thought in favour with art (which perhaps they are beholden to) a little too much, to deprefs and difcredit nature. Reafon, by its own penetration, where it is ftrong and exercised, ufually fees quicker and clearer without fyllogifm. If use of those spectacles has fo dimmed its fight, that it cannot without them fee confequences or inconfequences in argumentation, I am not fo unreasonable as to be against the ufing them; every one knows what best fits his own fight; but let him not thence conclude all in the dark who use not just the fame helps that he finds a need of. $5. Helps little in Demonftration, lefs in Probabi lity. But however it be in knowledge, I think I may truly fay, it is of far lefs, or no ufe at all in probabilities; for the affent there being to be determined by the preponderancy, after a due weighing of all the proofs, with all circumftances on both fides, nothing is fo unfit to affift the mind in that as fyllogifm; which running away with one affumed probability, or one topical argument, purfues that till it has led the mind quite out of fight of the thing under confideration, and forcing it upon fome remote difficulty, holds it faft there, entangled, perhaps, and as it were manacled in the chain of fyllogifms, without allowing it the liberty, much lefs affording it the helps requifite to fhow on which fide, all things confidered, is the greater probability. $6. Serves not to increase our Knowledge, but fence with it. BUT let it help us (as perhaps may be faid) in con vincing men of their errors and mistakes (and yet I would fain fee the man that was forced out of his opinion by dint of fyllogifm), yet ftill it fails our reafon in that part, which, if not its highest perfection, is yet certainly its hardest tafk, and that which we moft need its help in, and that is the finding out of proofs, and making new discoveries. The rules of fyl logifm ferve not to furnish the mind with those intermediate ideas that may show the connection of remote. Book IV. ones. This way of reafoning difcovers no new proofs, but is the art of marshalling and ranging the old ones we have already. The 47th propofition of the first book of Euclid is very true, but the difcovery of it, I think, not owing to any rules of common logic. A man knows firft, and then he is able to prove fyllogiftically; fo that fyllogifm comes after knowledge, and then a man has little or no need of it; but it is chiefly by the finding out thofe ideas that fhow the connection of diftant ones, that our stock of knowledge is increafed, and that useful arts and fciences are advanced. Syllogifm at beft is but the art of fencing with the little knowledge we have, without making any addition to it; and if a man thould employ his reafon all this way, he will not do much otherwife than he, who having got fome iron out of the bowels of the earth, fhould have it beaten up all into fwords, and put it into his fervants hands to fence with, and bang one another. Had the king of Spain employed the hands of his people, and his Spanish iron fo, he had brought to light but little of that treasure that lay fo long hid in the dark entrails of America: And I am apt to think, that he who fhall employ all the force of his reafon only in brandishing of fyllogifs, will discover very little of that mafs of knowledge which lies yet concealed in the fecret receffes of nature, and which I am apt to think native ruftic reafon (as it formerly has done) is likelier to open a way to, and add to the common stock of mankind, rather than any fcholaftic proceeding by the ftrict rules of mode and figure. $7. Other Helps should be fought. I DOUBT not, nevertheless, but there are ways to be found to aflift our reafon in this most useful part; and this the judicious Hocker encourages me to fay, who in his Eccl. Pol. l. 1. § 6. fpeaks thus: If there might be added the right helps of true art and learning, (which helps, I must plainly confefs, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know, nor generally regard), there would un doubtedly be almofl as much difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now, and innocents. I do not pretend to have found or difcovered here any of those right helps of art this great man of deep thought mentions; but this is plain, that fyllogifin, and the logic now in ufe, which were as well known in his days, can be none of thofe he means. It is fufficient for me, if by a discourse, perhaps something out of the way, I am fure as to me wholly new and unborrowed, I thall have given an occafion to others to caft about for new difcoveries, and to feek in their own thoughts for thofe right helps of art, which will fearce be found, I fear, by thofe who fervilely confine themfelves to the rules and dictates of others; for beaten tracks lead thefe fort of cattle (as an obferving Ruman calls them), whofe thoughts reach only to imitation, non quo eundum eft, fed quo itur. But I can be bold to fay, that this age is adorned with fome men of that strength of judgment, and largenefs of comprehenfion, that if they would employ their thoughts on this fubject, could open new and undiscovered ways to the advancement of knowledge. 8. We reafon about Particulars. HAVING here had an occafion to fpeak of fyllogifm in general, and the use of it in reafoning, and the improvement of our knowledge, it is fit, before I leave this fubject, to take notice of one manifest mistake in. the rules of fyllogifm, viz. that no fyllogiftical reasoning can be right and conclufive, but what has at least one general propofition in it: As if we could not rea-fon and have knowledge about particulars; whereas in. truth, the matter rightly confidered, the immediate: object of all our reafoning and knowledge is nothing. but particulars. Every man's reafoning and knowledge is only about the ideas exifting in his own mind,. which are truly every one of them particular exist-ences, and our knowledge and reasoning about other things is only as they correfpond with those our par-ticular ideas; fo that the perception of the agree ment or disagreement of our particular ideas, is the whole and utmost of all our knowledge. Univerfality is but accidental to it, and confifts only in this, that the particular ideas about which it is, are fuch as more than one particular thing can correfpond with and be reprefented by; but the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, and confequently our knowledge, is equally clear and certain, whether either or both, or neither of those ideas, be capable of representing more real beings than one, or по. One thing more I crave leave to offer about fyllogifm before I leave it, viz. May one not upon just ground inquire whether the form fyllogifm now has, is that which in reafon it ought to have? For the medius terminus being to join the extremes, i. e. the intermediate ideas by its intervention, to fhow the agreement or difagreement of the two in question, would not the pofition of the medius terminus be more natural, and how the agreement or difagreement of the extremes clearer and better, if it were placed in the middle between them? Which might be easily done by tranfpofing the propofitions, and making the medius terminus the predicate of the first, and the subject of the fecond. As thus, Omnis homo eft animal, Omne animal ft vivens, Ergo omnis bomo eft vivens. Omne corpus eft extenfum et folidum, I need not trouble my reader with inftances in Syllogifms, whofe conclufions are particular; the fame reafon holds for the fame form in them, as well as in the general. § 9. 1. Reafon fails us for want of Ideas. REASON, though it penetrates into the depths of the fea and earth, elevates our thoughts as high as the ftars, and leads us through the vast spaces and large rooms of this mighty fabric, yet it comes far fhort of the real extent of even corporeal being; and there are many inftances wherein it fails us; as, First, It perfectly fails us, where our ideas fail; it neither does, nor can extend itself farther than they do; and therefore, wherever we have no ideas, our reasoning ftops, and we are at an end of our reckoning; and if at any time we reafon about words which do not stand for any ideas, it is only about those founds, and nothing else. § 10. 2. Because of obfcure and imperfect Ideas. SECONDLY, Our reason is often puzzled, and at a lofs, because of the obfcurity, confufion, or imperfection of the ideas it is employed about, and there we are involved in difficulties and contradictions. Thus, not having any perfect idea of the least extenfion of matter, nor of infinity, we are at a lofs about the divifibility of matter; but having perfect, clear and distinct ideas of number, our reafon meets with none of those inextricable difficulties in numbers, nor finds itfelf involved in any contradictions about them. Thus, we having but imperfect ideas of the operations of our minds, and of the beginning of motion or thought, how the mind produces either of them in us, and much imperfecter yet, of the operation of God, run into great difficulties about the free created agents, which reason cannot well extricate itself out of. 11. 3. For want of intermediate Ideas. THIRDLY, Our reafon is often at a stand, because it perceives not thofe ideas, which could ferve to how the certain or probable agreement or difagreement of any two other ideas; and in this fome mens faculties far outgo others. Till algebra, that great inftrument and inftance of human fagacity, was difcovered, men with amazement looked on feveral of the demonftrations of ancient mathematicians, and could fcarce forbear to think the finding feveral of those proofs to be fomething more than human. |