If these observations hold with respect to the art of reasoning or argumentation, as it is cultivated by men undisciplined in the contentions of the schools, they will be found to apply with infinitely greater force to those disputants (if any such are still to be found) who, in the present advanced state of human knowledge, have been at pains to fortify themselves, by a course of persevering study, with the arms of the Aristotelian logic. Persons of the former description often reason conscientiously with warmth, from false premises, which they are led by passion, or by want of information, to mistake for truth. Those of the latter description proceed systematically on the radical errour of conceiving the reasoning process to be the most powerful instrument by which truth is to be attained; combined with the secondary errour of supposing that the power of reasoning may be strengthened and improved by the syllogistic art.

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 weaknesses 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,

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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 errour 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 errours, 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 agregés;
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.

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

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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

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

"much as knowing the cause they contend for. If a "man's life shews that he has no serious regard for reli"gion, 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 com

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mon cause, and thereby approve himself to those who "can give him credit, preferment, and protection in that "society. Thus men become combatants for those opin❝ions they were never convinced of; no, nor ever had so "much as floating in their heads; and THOUGH ONE CAN"NOT SAY THERE ARE FEWER IMPROBABLE OR ERRON66 EOUS OPINIONS IN THE WORLD THAN THERE ARE, YET THIS IS CERTAIN, THERE ARE FEWER THAT ACTUALLY ASSENT TO THEM, AND MISTAKE THEM FOR TRUTHS, 66 THAN IS IMAGINED."*

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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 abettors.

* 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.

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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. 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 inferiour 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

* An argument of this sort in favour 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