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If such was really his idea, the event has shown how soundly he judged of human nature, in this grand experiment upon its weakness and ductility.*

That Aristole's works have of late fallen into general neglect, is a common subject of complaint among his idolaters. It would be nearer the truth to say, that the number of Aristotle's rational and enlightened admirers was never so great as at the present moment. In the same proportion in which his logic has lost its credit, his ethics, his politics, his poetics, his rhetoric, and his natural history, have risen in the public estimation. No similar triumph of genius is recorded in the annals of philosophy-To subjugate, for so many centuries, the minds of men, by furnishing employment (unproductive as it was) to their intellectual faculties, at a time when the low state of experimental knowledge did not supply more substantial materials for their reasonings ;-and afterwards, when, at the distance of two thousand years, the light of true science began to dawn, to contribute so large a share to its growing splendor.

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In the course of the foregoing animadversions on the syllogistic theory, I have proceeded on the supposition, that the whole glory of the invention belongs to Aristotle. It is proper, however, before dismissing the subject, to take some notice of the doubts which have been

*The following historical sketch from Ludovicus Vives may serve to show, that the foregoing supposition is not altogether gratuitous. "A temporibus Platonis et Aristotelis usque ad Alexandrum Aphrodisæum, qui vixit Severo et ejus filiis Principibus, Aristoteles nominabatur magis, quam vel legebatur a doctis vel intelligebatur. Primus ille aggressus eum enarrare, et adjuvit studia multorum et ad alia in eo Philosopho quærenda excitavit. Mansit tamen crebrior in manibus hominum et notior Plato, usque ad scholas in Galliâ et Italiâ publice constitutas, id est, quamdiu Græca et Latina lingua viguerunt. Postea vero quam theatricæ cœperunt esse disciplinæ, omnisque earum fructus existimatus est, posse disputando fucum facere, et os obturare, et pulverem ob oculos jacere, idque imperitissimâ peritiâ, et nominibus ad lubitum confictis, accomodatiores ad rem visi sunt libri logici Aristotelis et physici, relictis permultis præclaris ejus operibus: Platone vero, et quod ab eis non intellegeretur, quamvis multo minus Aristoteles, et quod artificium videretur docere, ne nominato quidem; non quod minorem aut ineruditiorem putem Platone Aristotelem, sed quod ferendum non est, Platonem sanctissimum philosophum præteriri, et Aristotelem ita legi, ut meliore rejecta parte, quæ retinetur id cogatur loqui, quod ipsi jubent." Ludovic. Vives de Civ. Dei, L. viii. c. 10.

A remark similar to this is made by Bayle. "Ce qui doit étonner le plus les hommes sages, c'est que les professeurs se soient si furieusement entêtez des hypothèses philosophiques d'Aristote. Si l'on avoit eu cette prévention pour sa poetique, et pour sa rhétorique, il y auroit moins de sujet de s'étonner; mais, on s'est entêté du plus foible de ses ouvreges, je veux dire, de sa logique et de sa physique."-(Bayle, Art. Aristote.)

suggested upon this head, in consequence of the lights recently thrown on the remains of ancient science still existing in the East. Father Pons, a Jesuit missionary, was (I believe) the first person who communicated to the learned of Europe, the very interesting fact, that the use of the syllogism is, at this day, familiarly known to the Bramins of India ;* but this information does not seem to have attracted much attention in England, till it was corroborated by the indisputable testimony of Sir William Jones, in his third discourse to the Asiatic Society. "It will be sufficient," he observes, "in this dissertation to assume, what might be proved beyond controversy, that we now live among the adorers of those very deities who were worshipped under different names in old Greece and Italy, and among the professors of those philosophical tenets, which the Ionic and Attic writers illustrated with all the beauties of their molodious language. On one hand we see the trident of Neptune, the eagle of Jupiter, the satyrs of Bacchus, the bow of Cupid, and the chariot of the Sun; on the other, we hear the cymbals of Rhea, the songs of the Muses, and the pastoral tales of Apollo Nomius. In more retired scenes, in groves, and in seminaries of learning, we may perceive the Brahmans and the Sermanes mentioned by Clemens, disputing in the forms of logic, or discoursing on the vanity of human enjoyments, on the immortality of the soul, her emanation from the eternal mind, her debasement, wanderings, and final union with her source. The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Dersana Sastra, comprise all the metaphysics of the old academy, the Stoa and the Lyceum; nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same source with the sages of India." ↑

*Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Tome XXVI. (old edition.)—Tome XIV. edit. of 1781. The letter is dated 1740.

† Delivered in 1786.

Works of Sir William Jones, Vol. I. p. 28.

In the same discourse, we are informed, that "the Hindoos have numerous works on grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, which are extant and accessible." An examina

In a subsequent discourse, the same author mentions "a tradition, which prevailed, according to the wellinformed author of the Dabistán, in the Panjab, and in several Persian provinces, that, among other Indian curiosities, which Callisthenes transmitted to his uncle, was a technical system of logic, which the Brahmans had communicated to the inquisitive Greek, and which the Mohammedan writer supposes to have been the groundwork of the famous Aristotelian method. If this be true," continues Sir W. Jones,-and none will dispute the justness of his remark, "it is one of the most interesting facts that I have met with in Asia."*

Of the soundness of the opinion concerning the origin of the Greek philosophy, to which these quotations give the sanction of an authority so truly respectable, our stock of facts is as yet too scanty to enable us to form a competent judgment. Some may perhaps think, that the knowledge of the Aristotelian logic which exists in India, may be sufficiently accounted for by the Mohammedan conquests; and by the veneration in which Aristotle was held, from a very early period, by the followers of the prophet.† On the other hand, it

tion of these is certainly an object of literary curiosity, highly deserving of farther attention.

*Eleventh discourse, delivered in 1794.

"La philosophie Péripatétique s'est tellement établie par tout, qu'on n'en lit plus d'autre par toutes les universitez Chrétiennes. Ceiles mêmes, qui sont contraintes de recevoir les impostures de Mahomet, n'enseignent les sciences que conformément aux principes du Lycée, auxquels ils s'attachent si fort, qu'Averroes, Alfarabius, Albumassar, et assez d'autres philosophes Arabes se sont souvent éloignés des sentiments de leur prophète, pour ne pas contredire ceux d'Aristote, que les Turcs ont en leur idiome Turquesque et en Arabe, comme Belon le rapporte."-La Motte le Vayer; quoted by Bayle, Art. Aristote.

"L'Auteur, dont j'emprunte ces paroles, dit dans un autre volume, que, selon la relation d'Olearius, les Ferses ont toutes les œuvres d'Aristote, expliquées par beaucoup de commentaires Arabes. 'Bergeron (dit il) remarque, dans son Traité des Tartares, qu'ils possèdent les livres d'Aristote, traduits en leur langue, enseignant, avec autant de soumission qu'on peut faire ici, sa doctrine à Samarcand, université du Grand Mogol, et à présent ville capitale du Royaume d'Usbec.'"

In the 8th volume of the Asiatic Researches, there is a paper by Dr. Balfour, containing some curious extracts (accompanied with an English version) from a Persian translation of an Arabic Treatise, entitled the "Essence of Logic." In the introduction to these extracts, Dr. Balfour mentions it as an indisputable fact, that "the system of logic, generally ascribed to Aristotle, constitutes, at this time, the logic of all the nations of Asia who profess the Mahometan faith ;" and it seems to have been with a view of rendering this fact still more palpable to common readers, that the author has taken the trouble to translate, through the medium of the Persian, the Arabic original; from which language the knowledge of Aristotle's logic, possessed by the orientals, is supposed to have been derived.

must be acknowledged, that this part of Aristotle's work contains some intrinsic evidence of aid borrowed from a more ancient school. Besides that imposing appearance which it exhibits of systematical completeness in its innumerable details; and which we can scarcely suppose that it could have received from the original inventor of the art, there is a want of harmony or unity in some of its fundamental principles, which seems to betray a combination of different and of discordant theories. I allude more particularly to the view which it gives of the nature of science and of demonstration, compared with Aristotle's well-known opinions concerning the natural progress of the mind in the acquisition of knowledge. That the author of the Organon was fully aware of an incongruity so obvious, there can be little doubt; and it was not improbably with a view to disguise or to conceal it, that he was induced to avoid, as much as possible, every reference to examples; and to adopt that abstract and symbolical language which might divert the attention from the inanity of his demonstrations, by occupying it in a perpetual effort to unriddle the terms in which they are expressed.

Nor does there seem to be any thing in these suggestions (which I hazard with much diffidence) inconsistent with Aristotle's own statement, in the concluding chapter of the book of Sophisms. This chapter has indeed (as far as I know) been universally understood as advancing a claim to the whole art of syllogism;* but I must acknowledge, that it appears to me to admit of a very fair construction, without supposing the claim to comprehend all the doctrines delivered in the books of Analytics. In support of this idea, it may be remarked, that while Aristotle strongly contrasts the dialectical art, as taught in the preceding treatise, with the art of dis

* "The conclusion of this treatise," the book of Sophisms, "ought not to be overlooked: it manifestly relates, not to the present treatise only, but also to the whole Analytics and Topics of the author."-Reid's Analysis, &c. Chap. v. Sect. iii.

If I were satisfied that this observation is just, I should think that nothing short of the most irresistible evidence could be reasonably opposed to the direct assertion of Aristotle. It is quite inconceivable, that he should have wilfully concealed or misrepresented the truth, at a period when there could not fail to be many philosophers in Greece, both able and willing to expose the deception.

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putation as previously practised in Greece, he does not make the slightest reference to the distinction between demonstrative and dialectical syllogisms, or to those doctrines with respect to demonstration and science, which accord so ill with the general spirit of his philosophy. It does not seem, therefore, to be a very unreasonable supposition, that to these doctrines (with which, for many reasons, he might judge it expedient to incorporate his own inventions and innovations) he only gave that systematical and technical form, which, by its peculiar phraseology and other imposing appendages, was calculated at once to veil their imperfections, and to gratify the vanity of those who should make them objects of study. It is surely not impossible, that the syllogistic theory may have existed as a subject of abstract speculation, long before any attempt was made to introduce the syllogism into the schools as a weapon of controversy, or to prescribe rules for the skilful and scientific management of a viva voce dispute.

It is true, that Aristotle's language, upon this occasion, is somewhat loose and equivocal; but it must be remembered, that it was addressed to his contemporaries, who were perfectly acquainted with the real extent of his merits as an inventor; and to whom, accordingly, it was not necessary to state his pretensions in terms more definite and explicit.

I shall only add, that this conjecture (supposing it for a moment to be sanctioned by the judgment of the learned) would still leave Aristotle in complete possession of by far the most ingenious and practical part of the scholastic logic;* while, at the same time,-should future

*This was plainly the opinion of Cicero: " In hac arte," he observes, speaking of the dialectical art, as it was cultivated by the Stoics,-" in hac arte, si modo est hæc ars, nullum est præceptum quomodo verum inveniatur, sed tantum est quomodo judicetur."—And in a few sentences after, "Quare istam artem totam dimittamus, quæ in excogitandis argumentis muta nimium est, in judicandis nimium loquax." (De Orat. Lib. ii. 86, 87.) The first sentence is literally applicable to the doctrine of syllogism considered theoretically the second contrasts the inutility of this doctrine with the importance of such subjects as are treated of in Aristotle's Topics.

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Whether Cicero and Quinctilian did not overrate the advantages to be derived from the study of the Loci as an organ of invention is a question altogether foreign to our present inquiries. That it was admirably adapted for those argumentative and rhetorical displays which were so highly valued in ancient times, there can be no doubt, after what these great masters of oratory have written on the subject; but it does not follow, that, in the present state of society, it would reward the labors of

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