Europe,
Nos moines, nos prélats, nos docteurs agrégés;
Etes vous disputeurs, mes amis? voyagez."

To these verses it may not be altogether useless to subjoin a short quotation from Mr. Locke; in whose opinion the aid of foreign travel seems to be less necessary for enlightening some of the classes of controversialists included in the foregoing enumeration, than was suspected by the poet. The moral of the passage (if due allowances be made for the satirical spirit which it breathes) is pleasing on the whole, as it suggests the probability, that our common estimates of the intellectual darkness of our own times are not a little exaggerated.

"Notwithstanding the great noise that is made in the world about errors and opinions, I must do mankind that right as to say, There are not so many men in errors and wrong opinions, as is commonly supposed. Not that I think they embrace the truth; but, indeed, because concerning those doctrines they keep such a stir about, they have no thought, no opinion at all. For if any one should a little catechize the greatest part of the partizans of most of the sects in the world, he would not

* Discours sur les Disputes, par M. de Rulhière.

find, concerning those matters they are so zealous for, that they have any opinion of their own: much less would he have reason to think that they took them upon the examination of arguments and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick to a party that education or interest has engaged them in ; and there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courage and warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining, or so much as knowing, the cause they contend for. If a man's life shows that he has no serious regard for religion, for what reason should we think that he beats his head about the opinions of his church, and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that doctrine? 'Tis enough for him to obey his leaders, to have his hand and his tongue ready for the support of the common cause, and thereby approve himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, and protection in that society. Thus men become combatants for those opinions they were never convinced of; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads; and THOUGH

ONE CANNOT SAY THERE ARE FEWER IMPROBABLE OR ERRONEOUS OPINIONS IN THE WORLD THAN THERE ARE, YET THIS IS CERTAIN, THERE ARE FEWER THAT ACTUALLY ASSENT TO THEM, AND MISTAKE THEM FOR TRUTHS, THAN IS IMAGINED.”*

If these remarks of Locke were duly weighed, they would have a tendency to abridge the number of controversial writers; and to encourage philosophers to attempt the improvement of mankind, rather by adding to the stock of useful knowledge, than by waging a direct war with prejudices, which have less root in the understandings than in the interests and passions of their abet

tors.

Essay on Human Understanding. Book iv. c. 20.

SECTION III.

In what respects the study of the Aristotelian Logic may be useful to Disputants.— A general acquaintance with it justly regarded as an essential accomplishment to those who are liberally educated.—Doubts suggested by some late Writers, concerning Aristotle's claims to the invention of the Syllogistic Theory.

THE general result of the foregoing reflections is, That neither the means employed by the school logic for the assistance of the discursive faculty, nor the accomplishment of that end, were it really attained, are of much consequence in promoting the enlargement of the mind, or in guarding it against the influence of erroneous opinions. It is, however, a very different question, how far this art may be of use to such as are led by profession or inclination to try their strength in polemical warfare. My own opinion is, that, in the present age, it would not give to the disputant, in the judgment of men whose suffrage is of any value, the slightest advantage over his antagonist. In earlier times, indeed, the case must have been different. While the scholastic forms continued to be kept up, and while schoolmen were the sole judges of the contest, an expert logician could not fail to obtain an easy victory over an inferior proficient. Now, however, when the supreme tribunal to which all parties must appeal, is to be found, not within but without the walls of universities; and when the most learned dialectician must, for his own credit, avoid all allusion to the technical terms and technical forms of his art, can it be imagined that the mere possession of its rules furnishes him with invisible aid for annoying his adversary, or renders him invulnerable by some secret spell against the weapons of his assailant? * Were this

* An argument of this sort in favor of the Aristotelian logic, has, in fact, been lately alleged, in a treatise to which I have already had occasion to refer.

"Mr. Locke seems throughout to imagine that no use can be made of the doctrine of syllogisms, unless by men who deliver their reasonings in syllogistic form. That would, indeed, justly expose a man to the imputation of disgusting pedantry and tediousness. But, in fact, he who never uses an expression borrowed from the Aristotelic logic, may yet, unobserved, be availing himself, in the most important manner of its use, by bringing definitions, divisions, and arguments, to the test of its rules.

"In the mere application of it to the examining of an argument which we desire to refute, the logician will be able to bring the argument in his own mind to syllo

really the case, one might have expected that the advocates who have undertaken its defence (considering how much their pride was interested in the controversy) would have given us some better specimens of its practical utility, in defending it against the unscientific attacks of Bacon and of Locke. It is, however, not a little remarkable, that, in every argument which they have attempted in its favor, they have not only been worsted by those very antagonists whom they accuse of ignorance, but fairly driven from the field of battle.*

gistic form. He will then have before his view every constituent part of the argument; some of which may have been wholly suppressed by his antagonist, and others disguised by ambiguity and declamation.-He knows every point in which it is subject to examination. He perceives immediately, by the rules of his art, whether the premises may be acknowledged, and the conclusion denied, for want of a vis consequentiæ.-If not, he knows where to look for a weakness.-He turns to each of the premises, and considers whether they are false, dubious, or equivocal and is thus prepared and directed to expose every weak point in the argument with clearness, precision, and method; and this to those who perhaps are wholly ignorant of the aids by which the speaker is thus enabled to carry conviction with his discourse. ."— Commentary on the Compendium of Logic, used in the University of Dublin. Dublin, 1805.

* In most of the defences of the school logic which I have seen, the chief weapon employed has been that kind of argument which, in scholastic phraseology, is called the Argumentum ad Hominem; an argument in the use of which much regard to consistency is seldom to be expected. In one sentence, accordingly, Bacon and Locke are accused of having never read Aristotle; and, in the next, of having borrowed from Aristotle the most valuable part of their writings.

With respect to Locke, it has been triumphantly observed, that his acquaintance with Aristotle's logic must have been superficial, as he has, in one of his objections, manifestly confounded particular with singular propositions. (Commentary on the Dublin Compendium.) The criticism, I have no doubt, is just; but does it, therefore, follow, that a greater familiarity with the technical niceties of an art which he despised, would have rendered this profound thinker more capable of forming a just estimate of its scope and spirit, or of its efficacy in aiding the human understanding? Somewhat of the same description are the attempts which have been repeatedly made to discredit the strictures of Dr. Reid, by appealing to his own acknowledgment, that there might possibly be some parts of the Analytics and Topics which he had never read. The passage in which this acknowledgment is made, is so characteristical of the modesty and candor of the writer, that I am tempted to annex it to this note ;-more especially, as I am persuaded, that, with many readers, it will have the effect of confirming, rather than of shaking, their confidence in the general correctness and fidelity of his researches.

"In attempting to give some account of the Analytics and of the Topics of Aristotle, ingenuity requires me to confess, that though I have often purposed to read the whole with care, and to understand what is intelligible, yet my courage and patience always failed before I had done. Why should I throw away so much time and painful attention upon a thing of so little real use? If I had lived in those ages when the knowledge of Aristotle's Organon entitled a man to the highest rank in philosophy, ambition might have induced me to employ upon it some years of painful study; and less, I conceive, would not be sufficient. Such reflections as these always got the better of my resolution, when the first ardor began to cool. All I can say is, that I have read some parts of the books with care, some slightly, and some perhaps not at all. I have glanced over the whole often, and when any thing attracted my attention, have dipped into it till my appetite was satisfied. Of all reading, it is the most dry and the most painful, employing an infinite labor of demonstration, about things of the most abstract nature, delivered in a laconic style, and often, I think,