B
1423
L6a
1870
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT
From the Library of
Henry Goldman, Ph.D.
1886-1972
CHAPTERS IN LOGIC ;
CONTAINING
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S LECTURES ON
MODIFIED LOGIC,
AXD 8ELF.CTIONS FROM
THE PORT ROYAL LOGIC.
WITH PREFACE
BY TUB
REV. S. S. NELLES, D.D.,
Prq]kt$or of Ijogir in Vletnrto College.
TORONTO :
THE WESLEYAN METHODIST BOOK-ROOM,
88, KINO 8TRKKT EAST.
1870.
B
PREFACE.
THIS little volume is a reprint of Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S
Lectures on Modified Logic, and of the most valuable
portions of the famous Port Royal Logic, translated by
T. S. BAYNES. The design of the publication is to provide,
in cheap and convenient form, a Manual or Text-Book,
on what Hamilton calls " Modified or Concrete Logic,"
but what others have variously designated as Applied or
Practical Logic.
Whatever may be thought of the propriety of including
this department of study within the science of Logic,
there can be no doubt of its very great importance, and
jvyt as little doubt of its having been sadly neglected.
Those who have not mastered the elements of formal or
technical Logic, as well as those who have, may derive
immense advantage from a careful perusal of these pages.
The merits of Sir William Hamilton are so well known,
that it is perhaps unnecessary here to say anything in
commendation of that pa.rt of the volume which was
written by him. It may, however, be well to mention,
VI PREFACE.
that his Lectures on Modified Logic are here given in
full, without alteration either of the arrangement or the
text. From the nature of their topics, they form a distinct
discussion in themselves, and suffer nothing in being
separated from the other lectures in which the eminent
author has so ably treated of the formal laws of thought.
The other work, the Port Royal Logic, is less gener-
ally known, but is regarded by high authorities as one of
the very best of the many books extant on the science of
Logic. " The treatise," says Mr. Baynes, " is characterised
throughout by a vigor of thought, a vivacity of criticism,
a freshness and variety of illustration, an honesty and love
of truth, and withal a human sympathy, which rendered it
a work not only of specific scientific value, but of general
interest and instruction. Logic was thus redeemed from
the contempt into which it had fallen, and placed on a
level with the advancing philosophy of the time."
To this may be added the testimony of Baron de Gerando,
as cited by Mr. Baynes. Speaking of the parts which
especially merit praise, he says, " Above all, that beautiful
Dissertation on the Origin of Prejudices, and their in-
fluence on the vices of reasoning in civil life. This Disser-
tation, indeed, constitutes, of itself, an entirely new Logic
one almost sufficient, and far more important than all
the apparatus of the peripatetic Logic ; and it must be
recorded to the praise of the Port Royal writers that this
is a part of their woi'k which is peculiarly their OAvn."
PREFACE. Vll
Dugald Stewart, also, in his Dissertation on the Progress
of Philosophy, speaks of the Port Royal Logic as "a
treatise of which it is hardly possible to estimate the
merits too highly." And again : " No publication cer-
tainly, prior to Locke 8 Essay, can be named, containing so
much good sense and so little nonsense on the science of
Logic ; and very few have since appeared on the same
subject which can be justly preferred to it in ]X)int of
practical utility. If the author had lived in the present
age, or had been less fettered by a prudent regard to exist-
ing prejudices, the technical part would probably have
been reduced within a still narrower compass ; but even
there he has contrived to substitute, for the puerile and
contemptible examples of common logicians, several in-
teresting illustrations from the physical discoveries of his
immediate predecessors ; and has indulged himself, in some
short excursions, which excite a lively regret that he has
not more frequently and freely given scope to his original
reflections. Among these excursions, the most valuable,
in my opinion, is the Twentieth Chapter of the Third Part,
which deserves the attention of every logical student, as
an important and instructive supplement to the enumera-
tion of sophisms given by Aristotle."
The Editor of this compilation has confined his selections
from the Port Royal Logic to this " twentieth chapter,"
which is given entire (with the exception of a few lines),
and to those jjortionn of the Preliminary Discourse which
Vlll PREFACE.
are of general application. These selections make a suitable
introduction to the Lectures of Hamilton on Modified
Logic, and the two together furnish about the best instruc-
tion that can be had on this important branch of the
science of Logic.
We live in times remarkable for the awakening and
emancipation of thought. This is matter of rejoicing ;
but freedom of thought brings corresponding dangers and
responsibilities, and we cannot do too nmch to aid the
inquiring multitudes in the proper use of that right of
private judgment of which we are so justly proud. Works
like the one here presented may serve to show that all
intellectual activity has its laws, the violation of which
brings invariable and heavy penalties ; may teach us to
beware of the immoralities of the intellect ; may put those
who are -trying to think, in the way of thinking soundly,
by furnishing them with the best rules and cautions known
to the world's great thinkers ; and may help us forward to
that "good time coming," when in moral, political, and
religious affaire, men shall pi-oceed with something like the
steadiness, precision, and cei'tainty, which have already
begun to mark the pursuit of mathematical and physical
science.
VICTORIA COLLEGE,
March Slst, 1870.
THE PORT-ROYAL LOGIC
CHAPTER I.
rRZLIMINAHY IN WHICH THE nZSION OF THIS NBW LOGIC IS SIT
FORTH.
THERE is nothing more desirable than good sense, and ac-
curacy of thought, in discriminating between truth and
falsehood. All other qualities of mind are of limited use ;
but exactness of judgment is of general utility in every
part, and in all the employments of life. It is not alone in
the sciences that it is difficult to distinguish truth from error,
.but also in the greater part of those subjects which men
discuss in their every-day affairs. There are, in relation to
almost everything, different routes the one true, the other
false and it is reason which must choose between them.
Those who choose well, are they who have minds well-
regulatod ; those who choose ill, are those who have minds
ill-regulated : and this is the first and most important differ,
cnce which we find between the qualities of men's minds.
Thus the main object of our attention should be, to form
our judgment, and render it as exact as possible ; and to
this end, the greater part of our study ought to tend. We
2
2 PRELIMINARY.
employ reason as an instrument for acquiring the sciences ; .
whereas, on the contrary, we ought to avail ourselves of the
sciences as an instrument for perfecting our reason justness
of mind being infinitely more important than all the specu-
lative knowledges which we can obtain, by means of sciences
the most solid and well-established. This ought to lead wise
men to engage in these only so far as 7 they may contribute to
that end,, and to make them the exercise only, and not the
occupation, of their mental powers.
If we have not this end in view, the study of the specu-
lative science such as geometry, astronomy, and physics
will be little else than a vain amusement, and scarcely better
than the ignorance of these things, which has at least this
advantage- that it is less laborious, and affords no room for
that empty vanity which is often found connected with these
barren and unprofitable knowledges. These sciences not
only have nooks and hidden places of very little use ; they
are even totally useless, considered in themselves, and for
themselves alone. Men are not born to employ their time
in measuring lines, in examining the relations of .angles, and
considering the different movements of matter ; their minds-
are too great, their life too short, their time too precious, to
be engrossed with such petty objects : but they ought to be'
just, equitable, prudent, in all their converse, in all their
actions, and in all the business they transact ; and to these
things they ought specially to discipline and train themselves.
This care and study are so very neccessary, that it is strange
that this exactness of judgment should be so rare a quality,
We find, on every side, ill-regulated minds which have
scarcely any discernment of the truth ; men who receive all
things with a wrong bias ; who allow themselves to be
carried away by the slightest appearances ; who are always
PRELIMINARY. 3
in excess and extremes ; who have no bond to hold them
firm to the truths which they know, since they are attached
to them rather by chance than by any clear insight ; or
who, on the other hand, entrench themselves in their opin*
ions with such obstinacy, that they will not listen to any-
thing that may undeceive them ; who determine rashly about
that of which they are ignorant, which they do not under-
stand, and which, perhaps, no one ever can understand ;
who make no difference between one speech and another, or
judge of the truth of things by the tone of voice alone, he
who speaks fluently and impressively being in the right,
he who has some difficulty in explaining himself, or dis-
plays some warmth, in the wrong : they know nothing
beyond- this.
Hence it is, that there are no absurdities too groundless
to find supporters. Whoever determines to deceive the
world, may be sure of finding people who are willing enough
to be deceived ; and the most absurd follies always find
minds to which they are adapted. After seeing what a
number are infatuated with the follies of judicial astrology,
and that even grave persons treat this subject seriously, we
need not be surprised at anything more. There is a con-
stellation in the heavens which it has pleased certain persons
to call the Balance, and which is as much like a balance as
a windmill. The Balance is the symbol of justice ; those,
therefore, that are born under that constellation, will be
just and equitable. There are three other signs in the
zodiac, which are called, one the Ham, another the Bull,
another the Goat, and which might as well have been called
the Elephant, the Crocodile, and tbe Rhinoceros. The
Ram, the Bull, and the Goat, are ruminant animals ; those,
therefore, who tuku medicines when the moon is under
4 PRELIMINARY.
these constellations, are in danger of vomiting them again.
Such extravagant reasonings as these have found persona
to propagate them, and others who allow themselves to
be persuaded by them.
This inaccuracy of thought is the cause, not only of the
errors we meet with in the sciences, but also the majority
of the offences which are committed in civil life, of unjust
quarrels, unfounded lawsuits, rash counsel, and ill-arranged
undertakings. There are few of these which have not their
origin in some error, and in some fault of judgment, so that
there is no defect which it more concerns us to correct.
But this correction is as difficult of accomplishment as it is
desirable, since it depends very much on the measure of in.
telligence with which we are endowed. Common-sense is
nob so common a quality as we imagine. There are a
multitude of minds heavy and dull, which we cannot reform
by giving them the understanding of the truth, but only by
restricting them to those things which are suited to them, by
withholding them from judging about those things which
they are not capable of knowing. It is true, nevertheless,
that a great part of the false judgment of men does not
spring from this principle, but is caused solely by preci-
pitancy of mind and want of attention, which lead us to
judge rashly about that which we know only obscurely
and confusedly. The little love men have for truth leads
them to take no pains, for the most part, in distinguishing
what is true from what is false. They allow all sorts of
reasonings and maxims to enter their minds ; they like
better to suppose things true, than to examine them ; if
they do not comprehend them, they are willing to believe
that others understand them well : and thus they fill the
memory with a mass of things false, obscure, and unintelli-
PRELIMINARY. O
gible, and then reason on these principles, scarcely consider-
ing at all either what they speak or what they think.
Vanity and presumption contribute still more to this effect.
We think it a disgrace to doubt, and to be ignorant ; and
we prefer rather to speak and determine at random, than to
confess that we are not sufficiently informed on the subject
to give an opinion. We are all of us full of ignorance and
errors ; and yet it is the most difficult thing in the world to
obtain from the lips of man this confession, so just, and so
suited to his natural state, I am in error, and I know
nothing about the matter.
We find others, on the contrary, who, having light enough
to know that there are a number of things obscure and un-
certain, and wishing, from another kind of vanity, to show
that they are not led away by the popular credulity, take a
pride in maintaining that there is nothing certain. They
thus free themselves from the labour of examination, and
on this evil principle they bring into doubt the most firmly
established truths, urd even religion itself. This is the
source of Pyrrhonism [or Scepticism], another extravagance
of the human mind which, though apparently opposed to
the rashness of those who believe and decide everything,
springs nevertheless from the same source, which is, want
of attention. For as the one will not give themselves the
trouble of discerning errors, the others will not look upon
truth with that care which is necessary to perceive its evi-
dence. The faintest glimmer suffices to persuade the one of
things very false, and to make the other doubt of things the
most certain ; and in both cases it is the same want of
application which produces effects so different.
True reason places all things in the rank which belongs
to them ; it questions those which arc doubtful, rejects thoso
6 PRELIMINARY.
which are false, and acknowledges, in good faith, those which
/are evident, without being embarrassed by the vain reasons
of the Pyrrhonists, which never could, even in the minds of
those who proposed them, destroy the reasonable assurance
we have of many things. None ever seriously doubted the
existence of the sun, the earth, the moon, or that the whole
was greater than its parts. We may indeed easily say out-
wardly with the lips that we doubt of all these things,
because it is possible for us to lie ; but we cannot say this
in our hearts. Thus Pyrrhonism is not a sect composed of
men who are persuaded of what they say, but a sect of liars.
Hence they often contradict themselves in uttering their
opinion, since it is impossible for their hearts to agree with
their language. We see this in Montaigne, who attempted
to revive this sect in the last century ; for, after having said
that the Academics were different from the Pyrrhonists,
inasmuch as the Academics maintained that some things
were more probable than others, which the Pyrrhonists
would not allow, he declares himself on the side of the
Pyrrhonists in the following terms : " The opinion," says he,
" of the Pyrrhonists is bolder, and much more probable."
There are, therefore, some things which are more probable
than others. Nor was it for the sake of effect that he spoke
thus : these are words which escaped him without thinking
of them, springing from the depths of nature which no
illusion of opinions can destroy. But the evil is, that in
relation to those things which are more removed from sense,
these persons, who take a pleasure in doubting everything,
withhold their mind from any application, or apply it only
imperfectly to that which might persuade them, and thus
fall into a voluntary uncertainty in relation to the affairs of
religion ; for the state of darkness into which they have
PRELIMINARY. 7
brought themselves is agreeable to them, and very favourable
for allaying the remorse of their conscience, and for the un-
restrained indulgence of their passions. Thus, these dis-
orders of the mind, though apparently opposed (the one
leading to the inconsiderate belief of what is obscure and
uncertain, the other to the doubting of what is clear and
certain), have nevertheless a common origin, which is, the
neglect cf that attention which is necessary in order to
discover the truth. It is clear, therefore, that they must
also have a common remedy, and that the only way in
which we can preserve ourselves from them is by fixing
minute attention on our judgments and thoughts. This is
the only thing that is absolutely necessary to preserve us
from deceptions. For that which the Academics were wont
to say, that it was impossible to discover the truth unless
we had its characters, as it would be impossible to identify
a runaway slave we might be in search of, unless we had
some signs by which, supposing we were to meet him, we
could distinguish him from others, is only a vain subtlety.
As no marks are necessary in order to distinguish light from
darkness but the light which reveals itself, so nothing else
is necessary in order to recognize the truth but the very
brightness which environs it, and which subdues and per-
suades the mind, notwithstanding all that may be said
against it ; so that all the reasonings of these philosophers
are no more able to withhold the mind from yielding to the
truth, when it is strongly imbued with it, than they are
capable of preventing the eyes from seeing, when, being
open, they are assailed by the light of the sun.
But since the mind often allows itself to be deceived by
false apjxjarances in consequence of not giving duo attention
to them, and since there are many things which cannot be
8 PRELIMINARY.
known, save by long and difficult examination, it would
certainly be useful to have some rules for its guidance, so
that the search after truth might be more easy and certain.
Nor is it impossible to secure such rules : for since men are
sometimes deceived in their judgments, and at other times
are not deceived, as they reason sometimes well and some-
times ill, and as, after they have reasoned ill, they are able
to perceive their error, they may thus notice, by reflecting
on their thoughts, what method they have followed when
they have reasoned well, and what was the cause of their
error when they were deceived ; and thus on these reflections
form rules by which they may avoid being deceived for the
future.
This is what philosophers have specially undertaken to
accomplish, and in relation to which they make such magni-
ficent promises. If we may believe them, they will furnish
us, in thai part which is devoted to that purpose, and which
they call logic, with a light capable of dispelling all the
darkness of the mind ; they correct all the errors of our
thoughts ; and they give us rules so sure that they conduct
us infallibly to the truth, so necessary, that without them
it is impossible to know anything with complete 1 certainty.
These are the praises which they have themselves bestowed
on their precepts. But if we consider what experience
shows us of the use which these philosophers make of them,
both in logic and in other parts of philosophy, we shall have
good grotlnds to suspect the truth of their promises.
Since it is not, however, just to reject absolutely the good
there is in logic because of the abuse which has been made
of it, and as it is not possible that all the great minds which
have applied themselves with so much care to the rules of
reasoning, have discovered nothing at all solid ; and finally,
PRELIMINARY. 9
since custom has rendered it necessary to know (at least
generally) what logic is, we believed that it would contribute
something to public utility to select from the common logics
whatever might best help towards forming the judgment.
This is the end we specially propose to ourselves in this
work ; with the view of accomplishing which, we have
inserted many new reflections which 'have suggested them-
selves to our mind while writing it, and which form the
greatest and perhaps the most important part of it, for it
appears the common philosophers have attempted to do
little more than to give the rules of good and bad reasoning.
Now, although we cannot say these rules are useless, since
they often help to discover the vice of certain intricate
arguments, and to arrange our thoughts in a more convincing
manner, still this utility must not be supposed to extend
very far. The greater part of the errors of men arise, not
from their allowing themselves to be deceived by wrong
conclusions, but in their proceeding from false judgments,
whence wrong conclusions are deduced. Those who have
previously written on logic have little sought to rectify this,
which is the main design of the new reflections which are to
be found scattered through this book.
These, in brief, are the views we have had in writing this
Logic. Perhaps, after all there are few persons who will
profit by it, or be conscious of the good they have obtained,
because but little attention is commonly given to putting
precepts in practice by express reflections on them. But
we hope, nevertheless, that those who have read it with
some care may receive an impression which will render them
more exact and solid in their judgments, even without their
being conscious of the good, as there are some remedies
2*
10 PRELIMINARY.
which cure diseases by increasing the vigour and fortifying
the parts. Be this as it may, it cannot trouble any one
long, since those who are a little advanced may read and
understand it in seven or eight days ; and it will be strange
if, containing so great a diversity of things, each does not
find something to repay him for the trouble of a perusal.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE BAD REASONINGS WHICH ARE COMMON IN CIVIL LOT
AND IN ORDINARY DISCOURSE.
WE have seen some examples of the faults which are most
common in reasoning on scientific subjects ; but since the
principal use of reason is not in relation to those kinds of
subjects which enter but little into the conduct of life, and
in which there is much less danger of being deceived, it
would, without doubt, be much more useful to consider
generally what betrays men into the false judgments which
they make on every kind of subject, especially on that
of morals, and of other things which are important in civil
life, and which constitute the ordinary subject of *their con-
versation. But, inasmuch as this design would require a
separate work, which would comprehend almost all the
whole of morals, we shall content ourselves with indicating
here, in general, some of the causes of those false judgments
which are BO common amongst men.
We do not stay to distinguish false judgments from bad
reasonings, and shall inquire indifferently into the causes of
each, both because false judgments are the sources of bad
reasonings, and produce them as a necessary consequence,
and because in reality there is almost always a concealed
and enveloped reasoning in what appears to be a simple
judgment, them being always something which operates on
12 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
f
the motive and principle of that judgment. For example,
when we judge that a stick which appears bent in the water
is really so, this judgment is founded on that general and
false proposition, that what appears bent to our senses is so
really, and thus contains an undeveloped reasoning.
In considering them generally, the causes of our errors
appear to be reducible to two principles : the one internal
the irregularity of the will, which troubles and disorders
the judgment ; the other external, which lies in the objects
of which we judge, and which deceive our minds by false
appearances. Now although these causes almost always
appear united together, there are nevertheless certain errors,
in which one prevails more than the other ; and hence we
shall treat of them separately.
OF THE SOPHISMS OF SELF-I<OVE, OF INTEREST, AND OF PASSION.
I.
If we examine with care what commonly attaches men
rather to^one opinion than to another, we shall find that it
is not a conviction of the truth, and the force of the rea-
sons, but some bond of self-love, of interest, or of passion.
This is the weight which bears down the scale, and which
decides us in the greater part of our doubts. It is this
which gives the greatest impetus to our judgments, and
which holds us to them most forcibly. We judge of things,
not by what they are in themselves, but by what they are
in relation to us, and truth and utility are to us but one and
the same thing.
No other proofs are needed than those which we see every
day, to show that the things which are held everywhere
else as doubtfiul, or even as false, are considered most certain
SELF LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 13
by all of some one nation, or profession, or institution.
For, since it cannot be that what is true in Spain should be
false in France, nor that the minds of all Spaniards are so
differently constituted from those of Frenchmen, as that,
judging by the same rules of reasoning, that which appears
generally true to the one should appear generally false to
the others, it is plain that this diversity of judgment can
arise from no other cause except that the one choose to hold
as true that which is to their advantage ; and that the others,
having no interest at stake, judge of it in a different way.
Nevertheless, what can be more unreasonable than to take
our interest as the motive for believing a thing 1 All that
it can do, at most, is to lead us to consider witli more atten-
tion the reasons which may enable us to discover the truth
of that which we wish to be true ; but it is only the truth
which mubt be found in the thing itself, independently of
onr desires, which ought to convince us. I am of such a
country ; therefore I must believe that such a saint preached
the gosj)el there. I am of such an order ; therefore I must
believe that such a privilege is right. These are no reasons.
Of whatever order, and of whatever country you may be,
you ought to believe only what is true ; and what you would
have been disposed to believe, though you had been of
another country, of another order, and of another profession.
II.
Bat this illusion is much more evident when any change
takes place in the passions ; for, though all things remain iu
their place, it appears, nevertheless, to those who are moved by
Home ncsw passion, that the change which has taken place
in their own heart alone lias changed all external things
which have any relation to them. How ot'lon do we sec
14 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
persons who are able to recognize no good quality, either
natural or acquired, in those against whom they have con-
ceived an aversion, or who have been opposed in something
to their feelings, desires, and interests ! This is enough to
render them at once, in their estimation, rash, proud,
ignorant, without faith, without honour, and without con-
science. Their affections and desires are not any more just
or moderate than their hatred. If they love any one, he is
free from every kind of defect. Everything which they
desire is just and easy, everything which they do not desire
is unjust and impossible, without their being able to assign
any other reason for all these judgments than the passion
itself which possesses them ; so that, though they do not
expressly realize to their mind this reasoning : I love him ;
therefore, he is the cleverest man in the world : I hate him ;
therefore, he is nobody ; they realize it to a great extent in
their hearts ; and therefore, we may call sophisms and
delusions of the heart those kinds of errors which consist in
transferring our passion to the objects of our, passions, stnd
in judging that they are what we will or desire that they
should be ; which is without doubt very unreasonable, since
our desires can effect no change in the existence of that
which is without us, and since it is God alone whose will
is efficacious enough to render all things what he would have
them to be.
in.
We may reduce to the same illusion of self-love that of
those who decide everything by a very general and con-
venient principle, which is, that they are right, that they
know the truth ; from which it is not difficult to infer that
those who are not of their opinion are deceived, in fact,
the conclusion is necessary.
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 15
The error of these persons springs solely from this, that
the good opinion which they have of their own insight
leads them to consider all their thoughts as so clear and
evident, tiiat they imagine the whole world must accept
them as soon as they are known. Hence it is that they so
rarely trouble themselves to furnish proofs, they seldom
listen to the opinions of others, they wish all to yield to
their authority, since they never distinguish their authority
from reason. They treat with contempt all those who are
not of their opinion, without considering that if others are
not of their opinion, so neither are they of the opinion of
others, and that it is unjust to assume, without proof, that
we are in the right when we attempt to convince others,
who are not of our opinion, simply because they are per-
Buaded that we are not in the right.
rv.
There are some, again, who have no other ground for
rejecting certain opinions than this amusing reasoning :
If thi< were so, I should not be a clever man ; now, I am
a clever man ; therefore, it is not so. This is the main
reason which, for a long time, led to the rejection of some
most useful remedies, and most certain discoveries ; for
those who had not known them previously fancied that, by
admitting them, they would have confessed themselves
to have been hitherto deceived. " What," said they, " if
the blood circulate ; if the food is not carried to the liver
by the mesaraic veins ; if the venous artery carry the blood
to the heart ; if the blood rise by the descending hollow
vein ; if nature does not abhor a vacuum ; if the air be
heavy and have a movement below, I have been ignorant
of many important things in anatomy and in physics.
16 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
these things, therefore, cannot be." But, to remedy this
folly, it is only necessary to represent fully to such, that
there is very little disci-edit in being mistaken, "and that
they may be accomplished in other things, though they be
not in those which have been recently discovered.
V.
There is, again, nothing more common than to see people
mutually casting on each other the same reproaches, and
accusing one another for example, of obstinacy, passion,
and chicanery when they are of different opinions. There
are scarcely any advocates who do not accuse each other
of delaying the process, and concealing the truth by artifices
of speech ; and thus those who are in the right, and those
who are in the wrong, with almost the same language make
the same complaints, and attribute to each other the same
vices. This is one of the most injurious things possible in
the life of men, for it throws truth and error, justice and
injustice, into an obscurity so profound, that the world, in
general, cannot distinguish between them ; and hence it hap-
pens, that many attach themselves, by chance and without
knowledge, to one of these parties, and that others condemn
both as being equally wrong.
All this confusion springs, again, from the same malady
which leads each one to take, as a principle, that he is in
the right ; for from this it is not difficult to infer, that all
who oppose us are obstinate, since to be obstinate is not to
submit to the right.
But still, although it be true that these reproaches of
passion, of blindness, and of quibbling, which are very un-
just on the part of those who are mistaken, are just and
right on the part of those who are not so; nevertheless,
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 17
since they assume that truth is on the side of him who
makes them, wise and thoughtful persons, who treat of any
contested matter, should avoid using them, before they!
have thoroughly established the truth and justice of thef'VL~t>
cause which they maintain. They will never then accuse
their adversaries of obstinacy, of rashness, of wanting com-
mon sense, before they have clearly proved this. They
will not say, before they have shown it, that they fall into
intolerable absurdities and extravagances ; for the others,
on their side, will say the same of them, and thus accom-
plish notliing. And thus they will prefer rather to observe
that most equitable rule of St. Augustine : Omittamus ista
communia, quce dici ex utraque parte possunt, licet vere diet
ex utraque parte non possint. They will thus be content
to defend truth by the weapons which are her own, and
which falsehood cannot borrow. These are clear and
weighty reasons.
VI.
The mind of man is not only in love with itself, but it
is also naturally jealous, envious of and ill-disposed towards
others. It can scarcely bear that they should have any ad-
vantage, but desires it all for itself ; and as it is an advan-
tage to know the truth, and furnish men with new views,
a secret desire arises to rob those who do this of the glory,
which often leads men to combat, without reason, the
opinions and inventions of others.
Thus, a* self-love often leads us to make these ridiculous
reasonings : It is an opinion which I discovered, it is that
of my order, it is an opinion which is convenient ; it is,
therefore, true ; natural ill-will loads us oftxm to make tlicso
others, which are equally nltsurd : Some onn -ls<> said mi<;U
18 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
a, thing ; it is, therefore, false : I did not write that book ;
it is, therefore, a bad one.
This is the source of the spirit of contradiction so com-
mon amongst men, and which leads them, when they hear
or read anything of another, to pay but little attention to
the reasons which might have persuaded them, and to think
only of those which they think may be offered against it ;
they are always on their guard against truth, and think only
of the means by which it may be repressed and obscured
in which they are almost invariably successful, the fertility
of the human mind in false reasons being inexhaustible.
When this vice is in excess, it constitutes one of the lead-
ing characteristics of the spirit of pedantry, which finds its
greatest pleasure in quibbling with others on the pettiest
things, and in contradicting everything with a pure ma-
lignity. But it is often more imperceptible and concealed ;
and we may say, indeed, that no one is altogether free from it,
since it has its root in self-love, which always lives in men.
The knowledge of this malignant and envious disposition,
which dwells deep in the heart of men, shows us that one
of the most important rules which we can observe, in order
to win those to whom we speak from error, and bring them
over to the truth of which we would persuade them, is to
excite their envy and jealousy as little as possible by speak-
ing of ourselves, and the things which concern us.
For, since men love scarcely any but themselves, they
cannot bear that another should intrude himself upon them,
and thus throw into shade the main object of their regard.
All that does not refer to themselves is odious and imper-
tinent, and they commonly pass from the hatred of the man
to the hatred of his opinions and reasons. Hence, wise
persons avoid as much as possible revealing to others the
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 19
' advantages which they have ; they avoid attracting atten-
tion to themselves in particular ; and seek rather, by hiding
themselves in the crowd, to escape observation, in order that
the truth which they propose may be seen alone in their
discourse.
The late M. Pascal, who knew as much of true rhetoric
as any one ever did, carried this rule so far as to maintain
that a well-bred man ought to avoid mentioning himself, and
even to avoid using the words / and me ; and he was accus-
tomed to say, on this subject, that Christian piety annihilated
the human me, and that human civility concealed and sup-
pressed it. This rule, however, is not to be observed too
rigidly, for there are many occasions on which it would use-
lessly embarrass us to avoid these words ; but it is always
good to keep it in view, in order to preserve us from the
wretched custom of some individuals, who speak only of
themselves, and who quote themselves continually, when
their opinion is not asked for. This leads those who hear
them to susj>ect that this constant recurrence to themselves
arises only from a secret pleasure, which leads them contin-
ually to that object of their love, and thus excites in them,
by a natural consequence, a secret aversion to these people,
and t<> wan Is all that they say. This shows us that one of
the characteristics most unworthy of a sensible man is that
which Montaigne has affected in entertaining his readers
with all his humours, his inclinations, his fancies, his mala-
dies, his virtues, and his vices, which could arise only from
a weakness of judgment, as well as a violent love for him-
self. It is true that he attempted, as far as possible, to re-
move from himself the suspicion of a low and vulgar vanity,
by Hj>eaking freely of his defects, as well as of his good
qualities, which has something amiable in it, from the appear-
20 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
ance of sincerity ; but it is easy to see that all this is only a
trick and artifice ; which should only render it still more
odious. He speaks of his vices in order that they may be
known, not that they may be detested ; he does not think
for a moment that he ought to be held in less esteem ; he
regards them as things very indifferent, and rather as
creditable than disgraceful ; if he reveals them it gives him no
concern, and he believes that, he will not be, on that account,
at ail more vile or contemptible. But when he apprehends
that anything will degrade him at all, he is as careful as any
one to conceal it ; hence, a celebrated author of the present
day pleasantly remarks, that though he takes great pains,
without any occassion, to inform us, in two places of his
book, that he had a page, (an officer of very little use in the
house of a gentleman of six thousand livres a-year) he has
not taken the same pains to inform us that he had also a
clerk, having been himself counsellor of the parliament of
Bordeaux. This employment, though very honoiirable in
itself, did not satisfy the vanity he had of appearing always
with the air of a gentleman and of a cavalier, and as one
unconnected with the brief and gown.
It is nevertheless probable, however, that he would not
have concealed this circumstance of his life if he could
have found some Marshal of France who had been coun-
sellor of Bordeaux, as he has chosen to inform us that he had
been mayor of that town, but only, after having in-
formed us that he had succeeded Marshal De Biron in that
office, and had been succeeded by Marshal De Matignon.
But the greatest vice of this author is not that of vanity,
for he is filled with such a multitude of shameful scandals,
and of epicurean and impious maxims, that it is wonder-
ful that he has been endured so long by everybody, and
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 21
that there are even men of mind who have not discovered
the poison.
No other proofs are necessary, in order to judge of his
libertinism, than that very manner even in which he speaks
of his vices ; for allowing, in many places, that he had been
guilty of great number of criminal excesses, he declares,
nevertheless, that he did not repent of them at all, and that
if he had to live over again he would live as he had done.
" As for me," says he, " I cannot desire in general" to be
other than I am. I cannot condemn my universal form,
though I may be displeased with it, and pray God for my
entire reformation, and for the pardon of my natural weak-
ness ; but this I ought not to call repentance any more than
the dissatisfaction I may feel at not being an angel, or Uato ;
my actions are regulated and conformed to my ;-.Ut and
condition ; I cannot be better, and repentance does not'
properly refer to things which are not in our power. I
never expected incongruously to affix the tail of a philoso-
pher to the head and body of an abandoned man, or that
the meagre extremity of uiy life was to disavow and deny
the most beautiful, complete, and largest portion* of the
whole. If I had to live ow ncrair I would live as I have
done ; I do not lament over the past ; I do no fear for the
future." Awful words, which denote the entire extinction
of all religious feeling, but which are worthy of him who
said also, in another place : " I plunge myself headlong
blindly into death, as into a dark and silent abyss, full of a
mighty sleep, full of unconsciousness and lethargy, which
engulphs me at once, and overwhelms me in a moment."
And in another place : " Death, which is only a quarter
of an hour's passion, without consequence, and without
injury, doca not deserve any special prccepta."
22 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
Although this digression appeals widely removed from
this subject, it belongs to it nevertheless, for this reason-
that there is no book which more fosters that bad custom
of speaking of one's self, being occupied with one's self,
and wishing all others to be so too. This wonderfully cor-
rupts reason, both in ourselves, through the varfity which
always accompanies these discourses, .and in others, by the
contempt and aversion which they conceive for us. Those
only may be allowed to speak of themselves who are men
of eminent virtue, and who bear witness by what means
they have become so, so that if they make known their good
actions, it is only to excite others to praise God for these,
or to instruct them ; and if they publish their faults, it 19
only to humble themselves before men, and to deter them
from committing these. But for ordinary persons it is a
ridiculous vanity to wish to inform others of their petty
advantages ; and it is insufferable effrontery to reveal their
excesses to the world without expressing their sorrow for
them, since the last degree of abandonment in vice is, not to
blush for it, and to have no concern or repentance on
account 'of it, but to speak of it indifferently as of anything
else ; in which mainly lies the wit of Montaigne.
VII.
We may distinguish to some extent from malignant and
envious contradiction another kind of disposition not so bad,
but which produces the same faults of reasoning ; this is
the spirit of debate, which is, however, a vice very in-
jurious to the mind.
It is not that discussions, generally, can be censured. We
may say on the contrary that, provided they be rightly
used, there is nothing which contributes more towards
SELy-LOVE 'IXTEBEST PASSIONS. 25
giving us different hints, both for finding the truth, and for
recommending it to others. The movement of the mind,
when it works alone in the examination of any subject, is
commonly too cold and languid. It needs a certain warmth
to inspire it, and awaken its ideas, and it is commonly
through the varied opposition which we meet with that we
discover wherein the obscurity and the difficulties of con-
viction consist, and are thus led to endeavor to overcome
them.
It is true, however, that just in proportion as this exer-
cise is useful when we employ it aright, and without any
mixture of passion, so, in that proportion, is it dangerous
when we abuse it, and pride ourselves on maintaining our
opinion at whatever cost, and in contradicting that of others.
Nothing can separate us more widely from the truth, and
plunge us more readily into error, than this kind of dispo-
sition. We become accustomed, unconsciously, to find
reasons for everything, and to place ourselves above reason
by never yielding to it, which leads us by degrees to hold
nothing as certain, and to confound truth with error, in re-
garding both as equally probable. This is why it is so rare
a thing for a question to be determined by discussion ; and
why it scarcely ever happens that two philosophers agree.
They always find replies and rejoinders, since their aim is to
avoid not error but silence, and since they think it less dis-
graceful to remain always in error than to avow that they
are mistaken.
Thus, unless at least we have been accustomed by long
discipline to retain the perfect mastery over ourselves, it is
very difficult not to los sight of truth in debates, since
there are scarcely any exercises which so much arouse our
passions. What vices have tbey not excited, say* a celo-
24 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
brated author [Montaigne], being almost always governed
by anger ! We pass first to a hatred of the reasons, and then
of the persons. We learn to dispute only to contradict ; and
each contradicting and being contradicted, it comes to pass
that the result of the debate is the annihilation of truth.
One goes to the east and another to the west one loses the
principle in dispute, and another wanders amidst a crowd
of details and after an hour's storm, they know not what
they were discussing. One is above, another below, and
another at the side one seizes on a word or similitude
another neither listens to, nor at all understands what his
opponent says, and is so engaged with his own course that
he only thinks of following himselfj not you.
There are some, again, who, conscious of their weakness,
fear everything, refuse everything, confuse the discussion at
the onset, or in the midst of it, become obstinate, and are
silent, affecting a proud contempt, or a stupid modesty of
avoiding contention. One, provided only that he is stri-
king, cares not how he exposes himself another counts his
words and weighs his reasons a third relies on his voice
and lungs alone. We see some who conclude against them-
selves, and others who weary and bewilder everyone with
prefaces and useless digressions. Finally, there are some
who arm themselves with abuse, and make a German quarrel
in order to finish the dispute with one who has worsted
them in argument. These are the common vices of our
debates, which are ingeniously enough represented by this
writer,* who, without ever having known the true grandeur
of man, has sufficiently canvassed his defects.
* The greater part of this page is taken directly from Montaigne,
Essay* iii. 8. His sentiments are here referred to with approbation;
and it would have been but fair, since when quoted for condemna-
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 2S
We may hence judge how liable these kinds of confer-
ences are to disorder the mind, at least unless we take great
care not only not to fall ourselves first into these errors, but
also not to follow those who do, and so to govern ourselves
that we may see them wander without wandering ourselves,
and without losing the end we ought to seek, which is the
elucidation of the truth under discussion.
VIIL
We find some persons, again, principally amongst those
who attend at court, who, knowing very well how incon-
venient and disagreeable these controversial dispositions
are, adopt an immediately opposite course, which is that of
contradicting nothing, but of praising and approving every-
thing indifferently. This is what is called complaisance,
which is a disposition convenient enough indeed for our
fortune, but very injurious to our judgment, for as the con-
troversial hold as true the contrary of what is said to them,
the complaisant appear to tak as true everything which is
said to them, and this habit corrupts, in the first place, their
discourse, aad then their minds.
Hence it is that praises are become so common, and are
given so indifferently to everyone, that we know not what
to conclude from them. There is not a single preacher in
the " Gazette," who is not most eloquent, and who does not
ravish his hearers by the profundity of his knowledge. Al
who die are illustrious for piety ; and the pettiest authors
lion he is always mentioned by name, that he should here also havo
been expressly referred to. The gay and easy scepticism of Mon-
taigne, however, so offended the moral earnestness of the Port*
Royal writers, that they can scarcely allow him Any merit ; and
rarely, when referring to him, Jo him justice.
3
26 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
might make books of praises which they receive from their
friends. So that, amidst this profusion of praises, which
are made with such little discernment, it is master of won-
der that there are found some BO eager for them, and who
treasure them so carefully when given.
It is quite impossible that this confusion in the language
should not produce some confusion in the mind, for those
who adopt the habit of praising everything, become accus-
tomed also to approve of everything. But though the false-
hood were only in the words, and not in the mind, this
would be sufficient to lead those who sincerely love the
truth to avoid it. It is not necessary to reprove everything
which may be bad, but it is necessary to praise only what
is truly praiseworthy, otherwise we lead those whom we
praise in this way into error. We help to deceive those
who judge of their persons by these praises ; and we com-
mit a wrong against those who truly deserve praises, by
giving them equally to those who do not deserve them.
Finally, we destroy all the trustworthiness of language, and
confuse all ideas and words, by causing them to be no longer
signs of our judgments and thoughts, but simply an out-
ward civility which we give to those whom we praise as we
might do a bow, for this is all that we can infer from ordi-
nary praises and compliments.
IX.
Amongst the various ways by which self-love plunges
men into error, or rather strengthens them in it, and pre-
vents their escape from it, we must not forget one which
is without doubt among the principal and most common.
This is the engaging to maintain any opinion, to which we
may attach ourselves from other considerations than those
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 27
of its truth. For this determination to defend our opinion
leads us no longer to consider whether the reasons we em-
ploy are true or false, but whether they will avail to defend
that which we maintain. "We employ all sorts of reasons,
good or bad, in order that there may be some to suit every
one ; and we sometimes proceed even to say things which
we well know to be absolutely false, if they will contribute
to the end which we seek. The following are some ex-
amples :
An intelligent man would hardly ever suspect Montaigne
of having believed all the dreams of judicial astrology.
Nevertheless, when he needs them for the purpose of fool-
ishly degrading mankind, he employs them as good reasons,
" When we consider," says he, " the dominion and power
which these bodies have, not only on our lives, and on the
state of our fortune, but also on our inclinations, which
are governed, driven, and disturbed, according to their
influences, how can we deprive them of a soul, of life, and
of discourse?"
Would he destroy the advantages which men have over
beasts through the intercourse of speech, he relates to us
absurd stories, whose extravagance no one knew better
than himself, and derives from them these still more absurd
conclusions : " There have been," says he, " some who
boasted that they understood the language of brutes, as
Appollonious Thyaneous, Melampus, Tiresias, Thales, and
others ; and since what the cocmographers say is true, that
there are some nations which receive a dog as their king,
they must give a certain interpretation to his voice and
movements." [Essays, ii. 12.]
We might conclude, for the same reason, that when
Caligula made his horse consul, the orders which ho gavo
28 * SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
in the discharge of that office must have been clearly un-
derstood. But we should do wrong in accusing Montaigne
of this bad consequence ; his design was not to speak rea-
sonably, but to gather together a confused mass of every*
thing which might be said against men, which is, however,
a vice utterly opposed to the justness of mind and sincerity
of a good man.
Who, again, would tolerate this other reasoning of the
same author on the subject of the auguries which the pagans
made from the flight of birds, and which the wisest amongst
them derided ? " Amongst all the predictions of time
past," says he, " the most ancient, and the most certain,
were those which were derived from the flight of birds.
We have nothing of the like kind nothing so admirable ;
that rule, that order of the moving of the wing, through
which the consequences of things to come were obtained,
must certainly have been directed by some excellent means
to so noble an operation ; for it is insufficient to attribute
so great an effect to some natural ordinance, without the
intelligence, agreement, or discourse of the agent which
produces it ; and such an opinion is evidently false."
[Essays, ii. 12.]
Is it not a delightful thing to see a man who holds that
nothing is either evidently true or evidently false, in a
treatise expressly designed to establish Pyrrhonism, and to
destroy evidence and certainty, deliver to us seriously these
dreams as certain truths, and speak of the contrary opinion
as evidently false 1 But he is amusing himself at our ex-
pense when he speaks in this wav, and he is without excuse
in thus sporting with his readers, by telling them things
which he does not, and could not without absurdity, believe.
SELF-LOVE INTEREST PASSIONS. 29
He was,, without doubt, as good a philosopher as Virgil,
who does not ascribe to any intelligence in the birds even
those periodical changes which we observe in their move-
ment accordftg to the difference of the air, from which we
may derive some conjecture as to rain and fine weather.
But these mistakes being voluntary, all that is necessary
to avoid them is & little good faith. The most common,
and the most dangerous, are those of which we are not
conscious, because the engagement into which we have
entered to defend an opinion disturbs the view of the mind,
and leads it to take as true that which contributes to its
end. The only remedy which can be applied to these is
to have no end but truth, and to examine reasonings with
o much care, that even prejudice shall not be able to mia
lead us.
CHAPTER III.
OF THE FALSE REASONINGS WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS
THEMSELVES.
WE have already noticed that we ought not to separate
the inward causes of our errors from those which are de-
rived from objects, which may be called the outward, be-
cause the false appearance of these objects would not be
capable of leading us into error, if the will did not hurry
the mind into forming a precipitate judgment, when it is
not as yet sufficiently enlightened.
Since, however, it cannot exert this power over the un-
derstanding in things perfectly evident, it is plain that the
obscurity of the objects contributes somewhat to our mis-
takes ; and, indeed, there are often cases in which the pas-
sion which leads us to reason ill is almost imperceptible.
Hence it is useful to consider separately .those illusions
which arise principally from the things themselves :
I.
It is a false and impious opinion, that truth is so like to
falsehood, and virtue to vice, that it is impossible to dis-
tinguish between them ; but it is true that, in the majority
of cases, there is a mixture of truth and error, of virtue
and vice, of perfection and imperfection, and that this
mixture is one of the most ordinary sources of the false
judgments of men.
SOPHISMS ARISING PROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 31
For it is through this deceptive mixture that the good
qualities of those whom we respect lead us to approve of
their errors, and that the defects of those whom we do not
esteem lead us to condemn what is good in them, since we
do not consider that the most imperfect are not so in
everything, and that God leaves in the best imperfections,
which, being the remains of human infirmity, ought not to
be the objects of our respect or imitation.
The reason of this is, that men rarely consider things in
detail ; they judge only according to their strongest impres-
sion, and perceive only what strikes them most ; thus, when
they perceive a good deal of truth in a discourse, they do
not notice the errors which are mixed with it ; and, on the
contrary, when the truths are mingled with many errors,
they pay attention only to the errors, the strong bears
away the weak, and the most vivid impression effaces that
which is more obscure.
It is, however, a manifest injustice to judge in this way.
There can be no possible reason for rejecting reason, and
truth is not less truth for being mixed with error. It does
not belong to men, although men may propound it. Thus,
though men, by reason of their errors, may deserve to be
condemned, the truth which they advance ought not to be
rejected.
Thus justice and truth require, that in all things which
are thus made up of good and evil we distinguish between
them ; and in this wise separation it is that mental precision
mainly appears. Hence the fathers of the church have
taken from pagan books very excellent things for their
morals, and thus St. Augustine has not scrupled to borrow
from a heretical Donatist seven rules for interpreting
Scripture. *
32 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
Reason obliges us, when we can, to make this distinction ;
but since we have not always time to examine in detail the
good and evil that may be in everything, it is right, in such
circumstances, to give to them the name which they deserve
from their preponderating element. Thus we ought to say
that a man is a good philosopher who commonly reasons
well, and that a book is a good book which has notoriously
more of good than of evil in it.
Men, however, are very much deceived in these general
judgments ; for they often praise and blame things from the
consideration only of what is least important in them,
want of penetration leading them not to discover what is
most important, when it is not the most striking : thus,
although those who are wise judges in painting value in-
finitely more design than colour, or delicacy of touch, the
ignorant are, nevertheless, more impressed by a painting
whose colours are bright and vivid, than by another more
sober in colour, however admirable in design.
It must, however, be confessed, that false judgments are
not so common in the arts, since those who know nothing
about them defer more readily to the opinion of those who
are well informed ; but they are most frequent in those
things which lie within the jurisdiction of the people, and
of which the world claims the liberty of judging, such as
eloquence.
We call, for example, a preacher eloquent, when his
periods are well turned, and when he uses no inelegant
words ; and from this M. Vaugelas says, in one place, that
a bad word does a preacher or an advocate more harm
than a bad reasoning. "We must believe that this is simply
a truth of fact which he relates, and not an opinion which
he supports. It is true that we^fcrd people who judge in
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 33
this way, but it is true also that there is nothing more un-
reasonable than these judgments; for the purity of lan-
guage, and the multitude of figures, are but to eloquence
what the colouring is to a painting that is to say, only its
lower and more sensuous part ; but the most important
part consists in conceiving things forcibly, and in express-
ing them so that we may convey to the minds of the hearers
a bright and vivid image, which shall convey these things
not only in an abstract form, but with the emotions also
with which we conceive them ; and this we may find in
men of inelegant speech and unbalanced periods, while we
meet with it rarely in those who pay so much attention to
words and embellishments, since this care distracts their
attention from things, and weakens the vigor of their
thoughts, as painters remark, that those who excel in
colours do not commonly excel in design the mind not
being capable of this double application, and attention to
the one injuring the other.
We may say, in general, that the world values most
things by the exterior alone, since we find scarcely nny who
penetrate to the interior and to the foundation of them ;
everything is judged according to the fashion, and unhappy
are those who are not in favour. Such a one is clever, in-
telligent, profound, as much as you will, but he does not
speak fluently, and cannot turn a compliment well ; he may
reckon on being little esteemed through the whole of his
life by the generality of the world, and on seeing a multi-
tude of insignificant minds preferred before him. It is no
great evil not to have the reputation which we merit, but it
is a vast one to follow these false judgments, and to judge
of things only sui>ernciully ; and this we are bound, as far
ax possible, to avoid.
3*
34 ' soPriTSite COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
II.
Amongst the causes which lead us into error by a false
lustre, which prevents our recognising it, we may justly
reckon a certain grand and pompous eloquence, which
Cicero calls abundantem sonantibus verbis uberibusgiie seten-
tiis ; for it is wonderful how sweetly a false reasoning flows
in at the close of a period which well fits the ear, or of a
figure which surprises \is by its novelty, and in the contem-
plation of which we are delighted.
These ornaments not only veil from our view the false-
hoods which mingle with discourse, but they insensibly
engender them, since it often happens that they are neces-
sary to the completion of the period or the figure. Thus,
when we hear an orator commencing a long gradation, or
an antithesis of many members, we have reason to be on
our guard, since it rarely happens that he finishes without
exaggerating the truth, in order to accommodate it to the
figure. He commonly disposes of it as we do the stones of
a building, or the metal of a statue : he cuts it, lengthens it,
narrows it, disguises it, as he thinks fit, in order to adapt
it to that vain work of words which he wishes to make.
How many false thoughts has the desire of making a
good point produced ! How many have been led into
falsehood for the sake of a rhyme ! How many foolish
things have certain Italian authors been led fa write,
through the affectation of using only Ciceronian words, and
of what is called pure Latinity ! Who could help smiling to
hear [Cardinal] Bembo say that a pope had been elected by
the favour of the immortal gods Deorum immortalium
beneficiis ? There are poets even who imagine that the
essence of poetry consists in the introduction of pagan divi-
nities ; and a German poet, a good versifier enough, though
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 35
not a very judicious writer, having been justly reproached
by Francis Picus Hirandola with having introduced into a
poem, where he describes the wars of Christians against
Christians, all the divinities of paganism, and having mixed
up Apollo, Diana, and Mercury, with the pope, the electors,
and the emperor, distinctly maintained that, without this,
it would not have been a poem, in proof of which he al-
leged this strange reason, that the poems of Hesoid, of
Homer, and of Virgil, are full of the names and the fables
of these gods ; whence he concluded that he might be
allowed to do the same.
These bad reasonings are often imperceptible to those who
make them, and deceive them first. They are deafened by
the sound of their own words, dazzled with the lustre of
their figures ; and the grandeur of certain words attaches
them unconsciously to thoughts of little solidity, which they
would doubtless have rejected had they exercised a little
reflection.
It is probable, for instance, that it was the word vestal
which pleased an author of our time, and which led him
to say to a young lady, to prevent her from being ashamed
of knowing Latin, that she need not blush to speak a lan-
guage which had been spoken by the vestals. For, if he
had considered this thought, he would have seen that he
might as justly have said to that lady that she ought to blush
to speak a language which had been formerly spoken by the
courtezans of Rome, who were far more numerous than the
vestals ; or that she ought to blush to speak any other lan-
guage than that of her own country, since the ancient vestals
spoke only their natural language. All these reasonings,
which are worth nothing, are as good as that of this author ;
36 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
and the truth is, that the vestals have nothing to do with
justifying or condemning maidens who learn Latin.
The false reasonings of this kind, which are met with
continually in the writings of those who most affect elo-
quence, show us how necessary it is for the majority of
those who write or speak to be thoroughly convinced of this
excellent rule, that there is nothing beautiful except that
which is true ; which would take away from discourse a
multitude of vain ornaments and false thoughts. It is true
that this precision renders the style more dry and less
pompous ; but it also renders it clearer, more vigorous,
more serious, and more worthy of an honourable man. The
impression which it makes is less strong, but much more
lasting ; whereas that produced by these rounded periods is
BO transient, that it passes away almost as soon as we have
heard them.
III.
It is a very common defect amongst men to judge rashly
of the actions and intentions of others ; and they almost
always fall into it by a bad reasoning, through which, in
not recognising with sufficient clearness all the causes which
might produce any effect, they attribute that defect defi-
nitely to one cause, when it may have been, produced by
many others ; or, again, suppose that a cause, which has ac-
cidentally, when united with many circumstances, produced
an effect on one occasion, must do so on all occcasions.
A man of learning is found to be of the same opinion with
a heretic, in a matter of ciiticism, independent of religious
controversies : a malicious adversary concludes from this
that he is favourable to heretics ; but he concludes this
rashly and maliciously, since it is perhaps reason and truth
which have led him to adopt that opinion.
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 37
A writer may speak with some strength against an
opinion which he believes to be dangerous ; he will, from
this, be accused of hatred and animosity against the authors
who have advanced it ; but he will be so unjustly and rashly,
since this earnestness may arise from zeal for the truth, just
as well as from hatred of the men who oppose it.
A man is the friend of a vicious man : it is, therefore,
concluded that he is connected by some bond of interest with
him, and is a partaker in his crimes. This does not follow :
perhaps he knows nothing about them ; and perhaps he has
no part in them.
We fail to render true civility to those to whom it is due :
we are said to be proud and insolent ; *but this was perhaps
only an inadvertence or simple forgetfulness.
All exterior things are but equivocal signs, that is to
say, signs which may signify many things ; and we judge
rashly when we determine this sign to mean a particular
thing, without having any special reason for doing so.
Silence is sometimes a sign of modesty and wisdom, and
sometimes of stupidity. Slowness sometimes indicates pru-
dence, and sometimes heaviness of mind. Change is some-
times a sign of inconstancy, and sometimes of sincerity.
Thus it is bad reasoning to conclude that a man is incon-
stant, simply from the fact that he has changed his opinion ;
for he may have a gqpd reason for changing it.
IV.
The false inductions by which general propositions are
derived from some particular experiences, constitute one of
the most common sources of the false reasonings of men.
Three or four examples suffice them to make a maxim and
a common-place, which they then employ as a principle fo
deciding all things.
38 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
Thei'e are many maladies hidden from the most skilful
physicians, and remedies often do not succeed : rash minds
hence conclude that medicine is absolutely useless, and only
a craft of charlatans.
There are light and loose women : this is sufficient for the
f-
jealous to conceive unjust suspicions against the most vir-
tuous, and for licentious writers to condemn all universally
There are some persons who hide great vices under an
appearance of piety ; libertines conclude from this that all
devotion is no better than hypocrisy.
There are some things obscure and hidden, and we are
often grossly deceived : all things are obscure and uncer-
tain, say the ancient and modern Pyrrhonists, and we
cannot know the truth of anything with certainty.
There is a want of equality in some of the actions of men,
and this is enough to constitute a common-place, from which
none are exempt. ' Reason," say they, " is so weak and
blind, that there is nothing so evidently clear as to be clear
enough for it ; the easy 'and the hard are both alike to it ;
all subjects are equal, and nature in general disclaims its
jurisdiction. We only think what we will in the very mo-
ment in which we will it ; we will nothing freely, nothing
absolutely, nothing constantly."
Most people set forth the defects or good qualities of
others only by general and extreme propositions. From
some particular actions we infer a habit : from three or four
faults we conclude a custom ; and what happens once a
month or once a year, happens every day, at every hour,
and every moment, in the discourses of men, so little pains
do they take to observe in them the limits of truth and
justice.
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 39
V.
It is a weakness and injustice which we often condemn,
but which we rarely avoid, to judge of purposes by the
event, and to reckon those who had taken a prudent reso-
lution according to the circumstances, so far as they could
see them, guilty of all the evil consequences which may
have happened therefrom, either simply through accident, or
through the malice of others who had thwarted it, or
through some other circumstances' which it was impossible
for them to foresee.
M"H nut only love to be fortunate as much as to be wise,
but thi-y make no distinction between the fortunate and the
wise, nur between the unfortunate ;ui<l the guilty. This
distinction is too subtile for them. We are ingenious in
finding out the faults which we imagine have produced the
want of success ; and as astrologers, when they know a
given event, fail not to discover the aspect of the stars which
produced it, so also we never fail to find, after disgraces and
misfortune, that those who have met with them have de-
served them by some imprudence. He is unsuccessful,
therefore he is in fault. In this way the world reasons,
and in this way it has always reasoned, because there has
always been little equity in the judgments of men, and be-
cause, not knowing the true causes of things, they substitute
others according to the event, by praising those who are
successful, and blaming those who are not.
VI.
But there are no false reasonings more common amongst
men than those into which they fall, either by judging
rashly of the truth of things from some authority insuffi-
40 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
cient to assure them of it, or by deciding the inward essence
by the outward manner. We call the former the sophism
of authority, the latter the sophism of the manner.
To understand how common these are, it is only necessary
to consider that the majority of men are determined to be-
lieve one opinion rather than another, not by any solid and
essential reasons which might lead them to know the truth,
but by certain exterior and foreign marks which are more
consonant to, or which they judge to be consonant to, truth,
than to falsehood.
The reason of this is, that the interior truth of things is
often deeply hidden ; that the minds of men are commonly
feeble and dark, full of clouds and false light, while their
outward marks of truth are clear and sensible ; so that, as
men naturally incline to that which is easiest, they almost
always range themselves on the side where they see those
exterior marks of truth which are readily discovered.
These may be reduced to two principles, the authority
of him who propounds Ohe thing, and the manner in which
it is propounded. And these two ways of persuading are so
powerful that they carry away almost all minds.
We may derive convincing arguments in matters of reli-
gion from the manner in which they are advanced. When
we see, for example, in different ages of the church, and
principally in the last, men who endeavour to propagate
their opinions by bloodshed and the sword ; when we see
them arm themselves against the church by schism, against
temporal powers by revolt ; when we see people without
the common commission, without miracles, without any ex-
ternal marks of piety, and with the plain marks rather of
licentiousness, undertake to change the faith and discipline
of the church in so criminal a manner, it is more than suffi-
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 41
cient to make reasonable men reject them, and to prevent
the most ignorant from listening to them.
But in those things, the knowledge of which is not abso-
lutely necessary, and which God has left more to the dis-
cernment of the reason of each one in particular, the au-
thority and the manner are not so important, and they
often lead many to form judgments contrary to the truth.
We do not undertake to give here the rules and the pre-
cise limits of the respect which is due to authority in human
things, we simply indicate some gross faults which are
committed in this matter.
We often regard only the number of the witnesses, with-
out at all considering whether the number increases the
probability of their having discovered the truth, which is,
however, unreasonable ; for, as an author of our time has
wisely remarked, in difficult things, which each must dis-
cover for himself, it is more likely that a single person will
discover the truth than that many will. Thus the foila--
ing is not a valid infi-rcupoj thi a ^pinif! i? h?H fry th*
majority of philosophers j it is, tbgrefore^ thejjaejst.^.
We are often persuaded, by certain qualities which have
no connection with the truth, of the things which we
examine. Thus there are a. num,ber of people who trust
implicitly to those who are older, and who have had more
experience, even in those tilings which do not depend on age
or experience, but on the clearness of the mind.
I';.-t\. wisdom, moderation, are \viili..iit .Imiiit tin- iii<>st
estimable qualities in the world, and they ought to give
gnat authority to those who possess them in those things
which depend on piety or Sincerity, and even on the know-
ledge of God, for it is most probable that God communicates
more to those who serve him more purely ; but there are a
42 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
multitude of things which depend only on human intelli-
gence, human experience, and human penetration, and, in
these things, those who have the superiority in intellect and
in study, deserve to be relied on more than others. The
contrary, however, often happens, and many reckon it best
to follow, even in these things, the most devout men.
This arises, in part, from the fact that these advantages
of mind are not so obvious as the external decorum which
appears in pious persons, and in part, also, from the fact
that men do not like to make these distinctions. Discri-
mination perplexes them ; they will have aft or nothing.
If they trust to a man in one thing, they will trust to him
in everything: if they do not in one, they will not in any ;
they love short, plain, and easy ways. But this disposition,
though common, is nevertheless contrary to reason, which
shows us that the same persons are not to be trusted to in
anything, because they are not distinguished in anything ;
and that it is bad reasoning to conclude : he is a serioug
man, therefore he is intelligent and clever in everything.
VII.
It is true, indeed, that if any errors are pardonable, those
into which we fall through our excessive deference to the
opinion of good men are among the number. But there is
a delusion much more absurd in itself, but which is never-
theless very common, that, namely, of believing that a man
speaks the truth because he is a man of birth, of fortune, or
high in office.
ITot that any formally make these kinds of reasonings
he has a hundred thousand livres a year ; therefore he pos-
sesses judgment : he is of high birth ; therefore what he
advances must be true : he is a poor man ; therefore he
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 43
is wrong. Nevertheless, something of this kind passes
through the minds of the majority, and unconsciously bears
away their judgment.
Let the same thing be proposed by a man of quality, and
by one of no distinction, and it will often be found that we
approve of it in the mouth of the former, when we scarcely
condescend to listen to it in that of the latter. Scripture de-
signed to teach us this disposition of men, in that perfect
representation which is given of it in the book of Ecclesi-
asticus.* " When a rich man speaketh, every one holdeth
his tongue, and look, what he saith they extol it to the
skies ; but if the poor man speak, they say, ' What fellow is
this?' " (Dives locutus est, et omnes tacuerunt, et verbum
Uliits u^que ad nubes perducent ; pauper locuttts est, et dicunt,
Quis est hie 1 )
It is certain that complaisance and flattery have much to
do with the approbation which is bestowed on the actions
and words of people of quality ; as also that they often gain
this by a certain outward grace, and by a noble, free, and
natural bearing, which is sometimes so distinctive that it is
almost impossible for it to be imitated by those who are of
low birth. It is certain, also, that there are many who
approve of everything which is done and said by the great,
through an inward abasement of soul, who bend under the
weight of grandeur, and whose sight is not strong enough to
bear its lustre ; as, indeed, that the outward pomp which
environs them always imposes a little, and makes some im-
pression on the strongest minds.
This illusion springs from the corruption of the heart of
man, who, having a strong passion for honours and pleasures,
EcclesiasticuH xiii. 23.
44 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
necessarily conceives a great affection for the means by
which these honours and pleasures are obtained. The love
which we have for all those things which are valued by the
world, makes us judge those happy who possess them ; and,
in thus judging them happy, we place them above ourselves,
and regard them as eminent and exalted persons. This
habit of regarding them with respect passes insensibly from
their fortune to their mind. Men do not commonly do
things by halves : we, therefore, give them minds as exalted
as their rank ; we submit to their opinions ; and this is the
reason of the credit which they commonly obtain in the
affairs which they manage.
But this illusion is still stronger in the great themselves,
when they have not laboured to correct the impression which
their fortune naturally makes on their minds, than it is in
their inferiors, ^ome derive from their estate and riches a
reason for maintaining that their opinions ought to prevail
over those who are beneath them. They canfaot bear that
those people whom they regard with contempt should pre-
tend to have as much judgment and reason as themselves,
and this makes them so impatient of the least contradiction.
All this springs from the same source, that is, from the false
ideas which they have of their grandeur, nobility, and
wealth. Instead of considering them as things altogether
foreign from their character, which do not prevent them at
all from being perfectly equal to all the rest of men, both
in mind and body, and which do not prevent their judgment
even from being as weak and as liable to be deceived as that
of all others, they, in some sort, incorporate with their very
essence all these qualities of grand, noble, rich, master, lord,
prince, they exaggerate their idea of themselves with thesa
THOSE WHICH ARISE PROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 45
things, and never represent themselves to themselves with-
out all their titles, their equipage, and their train.
They are accustomed from, their infancy to consider them-
selves as of a different species from other men ; they never
mingle in imagination with the mass of human kind ; they
are, in their own eyes, always counts or dukes, and never
simply men. Thus they shape to themselves a soul and
judgment according to the measure of their fortune, and
believe themselves as much above others in mind as they
are above them in birth and fortune.
The folly of the human mind i such, that there is nothing
which may not serve to aggrandise the idea which it has of
itself. A beautiful horse, grand clothes, a long beard, make
men consider themselves more clever j and there are few
who do not think more of themselves on horseback or in a
coach than on foot. It is easy to convince everybody that
there is nothing more ridiculous than these judgments, but
it is very difficult to guard entirely against the secret im-
pression which these outward things make upon the mind.
All that we can do is to accustom ourselves as much as pos-
sible to give no influence at all to those qualities which can-
not contribute towards finding the truth, and to give it even
to those which do thus contribute only so far as they really
contribute to this end. Age, knowledge, study, experience,
mind, energy, memory, accuracy, labour, avail to find the
truth of hidden things, and these qualities, therefore, deserve
to be respected ; but it is always necessary to weigh with
care, and then to make a comparison with the opposite
reasons ; for from separate individual things we can con-
chide nothing with certainty, since there are very false
opinions which have been sanctioned by men of great mental
power, who possessed tin-so qualities to a great extent
46 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
VIII.
There is something still more deceptive in the mistakes
which arise from the manner, for we are naturally led to
believe that a man is in the right when he speaks with
grace, with ease, with gravity, with moderation, and with
gentleness ; and, on the contrary, that a man is in the wrong
when he speaks harshly, or manifests anything of passion,
acrimony, or presumption, in his actions and words.
Nevertheless, if we judge of the essence of things by these
outward and sensible appearances, we must be often de-
ceived. For there are many people who utter follies gravely
and modestly ; and others, on the contrary, who, being
naturally of a quick temper, or under the influence even of
some passion, which appears in their countenance or their
__ words, have nevertheless the truth on their side. There
are some men of very moderate capacity, and very super-
ficial, who, from having been nourished at court, where the
art of pleasing is studied and practised better than any-
where else, have very agreeable manners, by means of which
they -render many false judgments acceptable ; and there
are others, on the contrary, who, having nothing outward
to recommend them, have, nevertheless, a great and solid
mind within. There are some who speak better than
they think, and others who think better than they speak.
Thus reason demands of those who are capable of it, that
they judge not by these outward things, and hesitate not to
yield to the truth, not only when it is proposed in ways
that are offensive and disagreeable, but even when it is
mingled with much of falsehood ; for the same person may
speak truly in one thing, and falsely in another ; may be
right in one thing, and wrong in another.
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 47
It is necessary, therefore, to consider each thing separ-
ately, that is to say, we must judge of the manner by the
manner, and of the matter by the matter, and not of the
matter by the manner, nor of the manner by the matter. A
man does wrong to speak with anger, and he does right to
speak the truth ; and, on the contrary, another is right in
speaking calmly and civilly, and he is wrong in advancing
falsehoods.
But as it is reasonable to be on our guard against con-
cluding that a thing is true or false, because it is proposed
in such a way, it is right, also, that those who wish to per-
suade others of any truth which they have discovered,
should study to clothe it in the garb most suitable for
making it acceptable, and to avoid those revolting ways of
stating it which only lead to its rejection.
They ought to remember that when we seek to move the
minds of people, it is a small thing that we have right
on our side ; and it is a great evil to have only right, and
not to have also that which is necessary for making it"
acceptable.
If they seriously honour the truth, they ought not to dis-
honour it by covering it with the marks of falsehood and
deceit ; and if they love it sincerely, they ought not to at-
tach to it the hatred and aversion of men, by the offensive
way in which they propound it. It is the most important,
as well as the most useful precept of rhetoric, that it
behoves us to govern the spirit as well as the words ; for
although it is a different thing to be wrong in the manner
from being wrong in the matter, the faults, nevertheless,
of the manner are often greater and more important than
those of the matter.
48 SOPHISMS COMMON IN CIVIL LIFE.
In reality, all these fiery, presumptuous, bitter, obstinate,
passionate manners, always spring from some disorder of
the mind > which is often more serious than the defect of in-
telligence and of knowledge, which we reprehend in others*
It is, indeed, always unjust to seek to persuade men in this
way ; for it is very right that we should lead them to the
truth wlren we know it ; but it is wrong to compel others
to take as true everything that we believe, and to defer to
our authority alone. We do this, however, when we pro-
pose the truth in this offensive manner. For the way of
Speaking generally enters into the mind before the reasons,
since the mind is more prompt to notice the manner of the
speaker than it is to comprehend the solidity of his proofs,
which are often, indeed, not comprehended at all. Now the
manner of the discourse being thus separated from the
proofs, marks only the authority which he who speaks arro-
gates to himself ; so that if he is bitter and imperious, he
necessarily revolts the minds of Bothers, since he appears to
wish to gain, by authority, and by a kind of tyranny, that
which ought only to be obtained by persuasion and reason.
This injustice is still greater when we employ these offen-
sive ways in combating common and received opinions ; for
the judgment of an individual may indeed be preferred to"
.that of many when it is more correct, but an individual
ought never to maintain that his authority should prevail
against that of all others.
Thus, not only modesty and prudence, but justice itself,
obliges us to assume a modest air when we combat common
opinions or established authority, otherwise we cannot escape
the injustice of opposing the authority of an individual to
an authority either public, or greater and more widely estab-
lished than our own* We cannot exercise too much modera-
THOSE WHICH ARISE FROM OBJECTS THEMSELVES. 49
tion when we seek to disturb the position of a received
opinion or of an ancient faith. This is so true, that St.
Augustine extended it even to religious truths, having
given this excellent rule to all those who have to instruct
others :
"Observe," says he, " in what way the wise and religious
catholics taught that which they had to communicate to
others. If they were things common and authorized, they
propounded them in a manner full of assurance, and free
from every trace of doubt by being accompanied with the
greatest possible gentleness ; but if they were extraordinary
things, although they themselves very clearly recognized
their truth, they still proposed them rather as doubts and as
questions to be examined, than as dogmas and fixed deci-
sions, in order to accommodate themselves In this to the
weakness of those who heard them." And so if a truth be
so high that it is above the strength of those to whom it is
spoken, they prefer rather to keep it back for a while, in
order to give them time for growth, and for becoming
capable of receiving it, instead of making it known to
them that state of weakness in which it would have
overwhelmed them.
LECTURES
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON
MODIFIED LOGIC.
LECTURES ON LOGIC.
LECTURE I. MODIFIED LOGIC.
PART L MODIFIED STOICHEIOLOGY.
SECTION L DOCTRINE OF TRUTH AND ERROR.
TRUTH ITS CHARACTER AND KINDS.
HAVING now terminated the Doctrine of Pure or .Abstract
Logic, we proceed to that of Modified or
LoglC '~ Conreie_Logic-_ In entering on this sub-
ject, I have to recall to your memory what
has formerly been stated in regard to the object which
Modified Logic proposes for consideration. Pure Lotto
takes into account only the necessary conditions of thought,
as founded on the nature of the thinking process itself*
M'-liJifl I,ogjr, on tli.- <-oiitr;iry, ron.sidi.Tii thi; conditions to
which thn^gfrtiM nltf ftt arising from the empirical circum-
stances, external and internal, under which exclusively it is
the will of our Creator that man should manifest his faculty
of thinking. Pure Logic is thus exclusively conversant
with the form ; Modified Logic is, likewise, occupied with
the matter, of thought. And as their objects are different,
54 MODIFIED LOGIC.
so, likewise, must be their ends. The end of Pure Logic is
formal truth, the harmony of thought with thought ; the
end of Modified Logic is the harmony of thought with
istence^ Of these ends, that which Pure Logic proposes is
less ambitious, but it is fully and certainly accomplished ;
the end which Modified Logic proposes is higher, but it is
far less perfectly attained. The problems which Modified
Logic has to solve may be reduced to three :
^' What ^ truth and its contradictory op-
posite, Error ? 2, What are the Causes
of Error, and the Impediments to Truth, by which man is
beset in the employment of his faculties, and what are the
Means of their Removal ? And, 3, What are the Subsi-
diaries by which Human Thought may be strengthened and
guided in the exercise of its functions ?
From this statement it is evident that Concrete Logic
might, like Pure Logic, have been divided
Anddistributedbe- into a Stoicheiology and a Methodology,
tween its stoicheiol- ^ f ormer comprising the first two heads,
ogy and its Method-
ology. the latter the third. For if to Modified
Stoicheiology we refer the consideration of
the nature of concrete truth and error, and of the conditions
of a merely not erroneous employment of thought, this
will be exausted in the First and Second Chapters ; where-
as, if we refer to Methodology a consideration of the means
of employing thought not merely without error, but with
a certain positive perfection, this is what the Third Chapter
professes to expound.
I commence the First Chapter, which proposes to answer
the question, What is Truth ? with its correlatives, by
the dictation of the following paragraphs :
THUTH ITS CHARACTER AND KINDS. 55
IT I. The end which all our scientific efforts are ex-
erted to accomplish, is Truth and
d
Certainty, what
pr.i.Tn,thnd Truth is the congapoiid-
ence or agreement of a cognit'* "
its object ; its Criterion is the necessity determined by
the laws which govern our faculties of knowledge ; and
Certainty is the consciousness of this necewrily. Cer-
tainty, or the conscious necessity of knowledge, abso-
lutely excludes the admission of any opposite supposi-
tion. Where such appears admissible, doubt and un-
certainty arise. If we consider truth by relation to
the degree and kind of Certainty, we have to distinguish
Knowledge, Belief, and Opinion. Knowledge and Be-
lief differ not only in degree, but in kind. KnowlqdjrH
is a certainty founded upon insight j Belief is a cer-
tainty fo"nilgd iTp< filing 'rhe one is perspicupusi
and objective ; the other is obscure and subjective.
Each, however, supposes the other ; and an qgsurajope
is said to be a knojtigdge or ajfcgliefj according as the
one element or the other preponderates. Oninioji is
the admission of something as true, where, however,
neither insight nor feeling is so intense as to necessi-
tate a perfect certainty. What prevents the admission
of a proposition as certain is called QQJ^L The
approximation of the imperfect certainty of opinion to
the perfect certainty of knowledge or belief is called
Probability.
If we consider Truth with reference to Knowledge,
and to the way in which this knowledge arises, we
in 1 1 >t distinguish Empirical or ^posteriori, from Pure
or a jrriori Truth. The former has reference to cogni-
tions which have their source in the presentations of
56 MODIFIED LOGIC.
Perception, External and Internal, and which obtain
their form by the elaboration of the Understanding or
faculty of Kelations (Siuvoia). The latter is contained in
the necessary and universal cognitions afforded by the
Regulative Faculty Intellect Proper or Common
Sense (vovs).
This paragraph, after stating that Truth and Certainty
constitute the end of all our endeavors
Explication. _
after knowledge, for only in the attain-
ment of truth and certainty can we possibly attain to know-
ledge or science > I say, after the statement of this mani-
fest proposition, it proceeds to define what is meant by the
two terms Truth and Certainty ; and, to commence with the
former, Truth is defined, the correspondence or agreement
of a cognition or cofinitive act of thought with its object.
The question What is truth 1 is an old and celebrated
problem. It was proposed by the Roman
Truth.-what. . _ * . *..
Governor- by Pontius Pilate to our Sa-
viour ; and it is a question which still recurs, and is still
keenly agitated in the most recent schools of Philosophy.
In one respect all are nearly agreed in regard to the defini-
tion of the term, for all admit that by truth
^Definition of the ^ understood a harmony, an agreement,
a correspondence between our thought and
that which we think about. This definition of truth we owe
to the schoolmen. " Veritas intellectus" says Acquinas,
" est adcequatio intellectus et rei, secundum quod intellectus
dicit esse, quod est, vel non esse, qoud non est" From the
schoolmen, this definition has been handed down to modern
philosophers, by whom it is currently employed, without, in
general, a suspicion of its origin. It is not, therefore, in
regard to the meaning of the term truth t that there is any
TRUTH ITS CHARACTER AND KINDS. 57
difference of opinion among philosophers. The questions
which have provoked discussion, and which
I* 1 * 1 * remain, as heretofore, without a definitive
regarding Truth.
solution, are not whether truth be the har-
mony of thought and reality, but whether this harmony, or
truth, be attainable, and whether we possess any criterion
by which we can be assured of its attainment Considering,
however, at present only the meaning of the term, philoso-
phers have divided the Truth (or the harmony of thought
and its object) into different species, to which they have
given diverse names ; but they are at one neither in the
division nor in the nomenclature.
It is plain that for man there can only be conceived two
kinds of truth, because there are for human
For* man only two thought only two species of object. For
kinds oJTnith,-For- , . , ...
mal and Rwd. that about which we think must either be
a thought, or something which, a thought
contains. On this is founded the distinction of Formal
Knowledge and Real Knowledge, of Formal Truth and
Real Truth. Of these in their order :
I. In regard to the former, a thought abstracted from
what it contains, that is, from its matter or
I. Formal Truth. , . . , .
what it is conversant about, is the more
form of thought. The knowledge of the form of thought is
a formal knowledge, and the harmony of thought with the
form of thought is, consequently, Formal
Form* Truth of Tru ^ Now F orma i Knowledge is of two
two kindi, LoftaJ
tad Mathematical. kinds ; for it regards either the conditions
of the Elaborative Faculty, the Faculty
of Thought Proper, or the conditions of our Presentations
or Representations of external things, that is, the intuitions
of Space and Time. The former of these sciences is Pure
58 MODIFIED LOGIC.
Logic the science which considers the laws to which the
Understanding is astricted in its elaborative operations,
without enquiring what is the object, what is the matter,
to which these operations are applied. The latter of these
sciences is Mathematics, or the science of Quantity, which
considers the relations of Time and Space, without enquiring
whether there be any actual reality in space or time. For-
mal truth will, therefore, be of two kinds, Logical and
Mathematical. Logical truth is the harmony or agreement of
our thoughts with themselves as thoughts,
. Logical Truth. '
in other words, the correspondence of
thought with the universal laws of thinking. These laws
are the object of Pure or General Logic, and in these it
places the criterion of truth. This criterion is, however,
only the negative condition only the conditio sine qua
non, of truth. Logical truth is supposed in supposing the
possibility of thought ; for all thought presents a combi-
nation, the elements of which are repugnant or congruent,
but which cannot be repugnant and congruent at the same
time. Logic might be true, although we possessed no truth
beyond its fundamental laws ; although we knew nothing
of any real existence beyond the formal hypothesis of its
possibility.
But were the Laws of Logic purely subjective, that is,
were they true only for our thought alone, and without any
objective validity, all human sciences (and Mathematics
among the rest) would be purely subjective likewise ; for
we are cognizant of objects only under the forms and rules
of which Logic is the scientific development. If the true
character of objective validity be universality, the Laws of
Logic are really of that character, for these laws constrain
TRUTH ITS CHARACTER AND KINDS. 59
us, by their own authority, to regard them as the universal
laws not only of human thought, but of universal reason.
The case is the same with the other formal science, the
science of Quantity, or Mathematics.
Mathematical Truth.
Without inquiring into the reality of ex-
istences, and without borrowing from, or attributing to,
them anything, Arithmetic, the science of Discrete Quan-
tity, creates its numbers, and Geometry, the science of
Continuous Quantity, creates its figures ; and both operate
upon these their objects in absolute independence of all
external actuality. The two mathematical sciences are de-
pendent for their several objects only on the notion of time
and the notion of space, notions under which alone matter
can be conceived as possible, for all matter supposes space,
and all matter is moved in space and time. But to the
notions of space and time the existence or non-existence of
matter is indifferent ; indifferent, consequently, to Geometry
and Arithmetic, so long at least as they remain in the lofty
regions of pure speculation, and do not descend to the
practical application of their principles. If matter had no
existence, nay, if space and time existed only in our minds,
mathematics would still be true ; but their truth would be
of a purely formal and ideal character, would furnish us
with no knowledge of objective realities.
So much for Formal Truth, under its two species of Logi-
cal and Mathematical.
The other genus of truth (the end which the Real
Sciences propose) is the harmony between
ii. R*ai Truth. a thought and its matter. The Real Sci-
ences are those which have a determinate
reality for their object, and which are con-
versant about existences other than the forms of thought.
60 MODIFIED LOGIC.
The Formal Sciences have a superior certainty to the real ;
for they are simply ideal combinations, und they construct
their objects without inquiring about their objective reality.
The real sciences are sciences of fact, for the point from
which, they depart is always a fact,
Under the Real always a presentation. Some of these
sciences are included rest on the presentations of Self-conscious-
the Mental and Ma-
teriai. ness, or the facts of mind ; others on the
presentations of Sensitive Perception, or
the facts of nature. The former are the Mental Sciences,
the latter the Material. The facts of niind are given partly
as contingent, partly as necessary ; the latter the neces-
sary facts are universal virtually and in themselves ; the
former the contingent facts only obtain a fictitious uni-
versality by a process of generalization. The facts of
nature, however necessary in themselves, are given to us
only as contingent and isolated phenomena ; they have,
therefore, only that conditional, that empirical, generality,
which we bestow on them by classification.
Real truth is, therefore, the correspondence of our
thoughts with the existences which con-
How can we know stitute their objects. But here a difficulty
that there is a corre- ar i ses : How can we know that there is,
pondence between
oyir thought nd tts "^ there can be, such a correspondence ?
AH that we know of the objects is through
the presentations of our faculties ; but
whether these present the objects as they are in themselves,
we can never ascertain, for to do this it would be requisite
to go out of ourselves, out of our faculties, to obtain a
knowledge of the objects by other faculties, and thus to com-
pare our old presentations with our new. But all this, even
were the supposition possible, would be incompetent to
TRUTH ITS CHABACTEK AND KINDS. 61
afford us the certainty required. For were it possible to
leave our old, and to obtain a new, set of faculties, by
which to test the old, still the veracity of these new faculties
would be equally obnoxious to doubt as the veracity of the
old. For what guarant3e could we obtain for the credibility
in the one case, which we do not already possess in the
other ? The new faculties could only assert their own
truth ; but this is done by the old ; and it is impossible to
imagine any presentations of the non-ego by any finite in-
telligence, to which a doubt might not be raised; whether
these presentations were not merely subjective modifications
of the conscious ego itself. All that could be said in
answer to such a doubt is, that if such were true, our whole
nature is a \ie, a supposition which is not, without the
strongest evidence, to be admitted ; and the argument is as
competent against the sceptic in our present condition, as
it would be were we endowed with any other conceivable
form of Acquisitive and Cognitive Faculties. But I am
here trenching on what ought to be reserved for an expla-
nation of the Criterion of Truth.
Such, as it appears to me, is the only rational division of
Truth according to the different character
of the objects to which thought is relative,
into Formal and into Real Truth. For-
mal Truth, as we have seen, is subdivided into Logical and
into Mathematical. Real Truth might likewise be sub-
divided, were this requisite, into various species. For
example, Metaphysical Truth might denote the harmony of
thought with the necessary facts of mind ;
Meuphy*ioi. Psychological Truth, the harmony of
"phyJoJ* thought with the contingent facts of
mind ; and Physical Truth, the harmony
of thought with the phenomena of external experience.
62 MODIFIED LOGIC.
It now remains to say a word in regard to the confusion
which has been introduced into this sub-
Various applications . , ,, n j. ,. ,. j
ot the term rrutft. J ect ' b ? the groundless distinctions and
contradictions of philosophers. Some have
absurdly given the name of truth to the mere reality of
existence, altogether abstracted from any conception or
judgment relative to it, in any intelligence, human or
divine. In this sense physical truth has been used to
denote the actual existence of a thing. Some have given
the name of metaphysical truth to the congruence of the
thing with its idea in the mind of the Creator. Others
again have bestowed the name of metaphysical truth on the
mere logical possibility of being thought ; while they have
denominated by logical truth the metaphysical or physical
correspondence of thought with its objects. Finally, the
term moral or ethical truth has been given to veracity, or
the correspondence of thought with its expression. In this
last case, truth is not, as in the others, employed in relation
to thought and its object, but to thought and its enounce-
ment. So much for the notion, and the principal dis-
tinctions of Truth.
But, returning to the paragraph; I take the next clause,
which is, " The Criterion of truth is the
The Criterion of sit determined bv the laws which
Truth. J
govern our faculties of knowledge ; and the
consciousness of this necessity is certainty." That the ne-
cessity of a cognition, that is, the impossibility of thinking
it other than as it is presented, that this necessity, as
founded on the laws of thought, is the criterion of truth, is
shown by the circumstance that where such necessity is
found, all doubt in regard to the correspondence of the
cognitive thought and its object must vanish ; for to doubt
TRUTH ITS CHARACTER AXD KINDS. 63
whether what we necessarily think in a certain manner,
actually exists as we conceive it, is nothing less than an
endeavor to think the necessary as the not necessary or the
impossible, which is contradictory.
What has just been said also illustrates the truth of the
next sentence of the paragraph, viz., " Certainty or the
conscious necessity of a cognition absolutely excludes the
admission of any opposite supposition. When such is found
to be admissible, doubt and uncertainty arise." This sen-
tence requiring no explanation, I proceed to the next, viz.,
" If we consider truth by the relation to the degree and
kind of Certainty, we have to distinguish Knowledge,
Belief, and Opinion. Knowledge and Belief differ not only
in degree but in kind. Knowledge is a certainty founded
on intuition. Belief is a certainty founded upon feeling.
The one is perspicuous and objective, the other is obscure
and subjective. Each, however, supposes the other, and an
assurance is said to be a knowledge or a belief, according
as the one element or the other preponderates."
In reference to this passage, it is necessary to say some-
thing in regard to the difference of Know-
Knowledge and Be- ledge and Belief. In common language
itof-thetrdiflerence. the word Bdief'vd, often used to denote an
inferior degree of certainty. We may, how-
That the certainty
of ail knowledge u ever, be equally certain of what we believe
ultimately resolvable ag o f what we know, and it has, not with-
ftliief* "Plained out ground, been maintained by many
by Luther. philosophers, both in ancient and in mo-
dern times, that the certainty of all know-
ledge in, in its ultimate analysis, resolved into a certainty
of belief. " All things," says Luther. " stand in a belief, in
a faith, which he can neither see nor comprehend. The
64 MODIFIED LOGIC.
man who would make these visible, manifest, and compre-
hensible, has vexation and heart-grief for his reward. May
the Lord increase Belief in you and in others." But you
may perhaps think that the saying of Luther is to be taken
theologically, and that, philosophically considered, all belief
ought to be founded on knowledge, not all knowledge in
belief. But the same doctrine is held even by those phi-
losophers who are the least disposed to mysticism or blind
faith. Among these Aristotle stands dis-
tinguished. He defines science, strictly so
called, or the knowledge of indubitable truths, merely by
the intensity of our conviction or subjective assurance ; and
on a primary and incomprehensible belief he hangs the
whole chain of our comprehensible or immediate knowledge.
The doctrine which has been called The Philosophy of
Common Sense, is the doctrine which founds all our know-
ledge on belief; and, though this has not been signalized,
the doctrine of Common Sense is perhaps better stated by
the Stagirite than by any succeeding thinker. " What," he
says, " appears to all men, that we affirm to be, and he who
rejects this belief (mcms) will assuredly advance nothing
better worthy of credit." This passage is from his Nicoma-
cJiean Ethics. But, in his Physical Treatises, he founds in
belief the knowledge we have of the reality of motion, and
by this, as a source of knowledge paramount to the Under-
standing, he supersedes the contradictions which are in-
volved in our conception of motion, and which had so
acutely been evolved by the Eleatic Zeno, in order to show
that motion was impossible. In like manner, in his Logical
Treatises, Aristotle shows that the primary or ultimate
principles of knowledge must be incomprehensible ; for if
comprehensible, they must be comprehended in some higher
TRUTH ITS CHARACTER AND KIJCDS. 65
notion, and this again, if not itself incomprehensible, must
be again comprehended in a still higher, and so on in a
progress ad infinitum, which is absurd. But what is
given as an ultimate and incomprehensible principle of
knowledge, is given as a fact, the existence of which we
must admit, but the reasons of whose existence we cannot
know, we cannot understand. But such an admission, as
it is not a knowledge, must be a belief ; and thus it is that,
according to Aristotle, all our knowledge is in its root a
blind, a passive faith, in other words, a feeling. The same
doctrine was subsequently held by many
The PlatonUU. - ,, .. . , ., . , .
of the acutest thinkers of ancient times,
more especially among the Platonists ; and
of these Proclus is perhaps the philosopher in whose works
the doctrine is turned to the best account. In modern tiroes
we may trace it in silent operation, though not explicitly
proclaimed, or placed as the foundation of a system. It is
found spontaneously recognized even by those who might
be supposed the least likely to acknowledge
it without compulsion. Hume, for ex-
ample, against whose philosophy the doctrine of Common
Sense was systematically arrayed, himself pointed out the
weapons by which his adversaries subsequently assailed his
scepticism ; for he himself was possessed of too much philo-
sophical acuteness not to perceive that the root of knowledge
is belief. Thus, in his Inquiry, he says, " It seems evident
that men are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession
to repose faith in their .senses : and that, without any
reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we
always sup|K>se an external universe which depends not on
our preception, but would exist though we and every sen-
sible creature were absent or annihilated. Even the animal
66 MODIFIED LOGIC.
creation are governed by a like opinion, and preserve this
belief, the belief of external objects, in all their thoughts,
designs, and actions This very table which we
see white, and which we feel hard, is believed to exist inde-
pendent of our perception, and to be something external to
our mind which perceives it."
But, on the other hand, the manifestation of this belief
necessarily involves knowledge ; for we.
The manifestation cannot believe without some consciousness
of Belief involves , . , / ,1 i i- / j
Knowledge or knowledge of the belief, and, conse-
quently, without some consciousnesss or
knowledge of the object of the belief. Now the immediate
consciousness or knowledge of an object is
Intuition, what.
called an intuition, an insight. It is
thus impossible to separate belief and knowledge, feeling
and intuition. They each suppose the other.
The consideration, however, of the relation of Belief and
Knowledge does not properly belong to
The question as to Logic, except in so far as it is necessary to
the relation of Belief e plain the nature o f Truth and Erron
and Knowledge pro-
perly metaphysical. It is altogether a metaphysical discussion ;
and one of the most difficult problems of
which Metaphysics attempts the solution.
The remainder of the paragraph contains the statement of
certain distinctions and the definition of certain terms, which
it was necessary to signalize, but which do not require any
commentary for their illustration. The only part that
might have required an explanation is the distinction of
Truth into Pure, or a priori, and into Empirical, or a pos-
teriori. The explanation of this division has been already
given more than once, but the following may now be added.
TRUTH ITS CHARACTEB AND KINDS. 67
Experience presents to us only individual objects, and ae
these individual objects might or might
cai Truth" 1 not ^ ave come within our sphere of obser-
vation, our whole knowledge of and from
these objects might or might not exist ; it is merely acci-
dental or contingent. But as our knowledge of individual
objects affords the possibility, as supplying the whole con-
tents, of our generalized or abstracted notions, our general,
ized or abstracted notions are, consequently, not more
necessary to thought, than the particular observations out
of which they are constructed. For example, every horse
I have seen 1 might not have seen ; and I feel no more
necessity to think the reality of a horse than the reality of
a hippogriff; I can, therefore, easily annihilate in thought
the existence of the whole species. I can suppose it not to
be, not to have been. The case is the same with every
other notion which is mediately or immediately the datum
of observation. We can think away each and every part
of the knowledge we have derived from experience ; our
whole empirical knowledge is, therefore, a merely accidental
possession of the mind.
But there are notions in the mind of a very different
character, notions which we cannot but think, if we think
at all. These, therefore, are notions necessary to the mind ;
and, as necessary, they cannot be the product of experience.
For example, I perceive something to begin to be. I feel
no necessity to think that this thing must be at all, but
thinking it existent, I cannot but think that it has a cause.
The notion, or rather the judgment, of Cause and Effect,
U, therefore, necessary to the mind. If so, it cannot be
derived from experience.
LECTURE II. MODIFIED STOICHEIOLOGY.
SECTION I. DOCTRINE OF' TRUTH AND ERROR.
SECTION II. ERROR, ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES.
A. GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETiT.
I NOW proceed to the consideration of the opposite of Truth,
Error, and, on this subject, give you the following
paragraph :
1T II. Error is opposed to Truth ; and Error arises,
1, From the commutation of what is
Par. II. Error, Subjective and what is Objective in
its character and ,, i , o -n J.-L n T .-
sources thought ; 2 , From the Contradiction
of a supposed knowledge with its
Laws ; or, 3, From a want of Adequate Activity in
our Cognitive Faculties.
EiTor is to be discriminated from Ignorance and
from Illusion ; these, however, along with Arbitrary
Assumption, afford the most frequent occasions of error.
This paragraph consists of two parts, and these I shall
successively consider. The first is : " Error
Explication. . . -
is opposed to truth ; and Error arises,
1, From the commutation of what is subjective with what
is objective in thought ; 2, From the contradiction of a
GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 69
supposed knowledge with its laws ; or, 3, From a want of
adequate activity in our cognitive faculties."
" In the first place, we have seen that Truth is the agree-
ment of a thought with its object. Now,
Krfor, what
as Error is the opposite of truth, Error
must necessarily consist in a want of this agreement. In
the second place, it has been shown that the criterion or
standard of truth is the necessity founded on the laws of
our cognitive faculties ; and from this it follows that the
essential character of error must be, either that it is not
founded on these laws, or that it is repugnant to them. But
these two alternatives may be viewed as only one j for inas-
much as, in the former case, the judgment remains unde-
cided, and can make no pretence to certainty, it may be
thrown out of account no less than in the latter, where, as
positively contradictory of the laws of knowledge, it is
necessarily false. Of these statements the first, that is, the
jion-agreement of a notion with its object,
is error viewed on its material side ; and
as a notion is the common product, the joint result afforded
by the reciprocal action of object and subject, it is evident
that whatever the notion contains not correspondent to the
object, must be a contribution by the thinking subject alone,
and we are thus warranted in saying that Material Error
consists in the commuting of what is subjective with what
is objective in thought ; in other words, in mistaking an
ideal illusion for a real representation. The second of these
statements, that is, the incongruence of
the supposed cognition with the laws of
knowledge, is error viewed on its formal side. Now here
the question at once presents itself, How can an act of
70 . MODIFIED LOGIC.
cognition contradict its own laws ? The answer is that it
cannot ; and error, when more closely
Arises from the scrutinized, is found not so much to con-
want of adequate ac- gist ^ the contradictory activity of our
tivity of the Cogni-
tive Faculties.- cognitive faculties as in their want of
activity. And this may be in consequence
of one or other of two causes. For it may arise from some
ether mental power, the will, for example, superseding,
taking the place of, the defective cognition, or, by its in-
tenser force, turning it aside and leading it to a false result \
or it may arise from some want of relative perfection in the
object, so that the cognitive faculty is not determined by it
to the requisite degree of action.
" What is actually thought, cannot but be correctly
thought. Error first commences when thinking is remitted,
and can in fact only gain admission in virtue of the truth
which it contains ; every error is a perverted truth. Hence
Descartes is justified in the establishment of the principle,
that we would never admit the false for the true, if we
would only give assent to what we clearly and distinctly
apprehend. ' NiMl nos unquam falsum pro vero admissuros,
si tantum iis assensum prcebearmts, quce dare et distincte
percipimus.' " In this view the saying of the Roman poet
"Nam neque dectpitur ratio, nee decipit unquam,"
is no longer a paradox ; for the condition of error is not
the activity of intelligence, but its inactivity.
So much for the first part of the paragraph. The
second is " Error is to be discriminated
Error discriminated f r0 m Ignorance and from Illusion, which,
from Ignorance and , .,, . , .,
illusion. however, along with Arbitrary Assump-
tion, afford the usual occasions of Error."
GENERAL CIBCUMSTAHCES SOCIETY. 71
" Ignorance is a mere negation, a mere not-knowledge ;
whereas in error there lies a positive pre-
tence to knowledge. Hence a representa-
tion, be it imperfect, be it even without any correspondent
objective reality, is not in itself an error. The imagina-
tion of a hippogriff is not in itself false; the Orlando
Furioso is not a tissue of errors. Error only arises when
we attribute to the creations of our minds some real
object, by an assertory judgment ; we do not err and deceive
either ourselves or others, when we hold and enounce a sub-
jective or problematic supposition only for what it is.
Ignorance, not knowledge, however, leads to error, when
we either regard the unknown as non-existent, or when we
falsely fill it up. The latter is, however, as mucn the result
of WiJl, of arbitrary assumption, as of ignorance ; and
frequently, it is the result of both together. In general,
the will has no inconsiderable share in the activity by which
knowledge is realized. The will has not immediately an
influence on our judgment, but mediately it has. Attention
is an act of volition, and attention furnishes to the under-
standing the elements of its decision. The will determines
whether we shall carry on our investigations, or break them
off, content with the first apparent probability ; and whether
we shall apply our observations to all, or, only partially, to
certain, momenta of determination.
" The occasions of Error which lie in those qualities of
Presentation, Representation, and Thought
lUurion.
arising from the conditions and influences
of the thinking subject itself, are called Illusions. But the
existence of illusion does not necessarily imply the existence
of error. Illusion becomes error only when we attribute to
it objective truth; whereas illusion is no error when we
72 MODIFIED LOGIC.
regard the fallacious appearance as a mere subjective affec-
tion. In the jaundice, we see everything tinged with
yellow, in consequence of the suffusion of the eye with bile.
In this case, the yellow vision is illusion ; and it would
become error, were we to suppose that the objects we per-
ceive were really so colored. All the powers which co-
operate to the formation of our judgments may become the
sources of illusion, and, consequently, the
Its sources. /f
occasions of error. The Senses, the Pre-
sentative Faculties, External and Internal, the Represen-
tative, the Retentive, the Reproductive, and the Elaborative
Faculties, are immediate, the Feelings and the Desires are
mediate, sources of illusion. To these must be added the
Faculty of Signs, in all its actual manifestations in language.
Hence we speak of sensible, psychological, moral, and sym-
bolical, illusion. In all these relations the causes of illusion
are partly general, partly particular; and though they
proximately manifest themselves in some one or other of
these forms, they may ultimately be found contained in the
circumstances by which the mental character of the indi-
vidual is conformed. Taking, therefore, a general view of
all the possible Sources of Error, I think they may be re-
duced to the following classes, which, as they constitute the
heads and determine the order of the ensuing discussion, I
shall comprise in the following paragraph, with which
commences the consideration of the Second Chapter of
Modified Logic. Before, however, proceeding to consider
these several classes in their order, I may observe that
Bacon's ciassifica- Bacon is the first philosopher who attempt-
tion of the sources ed a systematic enumeration of the various
sources of error ; and his quaint classifi-
cation of these, under the significant name of idols, into the
GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 73
four genera of Idols of the Tribe (idola tribus), Idols of
the Den (idola spccus), Idols of the Forum (idola fori),
which may mean either the market-place, the bar, or the
place of public assembly, and Idols of the Theatre (idola
tfteatri), he thus briefly characterizes.
1T III. The Causes and Occasions of Error are com-
prehended in one or other of the four
ror '~ following classes. For they are found
either, 1, In the General Circum-
stances which modify the intellectual character of the
individual ; or, 2, In the Constitution, Habits, and
Reciprocal Relations of his powers of Cognition,
Feeling, and Desire ; or, 3, In the Language which
he employs, as an Instrument of Thought and a
Medium of Communication : or, 4, In the nature of the
Objects themselves, about which his knowledge is
conversant.
11 IV. Under the General Circumstances whicli,
modify the character of the individual
.rliolr^mi..^."" are comprehended, 1, The particular
which modify the degree of Cultivation to which his
detail.' lh * in " nation has attained ; for ite rudeness,
ihe partiality of its civilization, and
its over-refinement are all manifold occasions of error ;
and this cultivation is expressed not merely in the
state of the arts and sciences, but. in the degree of its
religious, political, and social advancement ; 2, The
Stricter Associations, in so far as these tend to limit
the freedom of thought, ami to give it a one-sided
direction ; such are Schools, Sects, Orders, Exclusive
Societies, Corporations, Castes, etc.
In tho commencement of the Coursr, I had occasion to
74 MODIFIED LOGIC.
allude to the tendency there is in man to assimilate in
opinions and habits of thought to those
Explication. Man "with whom he lives. Man is by ni1mrft,
by nature social, and no t merely by accidental necessity, a
influenced by the 7 , . i tar 1 ' " i ' *' v '
opinions of his fei- social bein &- For onI 7 m society does
lows. he find the conditions which his different
faculties require for their due development
and application. But^ society, in all its forms and degrees, from
a family to a State, ia only possible under the condition of a
certain harmony of sentiment among its members ; and as
man is by nature destined to a social existence, he is by
nature determined to that analogy of thought and feeling
which society sxipposes, and out of which society springs.
There is thus in every association, great and small, a certain
gravitation of opinions towards a common centre. As in
our natural body every part has a necessary sympathy with
every other, and all together form, by their harmonious eon-
spiration, a healthy whole ; so, in the social body, there is
always a strong predisposition in each of its members to act
and think in unison with the rest This universal sympathy
or fellow-feeling is the principle of the different spirit domi-
nant in different ages, countries, ranks, sexes, and periods
of life. It is the cause why fashions, why political and
religious enthusiasm, why moral example either for good or
evil, spread so rapidly and exert so powerful an influence.
As Jmen are naturally prone to. imitate others,, they, conse-
quently, regard as important or insignificant, as honorable
or disgraceful, as true or false, as good or bad, what those
around them consider in the same light.
Of the various testimonies I formerly quoted, of the
strong assimilating influence of man on
asca qu ( on man an( j o f ^.^ p Ower o f custom, to make
the power of custom.
that appear true, natural, and neceesary,
GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 75
which in reality is false, unnatural, and only accidentally
suitable, I shall only adduce that of Pascal. " In the just
and the unjust," says he, "we find hardly any thing wbiciulaes
Hot change its character in changing its climate. Three
degrees of an elevation of the pole reverses the whole of
jurisprudence. A_ meridian is decisive of truth, and a
fr\v years, of possession. Fundamental laws change.
Right has its epochs. A pleasant juatice which, a river or
a mountain limits ! Truth on this side the Pyrenees, error
on the other ! " It is the remark of an ingenious philoso-
' that if we take a survef -of-the universe, all nations
be found admiring only the reflection of their awn
(|uuliti'-s ; und contemning in others whatever is contrary to
what they are accustomed to meet with among themselves.
Here is the Englishman accusing the French of frivolity ;
and here the Frenchman reproaching the Englishman with
selfishness and brutality. Here is the Arab persuaded of
the infallibility of his Caliph, and deriding the Tartar who
believes in the immortality of the Grand Lama. In every
nation we find the same congratulation of their own wisdom,
and the name contempt of that of their neighbors.
" Were there a sage sent down to earth from heaven, who
regulated his conduct by the dictates of pure reason alone,
this sage would be universally regarded as a fool. He
would be, as Socrates says, like a physician accused by the
pastry -cooks, before a tribunal of children, of prohibiting
tho eating of tarts and cheese-cakes ; a crime undoubtedly
of the highest magnitude in the eyes of his judges. In
vain would this sage support his opinions by the clearest
arguments, the most irrefragable demonstrations ; the
whole world would be for him like the nation of hunch-
76 MODIFIED LOGIC.
backs, among whom, as the Indian fabulists relate, there
once upon a time appeared a god, young, beautiful, and
of consummate symmetry. This god, they add, entered the
capital ; he was there forthwith surrounded by a crowd of
natives; his figure appeared to them extraordinary ; laughter,
hooting, and taunts manifested their astonishment, and they
were about to carry their outrages still further, had not
one of the inhabitants (who had undoubtedly seen other
men), in order to snatch him from the danger, suddenly
cried out ' My friends ! my friends ! "What are we going
to do ? Let us not insult this miserable monstrosity. If
heaven has bestowed on us the general gift of beauty, if it
has adorned our backs with a mount of flesh, let us with
pious gratitude repair to the temple and render our ac-
knowledgement to the immortal gods.' " This fable is the
history of human vanity. Every nation admires its own
defects, and contemns the opposite qualities in its neighbors.
To succeed in a country, one must be a bearer of the national
v hump of the people among whom he sojourns.
There are few philosophers who undertake to make their
countrymen aware of the ridiculous figure
The art of doubt- they cut in the eye of reason ; and still
ing well difficult to
teach and to learn. fewer the nations who are able to pront by
the advice. All are so punctiliously at-
tached to the interests of their vanity, that none obtain in
any country the name of wise, except those who are fools of
the common folly. There is no opinion too absurd not to
find nations ready to believe it, and individuals prompt to
be its executioners or its martyrs. Hence it is that the
philosopher declared, that if he held all truths shut up
within his hand, he would take especial care not to show
GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 77
them to his fellow -men. In fact, if the discovery of a single
truth dragged Galileo to the prison, to what punishment
would he not be doomed who should discover all ? Among
those who now ridicule the folly of the human intellect, and
are indignant at the persecution of Galileo, there are few
who would not, in the age of that philosopher, have
clamored for his death. They would then have been imbued
with different opinions ; and opinions not more passively
adopted than those which they at present vaunt as liberal
and enlightened. To learn to doubt of our opinions, it is
sufficient to examine the powers of the human intellect, to
survey the circumstances by which it is affected, and to
study the history of human follies. Yet in modern Europe
six centuries elapsed from the foundation of Universities
until the appearance of that extraordinary man, I mean
Descart<, whom his age first persecuted, and then almost
worshipped as a demi-god, for initiating men in the art of
doubting, of doubting well, a lesson at which, however,
both their skepticism and credulity show that, after two
centuries, they are still but awkward scholars. Socrates
was wont to say, " All that I know is that I know
nothing." In our age it would seem that men know
everything except what Socrates knew. Our errors
would not be so frequent were we less ignorant ; and
our ignorance more curable, did we not believe ourselves
to be all-wise.
Thus it is that the influence of Society, both in its general
form of a State or Nation, and in its particular forms of
Schools, Sects, etc., determines a multitude of opinions in
its member*, which, as they are passively received, so they
are often altogether erroneous.
78 MODIFIED LOGIC.
Among the more general and influential of these there are
two, which, though apparently contrary,are,
Two general forms how ^ j Ht founded on the
of the influence of *'
example. same incapacity of independent thought,
i. Prejudice in fa- on the game i nnuenc e of example I
vor of the Old. . .
mean the excessive admiration of the Old,
and the excessive admiration of the New. The former of
these prejudices under which may be reduced the prejudice
in favor of Authority, was at one time prevalent to an
extent of which it is difficult for us to form a conception.
This prejudice is prepared by the very education not only
which we do, but which we all must re-
ceive. The child necessarily learns every-
. thing at first on credit, he believes upon
authority. But when the rule of authority is once estab-
lished, the habit of passive acquiescence and belief is formed,
and, once formed, it is not again always easily thrown off.
When the child has grown up to an age in which he might
employ his own reason, he has acquired a large stock of
ideas ; but who can calculate the number of errors which
this stock contains ? and by what means is he able to dis-
criminate the true from the false 1 His mind has been
formed to obedience and uninquiry ; he possesses no cri-
terion by which to judge ; it is painful to suspect what has
been long venerated, and it is felt even as a kind of personal
mutilation to tear up what has become irradicated in his
intellectual and moral being. Ponere difficile est quce pla-
cuere diu. The adult does not, therefore, often judge for
himself more than the child ; and the tyranny of authority
and foregone opinion continues to exert a sway during the
whole course of his life. In our infancy and childhood the
credit accorded to our parents and instructors is implicit j
GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 79
and if what we have learned from them be confirmed by
what we hear from others, the opinions thus recommended
become at length stamped in almost indelible characters
upon the uiiud. This is the cause why uioii so rarely
the opinions which vulgarly pass current; and
why what comes as new is by so many, for its very novelty,
f.iis.-. And ln-nor il is, as already noticed, that
truth is as it were geographically and politically distributed ;
what is truth on one side of a boundary being error and
absurdity on the other. What has now been said of the
influence of society at large, is true also of the lesser
societies which it contains, all of which impose with a
stronger or feebler, a wider or more contracted, authority,
certain received opinions upon the faith of the members.
Hence it is that whatever has once obtained a recognition
in any society, large or small, is not rejected when the
reasons on which it was originally admitted have been
proved erroneous. It continues, even for the reason that
it is old and has been accepted, to be accepted still ; and the
title which was originally defective, becomes valid by con-
tinuance and prescription,
But opposed to this cause of error, from the prejudice in
favor of the Old, there is the other, directly
n **" the reverse, the nreiudice in favor of the
tor of the New. * * . .g
yuw. This prejudice maybc^ in .parl at
least, the result of sympathy and fellow-feeling. This is the
..!;. . ' .'. ".'.:: . :. v. . . . . r :, i~. ,; i.ju-y QflCC
QhtaJB_a^ certain number of yp^c*-**, nftgp B PT n ^_ w ' f * 1 n
rapidity anci to an extent, which^ after their futility has
y fifown, canoolj '
pfrqf ft M ^ intAJ!<W;uai coniiiginn. But the principal
cause of the pnjudi'.-tj In fsvor of novelty lies in the Passions,
cl> MODIFIED LOGIC.
and the consideration of these does not belong to the class
of causes with which we are at present occupied.
Connected with and composed of both these prejudices,
that in favor of the old and that in favor
Prejudice of Learn- /. ,, ,, ,, . ,. ,,
ed Authority. of t l ie new, there is the prejudice of
Learned Authority ; for this is usually
associated with the prejudices of Schools and Sects. As
often as men have appeared, who, by the force of their
genius, have opened up new views of science, and thus con-
tributed to the progress of htirnan intellect, so often have
they, likewise, afforded the occasion of checking its advance-
ment, and of turning it from the straight path of improve-
ment. Not that this result is to be imputed as a reproach
to them, but simply because it is of the nature of man to
be so affected. The views which influenced these men of
genius, and which, consequently, lie at the foundation of
their works, are rarely comprehended in their totality by
those who have the names of these authors most frequently
in their mouths. The many do not concern themselves to
seize the ideal which a philosopher contemplated, and of
which his actual works are only the imperfect representa-
tions ; they appropriate to themselves only some of his
detached apothegms and propositions, and of these com-
pound, as they best can, a sort of system suited to their
understanding, and which they employ as a talisman in
their controversies with others. As their reason is thus a
captive to authority, and, therefore, unable to exert its
native freedom, they, consequently, catch up the true and
the false without discrimination, and remain always at the
point of progress where they had been placed by their
leaders. In their hands a system of living truths becomes a
GEXEBAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY. 81
mere petrified organism ; and they require that the whole
science shall become as dead and as cold as their own idol.
Such was Plato's doctrine in the hands of the Platonists ;
such was Aristotle's philosophy in the hands of the School-
men ; and the history of modern systems affords equally the
same result.
So much for the first genus into which the Sources of
Error are divided.
LECTURE III. MODIFIED STOICHEIOLOGY.
SECTION II. ERROR -ITS CAUSES AND
REMEDIES.
A. GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES SOCIETY.
B. AS IN POWERS OF COGNITION, FEELING, AND
DESIRE.
I. AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY SLOTH HOPE AND FEAR-
SELF-LOVE.
IN our last Lecture, we entered on the consideration of the
various sources of Error. These, I stated,
Recapitulation. .
may be conveniently reduced to four heads,
and consist, 1, In the General Circumstances which modify
the intellectual character of the individual ; 2, In the Con-
stitution, Habits, and Reciprocal Relations of his powers of
Cognition, Feeling, and Desire ; 3, In the language which
he employs as an Instrument of Thought and a Medium of
Communication ; and, 4, In the nature of the Objects
themselves about which his knowledge is conversant.
Of these, I then gave you a general view of the nature of
those occasions of Error, which originate in the circum-
stances under the influence of which the character and
opinions of man are determined for him as a member of
society. Under this head I stated, that, as man is destined
by his Creator to fulfil the end of his existence in society,
be is wisely furnished with a disposition to imitate those
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 83
among whom his lot is cast, and thus conform himself to
whatever section of human society he may by birth belong,
or of which he may afterwards become a "member. The
education we receive, nay the very possibility of receiving
education at all, supposes to a certain extent the passive
infusion of foreign and traditionary opinions. For as man
is compelled to think much earlier than he is able to think
for himself, all education necessarily imposes on him many
opinions which, whether in themselves true or false, are, in
reference to the recipient, only prejudices-; and it is even
only a small number of mankind who at a later period are
able to bring these obtruded opinions to the test of reason,
and by a free exercise of their own intelligence to reject
them if found false, or to acknowledge them if proved true.
But while the mass of mankind thus remain, during their
whole lives, only the creatures of the accidental circum-
stances which have concurred to form for them their habits
and beliefs ; the few who are at last able to form opinions
for themselves, are still dependent, in a great measure, on
the unreasoning judgment of the many. Public opinion,
hereditary custom, despotically impose on us the capricious
laws of propriety and manners. The individual may pos-
sibly, in matters of science, emancipate himself from their
servitude ; in the affairs of life he must quietly submit him-
self to the yoke. The only freedom he can here prudently
manifest, is to resign himself with u consciousness that he
in a slave not to reason but to conventional accident. And
while, he conforms himself to the usages of his own society,
he will be tolerant to those of others. In this rcs|>ect his
inaiim will be that of the Scythian prince: "With you
such may be the custom with us it is different."
84 MODIFIED LOGIC.
So much for the general nature of the influence to which
we are exposed from the circumstances
Means by which tlie . .
influence of society, of Society ; it now remains to say what
as a source of error, are the means by which this influence, as
may be counteracted. f , ,
a source of error, may be counteracted.
It has been seen that, in consequence of the manner in
which our opinions are formed for us by
Necessary to insti- the accidents of society, our imposed and
tute a critical exami- supposed knowledge is a confused medley
nation of the contents * * t J
of our knowledge. of truths and errors. Here it is evidently
necessary to institute a critical examina-
tion of the contents of this knowledge. Descartes proposes
that, in order to discriminate, among our prsjudiced
opinions, the truths from the errors, we ought to commence
by doubting all. This has exposed him to much obloquy and
clamor, but most unjustly. The doctrine of Descartes has
nothing skeptical or offensive ; for he only
Descartes. his . T , ( i i
maintains that it behooves us to examine
precept.
all that has been inculcated on us from in-
fancy, and under the masters to whose authority we have
been subjected, with the same attention and circumspection
which we accord to dubious questions. In fact there is
nothing in the precept of Descartes, which had not been
previously enjoined by other philosophers. Of these I for-
merly quoted to you several, and among others the remark-
able testimonies of Aristotle, St. Axigustin, and Lord Bacon.
But although there be nothing reprehensible in the pre-
cept of Descartes, as enounced by him, it
Conditions which j s o f i ess practical utility in consequence
modify its applica- .
tion ot no account being taken of the circum-
stances which condition and modify its
application. For, in the first place, the judgments to be
AFFECTION'S PRECIPITANT. 85
examined ought not to be taken at random, but selected on
a principle, and arranged in due order and dependence. But
this requires no ordinary ability, and the distribation of
things into their proper classes is one of the last and most
difficult fruits of philosophy. In the second place, there are
among our prejudices, or pretended cognitions, a great many
hasty conclusions, the investigation of which requires much
profound thought, skill, and acquired knowledge. Now
from both of these considerations, it is evident that to com-
mence philosophy by such a review, it is necessary for a
man to be a philosopher before he can attempt to become
one. The precept of Descartes is, therefore, either un-
reasonable, or it is too unconditionally expressed. And this
latter alternative is true.
"What can be rationally required of the student of philo-
sophy, is not a preliminary and absolute,
A gradual and pro- but a gradual and progressive abrogation,
rf prejudieJXthl't of prejudices. It can only be required of
can be required of him, that, when, in the course of his study
the student of pbilo- f ,., , , ... ...
h of philosophy, he meets with a proposition
which has not been already sufficiently
sifted, (whether it has been elaborated as a principle or
admitted as a conclusion), he should pause, discuss it with
out prepossession, and lay aside for future consideration all
that has not been subjected to a searching scrutiny. The
precept of Descartes, when rightly explained, corresponds
to that of St. Paul : " If any man arnonj* you seemeth to be
wise in this world, let him become a fool, that be may be
wise ;" that is, let him not rely more en the opinions in
which he has been brought up, and in favor of which he
and those around him are prejudiced, than on so many
visions of imagination , and let him examine them with the
86 MODIFIED LOGIC.
same circumspection as if he were assured that they contain
some truth among much falsehood and many extravagances.
Proceeding now to the second class of the Sources of
Error, which are found in the Mind itself, I shall commence
with the following paragraph :
1T V. The Sources of Error which arise from the
Constitution, Habits, and Reciprocal
Par. v. ii. Source Relations of the powers of Cognition,
of Error arising .
from the powers of Feeling, and Desire, may be Sub-
Cognition, Feeling, divided into two kinds. The first of
and Desire, of two ,, . , . ,, ,
.. , these consists in the undue prepon-
derance of the Affective Elements of
mind (the Desires and Feelings) over the Cognitive ;
the second, in the weakness or inordinate strength of
some one or other of the Cognitive Faculties themselves.
Affection is that state of mind in which the Feelings and
Desires exert an influence not under the
Explication. control of reason ; in other words, a ten-
I. Preponderance de b which the j nte nect is impeded in
of Affection over
Cognition. its endeavor to think an obj ect as that object
really is, and compelled to think it in con-
formity with some view prescribed by the passion or private
interest of the subject thinking.
The human mind, when unruffled by passion, may be
compared to a calm sea. A calm sea is a
Influence of Passion > i i ji 111
clear mirror, in which the sun and clouds,
on the Mind.
in which the forms of heaven and earth,
are reflected back precisely as they are presented. But let
a wind arise, and the smooth, clear surface of the water is
lifted into billows and agitated into foam. It 110 more re-
flects the sun and clouds, the forms of heaven and earth, or
it reflects them only as distorted and broken images. In
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 87
like manner, the tranquil mind receives and reflects the
world* without as it truly is ; but let the wind of passion
blow, and every object is represented, not as it exists, but
in the colors and aspects and partial phases
Boethius quoted. . ..'.'M i ^i. i_- J '*.
in which it pleases the subject to regard it.
The state of passion and its influence on the Cognitive
Faculties are truly pictured by Boe thins :
" Nvbibus atria Parque aerenia
Condita nullum Undo, diebua,
Fundere poaaunt Mox reaoluto
Sidera lumen. Sordida cceno,
Si mare volvena Visibus obstat.
Turbidus auster
Misctat ceatum, TV, quoque si via
Vitrea dudum, Lumine claro
Cernere verum, Spemque fugato,
Tramite recto Nee dolor adeit,
Carpere caliem : Nvbila mewa eat,
Oandia pelle, Vinctaque frenia,
Pelle timorem, Hoc ubi regnant. "
Every error consists in this, that we take something for
non-existent, because we have not become
aware of its existence, and that, in place
Probable Butoaing.
of this existent something, we fill up the
premises of a probable reasoning with something else.
I have here limited the possibility of error to Probable
Reasoning, for, in Intuition and Demonstration, there is but
little Possibility of important error. Hobbes indeed asserts
that had it been contrary to the interest of those in author-
ity, that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to
two right angles, this truth would have been long ago pro-
scribed as heresy, or as high treason. This may be an
ingenious illustration of the blind tendency of the passions to
subjugate intelligence ; but we should take it for more than
88 MODIFIED LOGIC.
was intended by its author, were we to take it as morje than
an ingenious exaggeration. Limiting, therefore, error to
probable inference (and this constitutes, with the exception
of a comparatively small department, the whole domain of
human reasoning), we have to inquire, How do the Passions
influence us to the assumption of false premises? To
estimate the amount of probability for or against a given
proposition, requires a tranquil, an unbiassed, a com-
prehensive consideration, in order to take all the relative
elements of judgment into due account. But this requisite
state of mind is disturbed when any interest, any wish, is
allowed to interfere.
IT VI. The disturbing Passions may be reduced to
four : Precipitancy, Sloth. Hope and
Par. VI. The Pas-
sions, as sources of * ear, belf-lo V6.
Error, reduced to j ^ restless anxiety for a decision
four.
begets impatience, which decides be-
fore the preliminary inquiry is concluded. This is
precipitancy.
2, The same result is the effect of Sloth, which
dreams on in conformity to custom, without subjecting
its beliefs to the test of active observation.
3, The restlessness of Hope or Fear impedes obser-
vation, distracts attention, or forces it only on what
interests the passion ; the sanguine looking on only
what harmonizes with his hopes, the diffident only on
what accords with his fears.
4, Self-love perverts our estimate of probability by
causing us to rate the grounds of judgment, not
according to their real influence on the truth of the
decision, but according to their bearing on our personal
interests therein.
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 89
In regard to Impatience or Precipitation, "all is the
cause of this which determines our choice
on one side rather than another. An ima-
1. Precipitancy.
gination excites pleasure, and because it
excites pleasure we yield ourselves up to it. We suppose,
for example, that we are all that we ought to be, and why ?
Because this supposition gives us pleasure. This, in some
dispositions, is one of the greatest obstacles to improvement ;
for he who entertains it, thinks there is no necessity to
labor to become what he is already. "I believe," says
Seneca, " that many had it in their power
to have attained to wisdom, had they not
been impeded by the belief that wisdom they had already
attained. ' Multos puto ad sapientiam poluisse pervenire,
nisi putassent se pervenisse'" Erasmus
Enisniiu.
gives the following as the principal advice
to a young votary of learning in the conduct of his studies :
" To read the most learned books, to converse with the
most learned men ; but, above all, never to conceit that he
himself was learned."
" From the same cause, men flatter themselves with the
hope of dying old, although few attain to
Illustrations. J
longevity. The less probable tl>e event,
the more certain are they of its occurrence ; and why 1
Because the imagination of it is agreeable. ' Dccrejriti senes
paucorum annorum accessionem votis mendicant ; minores
natu seipsoa esse fin<junt ; inendacio aibi
From Seneca. 1 1 . F i / ? i
Ouindinntur ; et krm hbenter fallunt, (junnt
tifala una decipianl.' " *' Preachers," snys Montaigne, u are
aware that the emotion which arises
!:! .
during their sermons animates themselves
to belief, and wo are conscious that when roused to angor
we apply ourselves more intently to the defence of our
90 MODIFIED LOGIC.
thesis, and embrace it with greater vehemence and appro-
bation, than we did when our mind was cool and unruffled.
You simply state your case to an advocate ; he replies with
hesitation and doubt ; you are aware that it is indifferent
to him whether he undertakes the defence of the one side
or of the other ; but have you once fee'd him well to take
your case in hand ; he begins to feel an interest in it ; his
will is animated. His reason and his science become also
animated in proportion. Your case presents itself to his
understanding as a manifest and indubitable truth ; he now
sees it in a wholly different light, and really believes that
you have law and justice on your side." It is proper to
observe that Montaigne was himself a lawyer, he had been
a counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux.
It might seem that Precipitate Dogmatism and an incli-
nation to Skepticism were opposite cha-
Precipitate Dogma- ra cters of mind. They are, however, closely
tism and Skepticism, n- j / i -, f , i
phases of the same alhed > lf not merel 7 P lla S6S of the Same
disposition. disposition. This is indeed confessed by
the Skeptic Montaigne : " The most un-
easy condition for me is to be kept in suspense on urgent
occasions, and to be agitated between fear and hope. Deli-
beration, even in things of lightest moment, is very trouble-
some to me ; and I find my mind more put to it, to undergo
the various tumbling and tossing of doubt and consultation,
than to set up its rest, and to acquiesce in whatever shall
happen, after the die is thrown. Few passions break my
sleep ; but of deliberations, the least disturbs me."
Precipitation is no incurable disease. There is for it
one sure and simple remedy, if properly
Remedy for Preci- v j TJ. i i j.
applied. It is only required, to speak
with Confucius, manfully to restrain the
wild horse of precipitancy by the curb of consideration,
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 91
to weigh the reasons of decision, each and all, in the balance
of cool investigation, not to allow ourselves to decide until
a clear consciousness has declared these reasons to be true,
to be sufficient ; and, finally, to throw out of account the
suffrages of self-love, of prepossession, of passion, and to
admit only those of reflection, of experience, and of evi-
dence. This remedy is certain and effectual. In theory
it is satisfactory, but its practical application requires a
moral resolution, for the acquisition of which no precept
can be given.
In the second place, " Sloth is likewise a cause of precipi-
tation, and it deserves the more attention as it is a cause of
error extremely frequent, and one of which we are ourselves
less aware, and which is less notorious to
2. Sloth. ,
others. We feel it fatiguing to continue
an investigation, therefore we do not pursue it ; but as it is
mortifying to think that we have labored in vain, we easily
admit the flattering illusion that we have succeeded. By
the influence of this disposition it often happens, that, after
having rejected what first presented itself, after having
rejected a second time and a third time what subsequently
turned up, because not sufficiently applicable or certain, we
get tired of the investigation, and perhaps put up with the
fourth suggestion, which is not better, haply even worse,
than the preceding ; and this simply because it has come
into the mind when more exhausted and less scrupulous than
it was at the commencement." " The volition of that man,"
says Seneca, " ia often frustrated, who
Bwec* quoted.
undertakes not what is easy, but who
wishes what he undertakes to be easy. As often as you
attempt anything, compare together yourself, the end which
you propose, and the means by which it is to be accomplished.
92 MODIFIED LOGIC.
For the repentance of an unfinished work will make you rash.
And here it is of consequence whether a man be of a fervid
or of a cold, of an aspiring or of a humble, disposition."
To remedy this failing it is necessary, in conformity with
this advice of vSeneca, to consult our forces,
Its remedy.
and the time we can afford, and the difti-
cxilty of the subjects on which we enter. We ought to
labor only at intervals, to avoid the tedium and disquiet
consequent on unremitted application ; and to adjourn
the consideration of any thought which may please us
vehemently at the moment, until the prepossession in its
favor has subsided Avith the animation which gave it birth.
The two Causes of premature judgment the affections of
Impatience and Sloth being considered,
3. Hope and Fear. J
I pass on to the third principle of Passion,
by which the intellect is turned aside from the path of
truth, I mean the disturbing influence of Hope and Fear.
These passions, though reciprocally contrary, determine a
similar effect upon the deliberations of the Understanding,
and are equally unfavorable for the interest of truth. In
forming a just conclusion upon a question of probable
reasoning, that is, where the grounds of decision are not
few, palpable, and of determinate effect, and such ques-
tions may be said to be those alone on which differences of
opinion may arise, and are, consequently, those alone which
require for their solution any high degree of observation and
ingenuity, in such questions hope and fear exert a very
strong and a very unfavorable influence. In these questions
it is requisite, in the first place, to seek out the premises ;
and, in the second, to draw the conclusion. Of these
requisites the first is the more important, and it is also by
far the more difficult.
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 93
Now the passions of Hope and Fear operate severally to
prevent the intellect from discovering all
How Hope and Few the elements of decision, which ought to be
operate unfavorably considered in forming a correct conclusion,
on the Understand- .
ing. and cause it to take into account those only
which harmonize with that conclusion to
which the actuating passion is inclined. And here the pas-
sion operates in two ways. In the first place, it tends so to
determine the associations of thought, that only those media
of proof are suggested or called into consciousness, which
support the conclusion to which the passion tends. In the
second place, if the media of proof by which a counter con-
clusion is supported are brought before the mind, still the
mind is influenced by the passion to look on their reality
with doubt, and, if such cannot be questioned, to undervalue
their inferential importance ; whereas it is moved to admit,
without hesitation, those media of proof which favor the
conclusion in the interest of our hope or fear, and to ex-
aggerate the cogency with which they establish this result.
Either passion looks exclusively to a single end, and exclu-
sively to the means by which that single end is accom-
plished. Thus the sanguine temperament, or the mind
under the habitual predominance of hope, sees only and
magnifies all that militates in favor of the wished-for con-
summation, which alone it contemplates ; whereas the
melancholic temperament, or the mind under the habitual
predominance of fear, is wholly occupied with the dreaded
issue, views only what tends to its fulfilment, while it ex-
aggerates the possible into the probable, the probable into
the certain. Thus it is that whatever conclusion we greatly
hope or greatly four, to that conclusion we are disposed to
leap; and it has become almost proverbial, that men
94: MODIFIED LOGIC.
lightly believe both what they wish, and what they dread,
to be true.
But the influence of Hope on our judgments, inclining us
to find whatever we wish to find, in so far as this arises from
the illusion of Self-love, is comprehended in this, the
fourth cause of error, to which I now proceed.
Self-love, under which I include the dispositions of
Vanity, Pride, and, in general, all those
4. Self-love. J .
which incline us to attribute an undue
weight to those opinions in which we feel a personal interest,
is by far the most extensive and influential in the way of
reason and truth. In virtue of this principle, whatever is
ours whatever is adopted or patronized by us, whatever
belongs to those to whom we are attached is either gratu-
itously clothed with a character of truth, or its pretensions
to be accounted true are not scrutinized with the requisite
rigor and impartiality. I am a native of this country, and,
therefore, not only is its history to me a matter of peculiar
interest, but the actions and character of my countrymen
are viewed in a very different light from that in which they
are regarded by a foreigner. I am born and bred a member
of a religious sect, and because they constitute my creed, I
find the tenets of this sect alone in conformity to the Word
of God. I am the partisan of a philosophical doctrine, and
am, therefore, disposed to reject whetever does not har-
monize with my adopted system.
"It is the part of a philosopher," says Aristotle, " inasmuch
as he is a philosopher, to subjugate self-
love, and to refute, if contrary to truth,
not only the opinions of his friends, but
the doctrines which he himself may have professed." It is
certain, however, that philosophers for philosophers are
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 95
men have been too often found to regulate their conduct
by the same opposite principle. That man pretended to
the name of philosopher, who scrupled not
niustntioniofthe to declare that he would rather Le in the
Influence of Self -love . ., T,, . , , . , , . . . ..,
<* our optaiona. WrOD g Wlth Plat than m the "g ht Wlth
his opponents. " Gisbert Voetius urged
Mersennus to refute a work of Descartes' a year before the
book appeared, and before he had himself the means of
judging whether the opinions it contained were right or
wrong. A certain professor of philosophy in Padua came to
Galileo, and requested that he would explain to him the
meaning of the term parallaxif ; which he wished, he said,
to refute, having heard that it was opposed to Aristotle's
doctrine, touching the relative situation of the comets.
' What !' answered Galileo, ' you wish to controvert a word
the meaning of which you do not know !' Redi tells us that
n sturdy Peri]tetic of his acquaintance would never con-
sent to look at the heavens through a telescope, lest he
should be compelled to admit the existence of the new stars
discovered by Galileo and others. The same Redi informs
us that he knew another Peripatetic, a staunch advocate of
the Aristotlean doctrine of equivocal generation, (a doctrine,
by the way, which now again divides the physiologists of
Europe), and whb, in particular, maintained that the green
frogs which appear upon a shower come down with the rain,
who would not be induced himself to select and examine
one of these frogs. And why? Because he was unwilling
to be convicted of his error, by Redi showing him the green
matter in the stomach, and its feculse in the intestines of
the animal." The spirit of the Peripatetic philosophy was,
however, wholly misunderstood by these mistaken followers
of Aristotle ; for a true Aristotelian is otio who listen*
96 MODIFIED LOGIC.
rather to the voice of nature than to the precept of any
master, and it is well expressed in the motto of the great
French anatomist Riolanus est Peripateticus ; credit ea, et
ea tantum, quce vidit, Erom the same principle proceeds
the abuse, and sometimes even the persecution, which
the discoverers of new truths encounter from those who
cherished opinions these truths subvert.
In like manner, as we are disposed to maintain our own
opinion, we are inclined to regard with
Self-ioyeleadsusto fftvor h opiniong of those to whom we are
regard with favor the
opinions of those to attached by love, gratitude, and other con-
affections. "We do not limit
way attached.
our attachment to the persons of our
friends, we love in a certain sort all that belongs to them ;
and as men generally manifest sufficient ardor in support of
their opinions, we are led insensibly by a kind of sympathy
to credit, to approve, and to defend these also, and that even
more passionately than our friends themselves. We bear
affection to others for various reasons. The agreement of
tempers, of inclinations, of pursuits ; their appearance,
their manners, their virtue, the partiality which they have
shown to us, the services we have received at their hands,
and many other particular causes, determine and direct our
love. ,.- ;,>j
" It is observed by the great Malebranche, that if any of
our friends, any even of those we are dis-
posed to love, advance an opinion, we
duced to this effect.
forthwith lightly allow ourselves to be
persuaded of its truth. This opinion we accept and support,
without troubling ourselves to inquire whether it be con-
formable to fact, frequently even against our conscience, in
conformity to the darkness and confusion of our izitellect, to
h
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 97
the corruption of our heart, and to the advantages which
we hope to reap from our facility and complaisance."
The influence of this principle is seen still more manifestly
when the passion changes ; for though the
Thi shown pe- things themselves remain unaltered, our
dally when the pan- .
sion chng. judgments concerning them are totally
reversed. How often do we behold persons
who cannot, or will not, recognize a single good quality in
an individual from the moment he has chanced to incur
their dislike, and who are even ready to adopt opinions,
merely because opposed to others maintained by the object
of their aversion? The celebrated Arnauld
Amauid hold* that g^g so f ar even ^ ^ asser t, that men are
man U naturally en- v .
viou, naturally envious and jealous ; that it is
with pain they endure the contemplation
of others in the enjoyment of advantages which they do not
themselves possess ; and, as the knowledge of truth and the
power of enlightening mankind is one of these, that they
have a secret inclination to deprive them of that glory.
This accordingly often determines them to controvert with-
out a ground the opinions and discoveries of others. Self-
love accordingly often argues thus : ' This is an opinion
which 1 have originated, this is an opinion, therefore, which
is true ;' whereas the natural malignity of man not less
frequently suggests such another : ' It is another than I who
has advanced this doctrine ; this doctrine is, therefore, false."
We may distinguish, however, from malignant or envious
contradiction another passion, which,
D " vu ' though more generous in its nature and
not simply a mode of Self-love, tends,
nevertheless, equally to divert us from the stniight road of
truth, I mean Pugnacity, or the love of Disputation.
98 MODIFIED LOGIC.
Under the influence of this passion, we propose as onr end
victory, not truth. We insensibly become accustomed to-
find a reason for any opinion, and, in placing ourselves
above all reasons, to surrender our belief to none. Thus it
is why two disputants so rarely ever agree, and why a
question is seldom or never decided in a discussion, where
the combative dispositions of the reasoners have once been
roused in activity. In controversy it is always easy to find
wherewithal to reply ; the end of the parties is not to avoid
error, but to impose silence ; and they are less ashamed of
continuing wrong than of confessing that they are not right,
. ^. These affections may be said to be the immediate causes
of all error. Other causes there are, but
Thew affections the not immediate. In so far as Logic detects
immediate causes of ^ sources o f our f a lg e judgments and
all error. . . J
Preliminary codi- shows their remedies, it must carefully
tions requisite for inculcate that no precautionary precept
the efficiency of pre* . , .,
cepu against the * or particular cases can avail, unless the
sources of error. inmost principle of the evil be discovered,
and a cure applied. You must, there-
fore, as you would remain free from the hallucination of
false opinion, be convinced of the absolute necessity of
following out the investigation of every question calmly
and without passion. You must learn to pursue, and to
estimate, truth without distraction or bias. To this there
is required, as a primary condition, the unshackled freedom
of thought, the equal glanee which can take in the whole
sphere of observation, the cool determination to pursue the
truth whithersoever it may lead ; and, what is still more
important, the disposition to feel an interest in truth and
in truth alone. If perchance eome collateral interest may
first prompt us to the inquiry, in our general interest for
AFFECTIONS PRECIPITANCY. 99
truth we must repress, we must forget, this interest, until
the inquiry be concluded. Of what account are the most
venerated opinions if they be untrue 1 At best they are
only venerable delusions. He who allows himself to be
actuated in his scientific procedure by any partial interest,
can never obtain a comprehensive survey of the whole he
has to take into account, and always, therefore, remains
incapable of discriminating, with accuracy, error from truth.
The independent thinker must, in all his inquiries, subject
himself to the genius of truth, must be prepared to follow
her footsteps without faltering or hesitation. In the con-
sciousness that truth is the noblest of ends, and that he
pursues this end with honesty and devotion, he will dread
no consequences, for he relies upon the truth. Does he
compass the truth, he congratulates himself upon his
success ; does he fall short of its attainment, he knows that
even his present failure will ultimately advance him to the
reward he merits. Err he may, and that perhaps fre-
quently, but he will never deceive himself. "We cannot,
indeed, rise superior to our limitary nature, we cannot,
therefore, be reproached for failure ; but we are always
responsible for the calmness and impartiality of our re-
searches, and these alone render us worthy of success. But
though it be manifest, that to attain the truth we must
follow whithersoever the truth may lead, still men in
general are found to yield not an absolute, but only a re-
stricted, obedience to the precept. They capitulate, and do
not unconditionally surrender. I give up, but my cherished
dogma in religion must not be canvassed, says one ; my
political principles are above inquiry, and must be ex-
empted, says a second ; my country is the land of lands,
this cannot be disallowed, cries a third ; my order, my
100 MODIFIED LOGIC.
vocation, is undoubtedly the noblest, exclaim a fourth and
fifth ; only do not require that we should confess our
having erred, is the condition which many insist on stipu-
lating. Above all, that resolve of mind is difficult, which
is ready to surrender all fond convictions, and is prepared
to recommence investigation the moment that a fundamental
error in the former system of belief has been detected. These
are the principal grounds why, among men, opinion is so
widely separated from opinion ; and why the clearest
demonstration is so frequently for a season frustrated of
victory.
Par. VII. Bnls IT VII. Against the Errors which
against Errors from ar i se f rom t }, e Affections, there may
the Affections.
be given the three following rules :
1, "When the error has arisen from the inflxience of
an active affection, the decisive judgment is to be
annulled ; the mind is then to be freed, as far as pos-
sible, from passion, and the process of inquiry to be
recommenced as soon as the requisite tranquility has
been restored.
2, When the error has arisen from a relaxed en-
thusiasm for knowledge, we must reanimate this
intei-est by a vivid representation of the paramount
dignity of truth, and of the lofty destination of our
intellectual nature.
3, In testing the accuracy of our judgments, we
must be particularly suspicious of those results which
accord with our private inclinations and predominant
tendencies.
These rules require no comment.
LECTURE IV. MODIFIED STOICHEIOLOGY.
SECTION II. -ERROR, -ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES.
B. AS JN THE COGNITIONS, FEELINGS, AND DESIRES.
H. WEAKNESS AND DISPROPORTIONED STRENGTH OF THE
FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE.
I NOW go on to the Second Head of the class of Errors
founded on the Natural Constitution, the
WMknw and DU- Acquired Habits, and the Reciprocal Ee-
proportionedstren&th i at i OD8 o f our Cognitive and Affective
Of the FaCUlUe. Of
Knowledge. Powers, that is, to the Causes of Error
which originate in the Weakness or
Disproportioned Strength of one or more of our Faculties
of Knowledge themselves.
Here, in the first place, I might consider the errors
which have arisen from the Limited Na-
Nejriectof theLim- ture of the Human Intellect in general,
ited Nature of the OJ . ^g,. f rom t |, e mistakes that have been
Human Intellect a
ouroe of error. made by philosophers in denying or not
taking this limited nature into account.
The illustration of this subject is one which is relative to,
and supposes an acquaintance with, some of the abstrucest
speculations in Philosophy, and which belong not to Logic,
but to Metaphysics. I shall not, therefore, do more than
102 MODIFIED LOGIC.
simply indicate at present, what it will be proper at another
season fully to explain. It is manifest,
that, if the human mind be limited, if it
the Absolute.
only knows as it is conscious, and if it be
only conscious, as it is conscious of contrast and opposition,
of an ego and non-ego, if this supposition, I say, be correct,
it is evident that those philosophers are in error, who vir-
tually assume that the hitman mind is unlimited, that is,
that the human mind is capable of a knowledge superior to
consciousness, a cognition in which knowledge and exist-
ence the Ego and non-Ego God and the creature are
identical ; that is, of an act in which the mind is the
Absolute, and knows the Absolute. This philosophy, the
statement of which, as here given, it would require a long
commentary to make you understand, is one which has for
many years been that dominant in Germany ; it is called
the Philosophy of the Absolute, or the Philosophy of Abso-
lute Identity. This system, of which Schelling and Hegel
are the great representatives, errs by denying the limitation
of human intelligence without proof, and by boldly building
its edifice on this gratuitous negation.
But there are other forms of philosophy which err not in
actually postulating the infinity of mind,
2. A one-sided view but j n taking only a one-sided view of its
of the flnitude of % . .
mini finitude. It is a general fact, which seems,
however, to have escaped the observation
of philosophers, that whatever we -can positively compass in
thought, whatever we can conceive as possible, in a word,
the omne cogitabile, lies between two extremes or poles,
contradictorily opposed, and one of which must consequently
be true, but of neither of which repugnant opposites are we
able to represent to our mind the possibility. To take one
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 103
example out of many : we cannot construe to the mind as
possible the absolute commencement of
fcy r- time ; bat we are equally unable to think
Terence to the two ., ., .... f ., ,.
ont<uctories,-0ie the possibility of the counter alterna-
*lMoite commence- ti<ve, its infinite or absolute non-com-
ne B t..ndueinfloit. ^ enceiaeiit i n othc,. wor de, the infinite
non- commencement
regress of time. Now it is evident, that,
if wa looked merely at the one of these con-
tradictory opposites aud argued thus : whatever is incon-
ceivable is impossible, the absolute commencement of time
is inconceivable, therefore the absolute commencement of
time is impossible ; but on the principles of Contradiction
and Excluded Middle, one or other of the two opposite
contradictories must be true ; therefore, as the absolute com-
mencement of time is impossible, the absolute or infinite
non-commencement of time is necessary : I say, it is
evident that this reasoning would be incompetent and one-
sided, because it might be converted ; for, by the same one-
aided process, the opposite conclusion might be drawn in
favor of the absolute commencement of time.
Now, the unilateral and incompetent reasoning which I
have here supposed in the case of time, is
Tbmevrindpie one of which the Necessitarian is guilty in
exemplified in the . .
OM* f u Nee**- nls argument to prove the impossibility of
iuriA A/jruineBt human volitions being free. He correctly
against the Freedom , , .. /. , ,. i .
( th iKm Witt y a down, as the foundation of his reason-
ing, two propoaition.9 which must at once
be allowed : 1, That the notion of the liberty of rolition
involves the supposition of an absolute commencement of
volition, that ia, of a volition which is a cause, but is not
itself, yw cause, an effect 2, That the absolute commence-
ment of a volition, or of aught else, cannot be conceived,
104 MODIFIED LOGIC.
that is, cannot be directly or positively thought as possible.
So far he is correct ; but when he goes on to apply these
principles by arguing (and be it observed this syllogism lies
at the root of all the reasonings for necessity), WJiataoever
is inconceivable is impossible ; but the supposition of the
absolute commencement of volition is inconceivable ; there-
fore, the supposition of the absolve commencement of volition
(the condition of free-will) is impossible, -we may here
demur to the sumption, and ask him, Can he positively
conceive the opposite contradictory of the absolute com-
mencement, that is, an infinite series of relative non-
commencements ? If he answers, as he must, that he can
not, we may again ask him, By what right he assumed as
a self-evident axiom for his sumption, the proposition that
whatever is inconceivable is impossible, or by what right he
could substime his minor premise, when by his own con-
fession he allows that the opposite contradictory of his
minor premise, that is, the very proposition he is apagogi-
eally proving, is, likewise, inconceivable, and, therefore, on
the principle of his sumption, likewise impossible.
The same inconsequence wonld equally apply to the
Libertarian, who should attempt to prove
And in tfa case of that free-will must be allowed, on the
the Libertarian AT- g^ tliat its contradictory opposite is
gument in behalf of
Free-wilL impossible, because inconceivable. He can-
not prove his thesis by such a process ; in
fact, by all speculative reasoning from the conditions of
thought, the two doctrines are in (equilibria; both are
equally possible, both are equally inconceivable. It is
only when the Libertarian descends to arguments drawn
from the fact of the Moral Law and its conditions, that he
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. ~7I 105
is able to throw in reasons which incline the balance in his
favor.
On these matters I, however, at present, only touch, in
order to show you under what head of Error these reason-
ings would naturally fall.
Leaving, therefore, or adjourning, the consideration of
the imbecility of the human intellect in
We&knessordispro- general, I shall now take into view, as a
portioned strength of f . .
the ievei*i cognitive source of logical error, the Weakness or
Faculties, * ource Disproportioned Strength of the several
Cognitive Faculties. Now, as the Cogni-
Cogniure F^uiue. fae Faculties in man consist partly of
of two duwa, A Low- r J
er tad Higher. certain Lower Powers, which he possesses
in common with other sensible existences,
'
namely, the Fresentative, the Retentive, the Representative
and the Reproductive Faculties, and partly of certain higher
Powers, in virtue of which lie enters into the rank of in-
telligent existences, namely, the Elaborative and Regulative
Faculties, it will be proper to consider the powers of these
two classes severally in succession, in so far as they may
afford the causes or occasions of error.
Of the lower class, the first faculty in order is the Pre-
sentative or Acquisitive Faculty. This,
I. The Lower CUM, M you remember, is divided into two, viz.,
1 T*Hai f>n^tii t*-
UT Faculty " lto ^e J^^ty which presents us with
the phenomena of the outer world, and
into the faculty which presents us with the phenomena of
the inner. The former ib External Perception, or External
Se^ae ; the latter is Self consciousness, Internal Perception,
or Internal Sense. I commence, therefore, with the
Faculty of External Perception, in relation to which I give
you the following paragraph :
6*
106 MODIFIED LOGIC.
1T VII. When aught is presented through the outer
senses, there are two conditions ne-
Par. vil. (a) Ex- cessary for its adequate perception :
ternal Perception, n mi i . s\ , -t
a. a source of Er. 1 ' The relatlv e Organs must be pre-
ror. sent, and in a condition to discharge
their functions ; and 2, The objects
themselves must bear a certain relation to these organs,
so that the latter shall be suitably affected, and thereby
the former suitably apprehended. It is possible, there-
fore, that, partly through the altered condition of the
organs, partly through the altered situation of the
objects, dissimilar presentations of the same, and simi-
lar presentations of different, objects, may be the result.
In the first place, without the organs specially subser-
vient to External Perception, without the eye, the ear,
etc., sensible perceptions of a precise and
Explication. determinate character, such, for example,
Conditions of the ^ co } or or SO imd, are not competent to
adequate activity of
External Perception, man. In the second place, to perform
their functions, these organs must be in a
healthy or normal state ; for if this condition be not ful-
filled, the presentations which they furnish are null, incom-
plete, or false. But, in the third place, even if the organs
of sense are sound and perfect, the objects to be presented
and perceived must stand to these organs in a certain
relation, must bear to them a certain proportion ; for,
otherwise, the objects cannot be presented at all, or cannot
be perceived without illusion. Tne sounds, for example,
which we are to hear, must neither be too high nor too low
in quality ; the bodies which we are to see, must neither be
too near nor too distant, must neither be too feebly nor too
intensely illuminated. In relation to the sepond condition,
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OT KNOWLEDGE. 10T
there are given, in consequence of the altered state of the
organs, on the one hand, different present-
Powible illusions trf ,. c t \.- \
the senses ations of the same object ; thus to a
person who has waxed purblind, his friend
appears as an utter stranger, the eye now presenting its
objects with less clearness and distinctness. On the other
hand, there are given the same, or undistinguishably similar,
presentations of different objects ; thus to a person in the
jaundice, all things are presented yellow. In relation to
the third condition, from the altered position of objects,
there are, in like manner, determined, on the one hand,
different presentations of the same objects, as when the
stick which appears straight in the air appears crooked
when partially immersed in water ; and, on the other hand,
identical presentations of different objects, as when a man
and a horse appear in the distance to be so similar, that the
one cannot be discriminated from the other. In all these
cases, these illusions are determined, illusions which may
easily become the occasions of false judgments.
In regard to the detection of such illusions and obvi-
ating the error to which they lead, it be-
with * hooves us to take the following precau-
Flew to the detection ^ .-_ . , .. .
oi minion* of the "O n 8- We must, in the first place, examine
6nM,uMi obviating the state of the organ. If found defective,
we must endeavor to restore it to perfec-
tion ; but if this cannot be done, we must
ascertain the extent and nature of the evil, in order to be
upon our guard in regard to quality and degree of the false
presentation.
In the second place, we must examine the relative situa-
tion of the object, and if this be not accommodated to
tl.e organ, we must either obviate the disproportion and
108 MODIFIED LOGIC.
remove the media which occasion the Illusion, or repeat the
observation under different circumstances, compare these,
and thus obtain the means of making an ideal abstraction
of the disturbing causes.
In regard to the other Presentative Faculty, the
Faculty of Self-consciousness, Internal Perception, or In-
ternal Sense, as we know less of the material conditions
which modify its action, we are unable to ascertain so pre-
cisely the nature of the illusions of which it may be the
source. In reference to this subject you may take the
following paragraph :
IT VIII. The faculty of Self-consciousness, or Internal
Sense, is subject to various changes,
Par.vin. (b)Self- which either modify our apprehensions
consciousness, as .> i n
a source of Srror objects, or influence the manner in
which we judge concerning them. In
so far, therefore, as false judgments are thus occa-
sioned, Self-consciousness is a source of error.
It is a matter of ordinary observation, that the vivacity
with which we are conscious of the various
Explication. phenomena of mind, differs not only at
self-consciousness ^ { . different states of health,
yanes in intensity.
and in different degrees of mental fresh-
ness and exhaustion, but, at the same time, differs in regard
to the different kinds of these phenomena themselves. Ac-
cording to the greater or less intensity of this faculty, the
same thoughts of which we are conscious are, at one time,
clear and distinct, at another, obscure and confused. At
one time we are almost wholly incapable of reflection, and
every act of self attention is forced and irksome, and differ-
ences the most marked pass unnoticed ; while, at another
our self-consciousness is alert, all its applications pleasing,
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 109
and the most faint and fugitive phenomena arrested and
observed. On one occasion, Self-consciousness, as a re-
flective cognition, is strong ; on another, all reflection is
extinguished in the intensity of the direct consciousness of
feeling or desire. In one state of mind our representations
are feeble ; in another, they are so lively that they are mis-
taken for external realities. Our self-consciousness may
thus be the occasion of frequent error ; for, according to its
various modifications, we may form the most opposite
judgments concerning the same things, pronouncing them,
for example, now to be agreeable, now to be disagreeable,
according as our Internal Sense is variously affected.
The next is the Retentive or Conservative Faculty,
Memory strictly so called ; in reference to which I give you
the following paragraph :
U IX. Memory, or the Conservative Faculty, is the
occasion of Error, both when too
pr. ix. z Mem- weak and when too strong. When
cry, M a >onrc
of tnor. too weak, the complement of cogni-
tions which it retains is small and
indistinct, and the Understanding or Elaborative
Faculty is, consequently, unable adequately to judge
concerning the similarity and differences of its re-
presentations and concepts. When too strong, the
Understanding is overwhelmed with the multitude of
acquired cognitions simultaneously forced upon it, so
that it is unable calmly and deliberately to compare
and discriminate these.
That both these extremes, that both the insufficient and
the superfluous vigor of the Conservative
Explication.
Faculty are severally the sources of Error,
it will not require many oi>servations to make apparent
110 MODIFIED LOGIC.
In regard to a feeble memory, it is manifest that a multi-
tude of false judgments must inevitably
Feeble Memory. J
arise from an incapacity in this faculty to
preserve the observations committed to its keeping. In
consequence of this incapacity, if a cognition be not wholly
lost, it is lost at least in part, and the circumstances of
time, place, persons and things confounded with each other.
For example, I may recollect the tenor of a passage 1 have
read, but from defect of memory may attribute to one author
what really belongs to another. Thus a botanist may judge
two different plants to be identical in species, having for-
gotten the differential characters by which they were dis-
criminated ; or he may hold the same plant to be two
different species, having examined it at different times and
places.
Though nothing could be more erroneous than a general
and unqualified decision, that a great
Strong Memory. . .
memory is incompatible with a sound
judgment, yet it is an observation confirmed by the experi-
ence of all ages and countries, not only that a great memory
is no condition of high intellectual talent, but that great
memories are very frequently found in combination with
comparatively feeble powers of thought. The truth seems
to be, that where a vigorous memory is conjoined with a
vigorous intellect, not only does the force of the subsidiary
faculty not detract from the strength of the principal, but,
on the contrary, tends to confer on it a still higher power ;
whereas when the inferior faculty is disproportionately
strong, that so far from nourishing and corroborating the
superior, it tends to reduce this faculty to a lower level than
that at which it would have stood, if united with a less
overpowering subsidiary. The greater the magazine of
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. Ill
various knowledge which the memory contains, the better
for the understanding, provided the understanding can
reduce this various knowledge to order and subjection. A
great memory is the principal condition of bringing before
the mind many different representations and notions at
once, or in rapid succession. This simultaneous or nearly
simultaneous presence disturbs, however, th6 tranquil com-
parison of a small number of ideas, which, if it shall judge
aright, the intellect must contemplate with a fixed and
steady attention. Now, -where an intellect possesses the
power of concentration in a high degree, it will not be
harrassed in its meditations by the officious intrusions of
the subordinate faculties, however vigorous these in them-
selves may be, but will control their vigor by exhausting in
its own operations the whole applicable energy of mind.
Whereas where the inferior is more vigorous than the supe-
rior, it will, in like manner, engross in its own function the
disposable amount of activity, and overwhelm the principal
faculty with materials, many even in proportion as it is able
to elaborate few. This appears to me the reason why men
of strong memories are so often men of proportionally weak
judgments, and why so many errors arise from the posses-
sion of a faculty, the perfection of which ought to exempt
them from many mistaken judgments.
As to the remedy for these opposite extremes. The
former the imbecility of memory can
y invigorating the ca-
pacity of Retention through mnemonic
exercises and methods ; the latter, the inordinate vigor of
Memory, by cultivating the Understanding to the neglect
of the Conservative Faculty. It will, likewise, be necessary
to be upon our guard against the errors originating in these
112 MODIFIED LOGIC.
counter sources. In the one case distrusting the accuracy
of facts, in the other, the accuracy of their elaboration.
The next faculty is the Reproductive. This, when its
operation is voluntarily exerted, is called Recollection or
Reminiscence; when it energizes sponta-
iVe neousl y or without volition, it is called
Suggestion. The laws by which it is
governed in either case, but especially in the latter, are
called the Laws of Mental Association. This Reproductive
Faculty, like the Retentive, is the cause of error, both if its
vigor be defective, or if it be too strong. I shall consider
Recollection and Suggestion severally and apart. In regard
to the former I give you the following paragraph.
IT X. The Reproductive Faculty, in so far as it is
voluntarily exercised, as Reminis-
Far. x. (a) Remin- cence, becomes a source of Error, as
iscenoe as a source ... ... , . .
of Error. xt ls eit " er too sluggish or too prompt,
precisely as the Retentive Faculty,
combined with which it constitutes Memory in the
looser signification.
It is necessary to say very little in special reference to
Reminiscence, for what was said in regard
Explication. fa the Conservative Faculty or Memory
Reminiscence, its _. , . ,
undue activity. Proper in its highest vigor, was applicable
to, and in fact supposed a corresponding
degree of, the Reproductive. For, however great may be
the mass of cognitions retained in the mind, that is, out of
consciousness, but potentially capable of being called into
consciousness, these can never of themselves oppress the
Understanding by their simultaneous crowding or rapid
succession, if the faculty by which they are revoked into
consciousness be inert ; whereas if this revocative faculty
WEAKXESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 113
be comparatively alert and vigorous, a smaller magazine of
retained cognitions may suffice to harass the intellect with
a ceaseless supply of materials too profuse for its capacity
of elaboration.
On the other hand, the inactivity of our Recollection is a
source of error, precisely as the weakness
ltelnUvity. m .
of our Memory proper; for it is of the
same effect in relation to our judgments, whether the cogni-
tions requisite for a decision be not retained in the mind,
or whether, being retained, they are not recalled into con-
sciousness by Reminiscence.
In regard to Suggestion, or the Reproductive Faculty
operating spontaneously, that is, not in subservience to an
act of Will, I shall give you the following paragraph :
1T XI. As our Cognitions, Feelings, and Desires
are connected together by what are
Par. XI. (b) Sng- called the Laws of Association, and
fetion aource
of Error. ^ eac " "*** ln * ne chain of thought
suggests or awakens into conscious-
ness some other in conformity to these Laws, these
"Laws, as they bestow a strong subjective connection
on thoughts and objects of a wholly arbitrary union,
frequently occasion great confusion and error in our
judgments.
Even in methodical thinking, we do not connect all
our thoughts intentionally and rationally,
II in 1 1 i
but many press forward into the train,
either in consequence of some external impression, or in
virtue of certain internal relations, which, however, are not
of a logical dependency. Thus thoughts tend to fuggcst
each other, which have reference to things of which we were
previously cognizant as coexistent, or as immediately cou-
114 MODIFIED LOGIC.
sequent, which have been apprehended as bearing a resem-
blance to each other, or which have stood together in
reciprocal and striking contrast. This connection, though
precarious and non-logical, is thus, however, governed by
certain laws, which have been called the Laws of Association.
These laws, which I have just enumerated, viz., the Law of
Coexistence or Simultaneity, the Law of Continuity or
Immediate Succession, the Law of Similarity, and the Law
of Contrast, are all only special modifications of one general
law, which I would call the Law of Redintegration ; that
is, the principle according to which whatever has previously
formed a part of one total act of consciousness, tends, when
itself recalled into consciousness, to reproduce along with it
the other parts of that original whole. But though these
tendencies be denominated laws, the influence which they
exert, though often strong and sometimes irresistible, is only
contingent ; for it frequently happens that thoughts which
have previously stood to each other in one or other of the
four relations do not suggest each other. The Laws of
Association stand, therefore, on a very different footing from
the laws of logical connection. But those Laws of Associ-
ation, contingent though they be, exert a great and often a
very pernicious influence upon thought, inasmuch as by the
involuntary intrusion of representations into the mental
chain which are wholly irrelevant to the mutter in hand,
there arises a perplexed and redundant tissue of thought,
into which false characters may easily find admission, and in
which true characters may easily be overlooked. But this
is not alL For, by being ouce blended together in our con-
sciousness, things really distinct in their nature tend again
to reassociate, and, at every repetition of this
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 115
conjunction, this tendency is fortified, and their mutual
suggestion rendered more certain and irresistible.
It is in virtue of this principle of Association and Custom,
that things are clothed by us with the pre-
influence o* AMO- carious attributes of deformity or beauty :
elation in matters of
and some philosophers have gone so far as
to maintain that our principles of Taste
are exclusively dependent on the accidents of Association.
But if this be an exaggeration, it is impossible to deny that
Association enjoys an extensive jurisdiction in the empire
of taste, and, in particular, that fashion is almost wholly
subject to its control.
On this subject I may quote a few sentences from the first
volume of Mr. Stewart's Elements. " In
Stewart quoted.
matters of Taste, the effects which we
consider are produced on the mind itself, and are accom-
panied either with pleasure or with pain. Hence the
tendency to casual association is much stronger than it
commonly is with respect to physical events ; and when
such associations are once formed, as they do not lead to
any important inconvenience, similar to those which result
from physical mistakes, they are not so likely to be corrected
by mere experience, unassisted by study. To this it is
owing that the influence of association on our judgments
concerning beauty and deformity, is still more remarkable
than on our speculative conclusions ; a circumstance which
has led some philosophers to suppose that association is
sufficient to account for the origin of these notions, and that
there in no nuch thing as a standard of taste, founded on
the principles of the human constitution. But this id un-
doubtedly pushing the theory a great deal too far. The
association of ideas can never account for the origin of a
116 MODIFIED LOGIC.
new notion, or of a pleasure essentially different from all
the others which we know. It may, indeed, enable us to
conceive how a thing indifferent in itself may become a
source of pleasure, by being connected in the mind with,
something else which is naturally agreeable ; but it pre-
supposes, in every instance, the existence of those notions
and those feelings which it is its province to combine ; inso-
much that, I apprehend, it will be found, wherever associ-
ations produce a change in our judgments on matters of
taste, it does so by co-operating with some natural principle
of the mind, and implies the existence of certain original
sources of pleasure and uneasiness.
" A mode of dress, which at first appeared awkward,
acquires, in a few weeks or months, the appearance of ele-
gance. By being accustomed to see it worn by those whom
we consider as models of taste, it becomes associated with
the agreeable impressions which we receive from the ease
and grace and refinement of their manners. When it
pleases by itself, the effect is to be ascribed, not to the
object actually before us, but to the impressions with which
it has been generally connected, and which it naturally
recalls to the mind.
" This observation points out the cause of the perpetual
vicissitudes in dress, and in everything whose chief recom-
mendation arises from fashion. It is evident that, as far as
the agreeable effect of an ornament arises from association,
the effect will continue only while it is confined to the
higher orders. When it is adopted by the multitude, it
not only ceases to be associated with ideas of taste and
refinement, but it is associated with ideas of affectation,
absurd imitation, and vulgarity. It is accordingly laid
aside by the higher orders, who studiously avoid every cir-
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OP KNOWLEDGE. 117
cumstance in external appearance which is debased by low
and common use ; and they are led to exercise their inven-
tion in the introduction of some new peculiarities, which
first become fashionable, then common, and last of all, are
abandoned as vulgar.
" Our moral judgments, too, may be modified, and even
perverted to a certain degree, in consequence of the opera-
tion of the same principle. In the same manner in which
a person who is regarded as a model of taste may introduce,
by his example, an absurd or fantastical dress ; so a man
of splendid virtues may attract some esteem also to his im-
perfections ; and, if placed in a conspicuous situation, way
render his vices and follies objects of general imitation
among the multitude.
" ' In the reign of Charles II.,' says Mr. Smith, ' a degree
of licentiousness was deemed the characteristic of a liberal
education. It was connected, according to the notions of
those times, with generosity, sincerity, magnanimity,
loyalty; and proved that the person who acted in this
manner was a gentleman, and not a puritan. Severity of
manners, and regularity of conduct, on the other hand,
were altogether unfashionable, and were connected, in the
imagination of that age, with cant, cunning, hypocrisy, and
low manners. To superficial minds the vices of the greut
seem at all times agreeable. They connect them nut only
with the splendor of fortune, but with many superior
virtues which they ascribe to their su])criors ; with the
spirit of freedom and independency ; with frankness, gene-
rosity, humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the in-
ferior ranks of ]>eople, on the contrary, their parsimonious
frugality, their painful industry, and rigid adherence to
rules, seem to them mean and disagreeable. They connect
118 MODIFIED LOGIC.
them both with the meanness of the station to which these
qualities commonly belong, and with many great vices
which they suppose usually accompany them ; such as an
abject, cowardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering disposition.' "
" In general," says Condillac, " the impression we experi-
ence in the different circumstances of life,
Condillac quoted ma k es us associate ideas with a force which
on the influence of
Association. renders them ever after for us indissoluble.
We cannot, for example, frequent the
society of our fellow-men without insensibly associating the
notions of certain intellectual or moral qualities with
certain corporeal characters. This is the reason why
persons of a decided physiognomy please or displease us
more than others ; for a physiognomy is only an assemblage
of characters, with which we have associated notions which
are not suggested without an accompaniment of satisfaction
or disgust. It is not, therefore, to be marvelled at that we
judge men according to their physiognomy, and that we some-
times feel towards them at first sight aversion or inclination.
In consequence of these associations, we are often vehemently
prepossessed in favor of certain individuals, and no less
violently disposed against others. It is because all that
strikes us in our friends or in our enemies is associated
with the agreeable or the disagreeable feeling which we
severally experience ; and because the faults of the former
borrow always something pleasing from their amiable quali-
ties ; whereas the amiable qualities of the latter seem
always to participate of their vices. Hence it is that these
associations exert a powerful influence on our whole con-
duct. They foster our love or hatred ; enhance our esteem
or contempt ; excite our gratitude or indignation ; and
produce those sympathies, those antipathies, or those
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 119
capricious inclinations, for which we are sometimes sorely
puzzled to render a reason. Descartes tells us that through
life he had always found a strong predilection for squint
eyes, which he explains by the circumstance, that the
nursery-maid by whom he had been kindly tended, and to
whom as a child he was, consequently, much attached, had
this defect." 'S Gravesande, I think it is, who tells us he
knew a man, and a man otherwise of sense, who had a
severe fall from a waggon; and thereafter he could never
enter a waggon without fear and trembling, though he daily
used, without apprehension, another and far more dangerous
vehicle. A girl once and again sees her mother or maid
fainting and vociferating at the appearance of a mouse ; if
she has afterwards to escape from danger, she will rather
pass through flames than take a patent way, if obstructed
by a riilicuhi* mus. A remarkable example of the false
judgments arising from this principle of association, is re-
corded by Herodotus and Justin, in reference to the war of
the Scythians with their slaves. The slaves, after they had
repeatedly repulsed several attacks with arms, were incon-
tinently put to flight when their masters came out against
them with their whips.
I shall now offer an observation in regard to the appro-
priate remedy for this evil influence of Association
The only mean by which we can become aware of,
counteract, and overcome, this besetting
weakness of our nature, is Philosophy,
u the Phi- the Philosophy of the Human Mind ; and
thi8 gtudied ^^ fa the consciousness of
Mind.
the individual, and in the history of tho
specie*. The philosophy of mind, as studied in the con-
sciousness of the individual, exhibits to us the source and
120 MODIFIED LOGIC.
nature of the illusion. It accustoms us to discriminate
the casual, from the necessary, combinations of thought ; it
sharpens and corroborates our faculties, encourages our
reason to revolt against the blind preformations of opinion,
and finally enables us to break through the enchanted
circle within which Custom and Association had enclosed
us. But in the accomplishment of this end, we are greatly
aided by the study of man under the various circumstances
which have concurred in modifying his intellectual and moral
character. In the great spectacle of history, we behold in
different ages and countries the predominance of different
systems of association, and these ages and countries are,
consequently, distinguished by the prevalence of different
systems of opinions. But all is not fluctuating ; and, amid
the ceaseless changes of accidental circumstances and pre-
carious beliefs, we behold some principles ever active, and
some truths always commanding a recognition. We thus
obtain the means of discriminating, in so far as our unas-
sisted reason is conversant about mere worldly concerns,
between what is of universal and necessary certainty, and
what is only of local and temporary acceptation ; and, in
reference to the latter, in witnessing the influence of an
arbitrary association in imposing the most irrational opinions
on our fellow-men, our eyes are opened, and we are warned
of the danger from the same illusion to ourselves. And as
the philosophy of man affords us at once the indication and
the remedy of this illusion, so the philosophy of man does
this exclusively and alone. Our irrational associations, our
habits of groundless credulity and of arbitrary scepticism,
find no medicine in the study of aught beyond the domain
of mind itself.
As Goethe has well observed, " Mathematics remove no
WEAKNESS OP FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 121
prejudice ; they cannot mitigate obstinacy, or temper
jwrty-spirit ;" in a word, as to any moral influence upon the
mind, they are absolutely null. Hence we may well explain
the aversion of Socrates for these studies, if carried beyond
a very limited extent.
The next faculty in order is the Representative, or
Imagination Proper, which consists in the
The Representative greater or less power of holding up an
Faculty, or Imagina-
tion Proper. ideal object in the light of consciousness.
The energy of Representation, though
dependent on Retention and Reproduction, is not to be
identified with these operations. For though these three
functions (I mean Retention, Reproduction, and Represen-
tation) immediately suppose, and are immediately dependent
on each other, they are still manifestly discriminated as
different qualities of mind, inasmuch as they stand to each
other in no determinate proportion. We find, for example,
in some individuals the capacity of Retention strong, but
the Reproductive and Representative Faculties sluggish and
weak. In others, again, the Conservative tenacity is feeble,
but the Reproductive and Representative energies prompt
and vivid ; while in others the power of Reproduction may
be vigorous, but what is recalled is never pictured in a clear
and distinct consciousness. It will be generally, indeed,
admitted, that a strong retentive memory does not infer a
prompt recollection ; and still more that a strong memory
and a prompt recollection do not infer a vivid imagination.
These, therefore, though variously confounded by philoso-
phers, we are warranted, I think, in viewing as elementary
qualities of mind, which ought to be theoretically distin-
guished. Limiting, therefore, the term Imagination to the
mere Faculty of Representing in a more or leas vivacious
7
122 MODIFIED LOGIC.
manner an ideal object, this Faculty is the source of errors
which I shall comprise in the following paragraph.
IT XII, Imagination, or the Faculty of Representing
with more or less vivacity a recalled
Par. XII. 4. imagi- o bj ec t of cognition, is the source of
nation, as a .
loru-ce of Error. Errors, both when it is too languid
and when it is too vigorous. In the
former case, the object is respresented obscurely and
indistinctly ; in the latter, the ideal representation
affords the illusive appearance of a sensible presentation.
A strong imagination, that is, the power of holding up
any ideal object to the mind in clear and
Explication. steady colors, is a faculty necessary to the
Necessity of Imagi- , . '
nation in scientific P et and to the artlst > but not to them
pursuits. alone. It is almost equally requisite for
the successful cultivation of every scien-
tific pursuit ; and, though differently applied, and different
in the character of its representation, it may well be doubted
whether Axistotle did not possess as powerful an imagination
as Homer. The vigor and perfection of this faculty is seen,
not so much in the representation of individual objects and
fragmentary sciences, as in the representation of systems.
In the better ages of antiquity the perfection, the beauty,
of all works of taste, whether in Poetry,
Diverse character- Eloquence, Sculpture, Painting, or Music,
jstics of art in ancient . .
wd. modern time*. was principally estimated from the sym-
metry or proportion of all the parts to each
other, and to the whole which they together constituted ;
and it was only in subservience to this general harmony that
the beauty of the several parts- was appreciated. In the
criticism of modern times, on the contrary, the reverse is
true ; and we are disposed to look more to the obtrusive
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 123
qualities of details, than to the keeping and unison of a
whole. Our works of art are, in general, like kinds of
assorted patch-work ; not systems of parts all subdued in
conformity to one ideal totality, but coordinations of inde-
pendent fragments, among which a "purpureu* pannus "
seldom comes amiss. The reason of this difference in taste
seems to be, what at first sight may seem the reverse, that in
antiquity not the Reason but the Imagination was the more
vigorous; that the Imagination was able to represent
simultaneously a more comprehensive system ; and thus the
several parts being regarded and valued only as conducive
to the general result, these parts never obtained that indi-
vidiril importance, which would have fallen to them had
they been only created and only considered for themselves.
Now this power of representing lo the mind a complex
system in all its bearings, is not less requisite to the philo-
sopher than to the poet, though the representation be
different in kind ; and the nature of the philosophic repre-
sentations, as not concrete and palpable liko the poetical,
supposes a more arduous operation, and, therefore, even a
more vigorous faculty. But Imagination, in the one case
and in the other, requires in proportion to its own power a
powerful intellect ; for imagination is not poetry nor philo-
sophy, but only the condition of the one and of the other.
But to speak now of the Errors which arise from the dis-
Krron which *ri*e projwrtiou between the 1 magination and
from the dupropor- the Judgment ; they originate either in the
Uon between Imai- , . , . ,. , -
nation wad Judg- weakness, or in the inordinate strength, of
the former.
UM weHiM ^ n re f5 ar d to the errors which arise from
riMtioo. the imbecility of the Representative Fa-
culty, it is not dillicult to conceive how this imbecility
124 MODIFIED LOGIC.
may become a cause of erroneous judgment. The Ela-
borative Faculty, in order to judge, requires an object,
requires certain differences to be given. Now, if the
imagination be weak and languid, the objects represented
by it will be given in such confusion and obscurity, that
their differences are either null or evanescent, and judgment
thus rendered either impossible, or possible only with the
probability of error. In these circumstances, to secure
itself from failure, the intellect must not attempt to rise
above the actual presentations of sense ; it must not attempt
any ideal analysis or synthesis, it must abandon all free
and self-active elaboration, and all hope of a successful cul-
tivation of knowledge.
Again, in regard to the opposite errors, those arising from
the disproportioned vivacity of imagination,
these are equally apparent. In this case
portionate vivacity. * J rr
the renewed or newly-modified representa-
tions make an equal impression 011 the mind as the original
presentations, and are, consequently, liable to be mistaken
for these. Even during the perception of real objects, a too
lively imagination mingles itself with the observation, which
it thus corrupts and falsifies. Thus arises what is logically
called the vitium subreptionis. This is frequently seen
in those pretended observations made by theorists in support
of their hypotheses, in which, if even the possibility be left
for imagination to interfere, imagination is sure to fill up all
that the senses may leave vacant. In this case the observers
are at once dupes and deceivers, in the words of Tacitus,
" Fingunt simul creduntque."
In regard to the remedies for these defects of the Repre-
sentative Faculty ; in the former case, the only allevi-
ation that can be proposed for a feeble imagination, is to
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 125
animate it by the contemplation and study of those works
of art which are the products of a strong
Remedies for these Phantasy, and which tend to awaken in
defect* of the Ima-
gination. t" e student a corresponding energy of that
faculty. On the other hand, a too power-
ful imagination is to be quelled and regulated by abstract
thinking, and the study of philosophical, perhaps of mathe-
matical, science.
The faculty which next follows, is the Elaborative Faculty,
Comparison, or the Faculty of Relations. This is the
Understanding, in its three functions of Conception, Judg-
ment, and Reasoning. On this faculty take the following
paragraph.
1T XIII. The Affections and the ^ Lower Cognitive
Faculties afford the sources and occa-
p*r. xni. 5. rim 8 j ons o f error ; but it is the Elabora-
borativ* Faculty. . _ . _ .. ^
.. . .oorc of Er- tlve Facult 7 Understanding, Com-
ror. parison, or Judgment, which truly
errs. This faculty does not, however,
err from strength or over-activity, but from inaction ;
and this inaction arises either from natural weakness,
from want of exercise, or from the imjx)tence of
attention.
Explication.
I formerly observed that error does not lie in the condi-
tions of our higher faculties themselves,
and that these faculties are not, by their
Brror doemot lie in *
the condition* f our w n "* W 8, determined to false judgments
Higher Faculties, but or conclusions ;
In powible In the ap-
plication of the law* " AldiM neque dfdpitur ratio, nee dtcipit unquam."
of UK** facuitie. u, If thege were otherwise, all knowledge
determinate
would l>o iui]K>HHible, the root of our
nature would be a lie. " But in the application of the laws
120 MODIFIED LOGIC.
of our higher faculties to determinate cases, many errors
are possible ; and these errors may actually be occasioned by
a variety of circumstances. Tims, it is a law of our intelli-
gence, that no event, no phenomenon, can be thought as
absolutely beginning to be ; we cannot but think that
all its constituent elements had a virtual existence prior
to their concurrence, to necessitate its manifestation to
us ; we are thus unable to accord to it more than a
relative commencement, in other words, we are con-
strained to look upon it as the effect of antecedent
causes. Now though the law itself of our intelligence
that a cause there is for every event be altogether exempt
from error, yet in the application of this law to individual
cases, that is, in the attribution of determinate causes to
determinate effects, we are easily liable to go wrong.
For we do not know, except from experience and induction,
what particular antecedents are the causes of particular con-
sequents ; and if our knowledge of this relation be imper-
fectly generalized, or if we extend it by a false analogy to
cases not included within our observation, error is the
inevitable consequence. But in all this there is no fault, no
failure, of intelligence, there is only a deficiency, a defi-
ciency in the activity of intelligence, while the Will
determines us to a decision before the Understanding has
become fully conscious of certainty. The
Defective action of defective action of the Understanding may
the Understanding
may arise from three arise from three causes. In the first place,
causes - the Faculty of Judgment may by nature
(a) Natural feeble- ' . , . . .. ,
ness. (6) Want of " e too feeble. This is the case in idiots
necessary experience, and weak persons. In the second place,
^ ) fce ^ peteocy of though not by nature incompetent to judge,
the intellect may be without the necessary
experience, may not possess the grounds on which a correct
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 127
judgment must be founded. In the third place, and this
is the most frequent cause of error, the failure of the
understanding is from the iucompetency of that act of will
which is called Attention. Attention is the voluntary
direction of the mind upon an object, with the intention of
fully apprehending it. The cognitive energy is thus, as it
were, concentrated upon a single point. We, therefore, say
that the mind collects itself, when it begins to be attentive ;
on the contrary, that it is distracted, when its attention is
not turned upon an object as it ought to be. This fixing
this concentration, ot the mind upon ;ui object can only be
carried to a certain degree, and continued for a certain time.
This degree and tliis continuance are both dependent upon
bodily circumstances ; and they are also frequently inter-
rupted or suspended by the intrusion of certain collateral
object^ which are forced upon the mind, either from without,
by a strong and sudden impression upon the senses, or from
vithiu, through the influence of Association ; and these,
when once obtruded, gradually or at once divert the attention
from the original and principal object. If we are not
sufficiently attentive, or if the effort which accompanies the
concentration of the mind upon a single object be irksome,
there arises hurry and thoughtlessness in judging, inasmuch
as we judge either before we have fully sought out the
grounds on which our decision ought to proceed, or have
competently examined their validity and effect. It is
hence manifest that a multitude of errors is the inevitable
consequence.
In regard to the Regulative Faculty, Common Sense,
Intelligence, fovv, this is not in itself a source of error.
Errors may, however, arise either from overlooking the
laws or ncces-iury principle* which it does contaiu ; or by
attributing to it, as necessary and original data, what are
128
MODIFIED LOGIC.
only contingent generalizations from experience, and, con-
sequently, make no part of its comple-
e. Regulative Fa- me nt of native truths. But these errors,
culty, not properly ... . , ., ,
a source of Error ^ ls evic ent, are not to be attributed to
the Regulating Faculty itself, which is
only a place or source of principles, but to the imperfect
operations of the Understanding and Self-consciousness, in
not properly observing and sifting the phenomena which it
reveals.
Besides these sources of Error, which immediately origi-
nate in the several powers and faculties of
Remote sources of mind, there are others of a remoter origin
Error in the different ....
habits determinated arising from the different habits which are
by sex, age, bodily determined by the differences of sex, of
constitution, educa- ,. , ,., ' ... ,. f -, ,. ,.
tion etc. a e > bodily constitution, of education, of
rank, of fortune, of profession, of intellectual
pursuit. Of these, however, it is impossible at present to
attempt an analysis ; and I shall only endeavor to afford
you a few specimens, and to refer you for information in
regard to the others to the best sources.
Intellectual pursuits or favorite studies, inasmuch as these
determine the mind to a one-sided cuitiva-
Selected examples ti ^ { ^ ^ Qf & ^
of these.
A one-sided euiti- to the disproportioned development of
vationofthe inteiiec- Q fa of itg f acu i t i es are among the most
tual powers.
This exemplified in remarkable causes of error. This partial
three different pha- or one-sided cultivation is exemplified in
Bes. Exclusive culti- ml _ ' - ,
vation. i. Of the three different phases. Ihe nrst of these
powers of Observa- j s shown in the exclusive cultivation of the
powers of Observation, to the neglect of
the higher faculties of the Understanding. Of this type
are your men of physical science. In this department of
WEAKNESS OF FACULTIES OF KNOWLEDGE. 129
knowledge there is chiefly demanded a patient habit of
attention to details, in order to detect phenomena, and, these
discovered, their generalization is usually so easy that there
is little exercise afforded to the higher energies of Judgment
and Reasoning. It was Bacon's boast, that Induction, as
applied to nature, would equalize all talents, level the aris-
tocracy of genius, accomplish marvels by cooperation and
method, and leave little to be done by the force of individual
intellects. This boast has been fulfilled. Science has, by
the Inductive Process, been brought down to minds, who
previously would have been incompetent for its cultivation,
and physical knowledge now usefully occupies many who
would otherwise have been without any rational pursuit.
But the exclusive devotion to such studies, if not combined
with higher and graver speculations, tends to wean the
student from the more vigorous efforts of mind, which,
though minimising and even irksome at the commencement,
tend, however, to invigorate his nobler powers, and to pre-
pare him for the final fruition of the highest happiness of
his intellectual nature.
A partial cultivation of the intellect, opposite to this, is
given in the exclusive cultivation of Meta-
2. or Meuphyi. physics and of Mathematics. On this
8. Of Mithematio.
Btwmrt referred to. subject 1 may refer you to some observa-
tions of Mr. Stewart, in two chapters
entitled The Metaphysician, and The Matftematician, in the
third volume of his Element* of the Philosophy of the
Human Mind, chapters distinguished equally by their
candor and their depth of observation. On this subject
Mr. Stewart's authority is of the highest, inasmuch as he
was distinguished in both the departments of knowledge,
the tendency of which he so well develops.
LECTURE V. MODIFIED STOICHEIOLOGY.
SECTION II. ERROR ITS CAUSES AND
REMEDIES.
C. LANGUAGE. D. OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE.
IN my last Lecture, I concluded the survey of the Errors
which have their oriin in the conditions
' n ^" a e '~ as an( j circumstances of the several Cognitive
a source of Error. 4
Faculties, and now proceed to that source
of false judgment which lies in the imperfection of the Instru-
ment of thought and Communication, I mean Language.
Much controversy has arisen in regard to the question,
Has man invented Language ? But the
Has man invented differences of opinion have in a great
Language? Ambigu-
ity of the question. measure arisen from the ambiguity or
complexity of the terms, in which the
problem has been stated. By language we may mean either
the powpr which man possesses of associating his thought
with signs, or the particular systems of signs with which
different portions of mankind haye actually so associated
their thoughts.
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 131
Taking language in the former sense, it is a natural
faculty, an original tendency of mind, and,
In what sense L*n- fa fofa v i eWj man nas no mO re invented
guage is natural to .
language than he has invented thought.
In fact, the power of thought and the
power of language are equally entitled to be considered as
elementary qualities of intelligence ; for while they are so
different that they cannot be identified, they are still so
reciprocally necessary that the one cannot exist without the
other. It is true, indeed, that presentations and represent-
ations of given individual objects might have taken place,
although there were no signs with which they were mentally
connected, and by which they could be overtly expressed ;
but all complex and factitious constructions out of these
given individual objects, in other words, all notions, con-
cepts, general ideas, or thoughts proper, would have been
impossible without an association to certain signs, by which
their scattered elements might be combined in unity, and
their vague and evanescent existence obtain a kind of
definite and fixed and palpable reality. Speech and cogi<-
tation are thus the relative conditions of each other's activity,
and both concur to the accomplishment of the same joint
result. The Faculty of Thinking the Faculty of forming
General Notions being given, this necessarily tends to
energy, but the energy of thinking depends upon the co-
activity of the Faculty pf Speech, which itself tends equally
to energy. These faculties, these tendencies, these ener-
gies, thus coexist and have alway coexisted ; and the result
of their combined action is thought in language, and lan-
guage in thought. Bo much for the origin of Language,
considered in general as a faculty.
132 MODIFIED LOGIC.
But, though the Faculty of Speech be natural and neces-
sary, that its manifestations are, to a
Was the first, lan- cer tain extent, contingent and artificial,
guage, actually spo- ... . ,
ken, the invention of ls evident Irom the simple fact, that there
man, or an inspira- are more than a single language actually
tion of the Deity? , T , ,, .
spoken. It may, therefore, be asked
Was the first language, actually spoken.
The latter hypo- .
thesis considered. the invention of man, or an inspiration of
the Deity 1 The latter hypothesis cuts,
but does not loose tha knot. It declares that ordinary
causes and the laws of nature are insufficient to explain the
phenomenon, but it does not prove this insufficiency ; it
thus violates the rule of Parcimony, by postulating a second
and hypothetical cause to explain an effect, which it is not
shown cannot be accounted for without this violent assump-
tion. The first and greatest difficulty in the question is
thus : It is necessary to think in order
cu y o e j. ^ygj^ a language, and the invention of
question.
a language is necessary in order to think ;
for we cannot think without notions, and notions are only
fixed by words. This can only be solved, as I have said,
by the natural attraction between thought and speech,
by their secret affinity, which is such that they suggest and,
pari passu, accompany each other. And in regard to the
question, Why, if speech be a natural faculty, it does not
manifest itself like other natural principles in a uniform
manner, it may be answered that the Faculty of Speech
is controlled and modified in its exercise by external circum-
stances, in consequence of which, though its exertion be
natural and necessary, and, therefore, identical in all men,
the special forms of its exertion are in a great degree, con-
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 133
ventional and contingent, and, therefore, different among
different portions of mankind.
Considered on one sido, languages are the results of our
intelligence and its immutable laws. In
Language has a consequence of this, they exhibit in their
general and a special
progress and development resemblances
and common characters which allow us to
compare and to recall them to certain primitive and
essential forms, to evolve a system of Universal Grammar.
Considered on another side, each language is the offspring
of particular wants, of special circumstances, physical and
moral, and of chance. Hence it is that every language has
particular forms as it has peculiar words. Language thus
bears the impress of human intelligence only in its general
outlines. There is, therefore, to be found reason and phi-
losophy in all languages, but we should be wrong in be-
lieving that reason and philosophy have, in any language,
determined everything. No tongue, how perfect soever it
may appear, is a complete and perfect
No language it * instrument of human thought. From its
perfect instrument of . . .
thought. very conditions every language must be
imperfect. The human memory can only
compass a limited complement of words, but the data of
sense, and still more the combinations of the understanding,
are wholly unlimited in number. No language can, there-
fore, be adequate to the ends for which it exists ; all are
imjerfect, but some are far less incompetent instruments
than others.
From what has now been said, you will be prepared to
find in Languaue one of the principal sources of Error ; but
before I go on to consider the particular modes in which
the Imperfections of Language are the causes of false
134 MODIFIED LOGIC.
judgments, I shall comprise the general doctrine in the
following paragraph :
IT XIV. As the human mind necessarily requires
the aid of signs to elaborate, to fix,
Par. xiv. Lan- alu j to communicate its notions, and
gnage, as a source
of Error. &s Articulate Sounds are the species
of signs which most effectually afford
this aid, Speech is, therefore, an indispensable instru-
ment in the higher functions of thought and knowledge.
But as speech is a necessary, but not a perfect, instru-
ment, its imperfection must react upon the mind. For
the Multitude of Languages, the Difficulty of their
Acquisition, their necessary Inadequacy, and the con-
sequent Ambiguity of Words, both singly and in com-
bination, these are all copious sources of Illusion and
Error.
We have already sufficiently considered the reason why
thought is dependent upon some system of
Explication. signs or symbols both for its internal per-
Signs necessary for .
the internal opera- fection and external expression. The
tion of Thought. analyses and syntheses, the decomposi-
tions and compositions, in a word, the
elaborations, performed by the Understanding Tipon the
objects presented by External Perception and Self- Conscious-
ness, and represented by Imagination, these operations are
faint and fugitive, and would have no existence, even for
the conscious mind, beyond the moment of present con-
sciousness, were we not able to connect, to ratify, and to fix
them, by giving to their parts (which would otherwise
immediately fall asunder) a permanent unity, by associating
them with a sensible symbol, which we may always recall at
pleasure, and which, when recalled, recalls along with it the
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 135
characters which concur in constituting a notion or factitious
object of intelligence. So far signs are necessary for the
internal operation of thought itself. But for the communi-
cation of thought from one mind to another, signs are
equally indispensable. For in itself thought is known,
thought it is knowable, only to the thinking
Ami for the commit- . ., .. j i i j j.
nication of Thought. mmd ltself '* and WCre WC nOt enabled to
connect certain complements of thought to
certain sensible symbols, and by their means to suggest in
other minds those complements of thought of which we
were conscious in ourselves, we should never be able to
communicate to others what engaged our interest, and man
would remain for man, if an intelligence at all, a mere
isolated intelligence.
In regard to the question, What may these sensible
symbols be, by which we are to compass such memorable
effects, it is needless to show that mien and gesture, which,
to a certain extent, afford a kind of natural expression, are
altogether inadequate to the double purpose of thought and
communication, which it is here required to accomplish.
This double purpose can be effected only by symbols, which
express, through intonations of the voice,
intonation* of the what is passing in the mind. These vocal
Tok "^ on} y "**- intonations are either inarticulate or arti-
quatc neniible yro-
bou of thought and culate. The former are mere sounds or
lu communication. cries \ and, as such, an expression of the
v i ir . , , llt , feelings of which the lower animals are
The utter conxtitute also capable. The latter constitute words,
and these, as the expression of thoughts or
ource of Error. notions, constitute Language Pro]>er or
Speech. Speech, as we have said, as the
instrument of elaborating, fixing, and communicating oui
136 MODIFIED LOGIC.
thoughts, is a principal mean of knowledge, and even the
indispensable condition on which depends the exercise of
our higher cognitive faculties. But, at the same time, in
consequence of this very dependence of thought upon lan-
guage, inasmuch as language is itself not perfect, the under-
standing is not only restrained in its operations, and its
higher development, consequently, checked, but many occa-
sions are given of positive error. For, to say nothing of the
impediment presented to the free communication of thought
by the multitude of tongues into which human language is
divided, in consequence of which all speech beyond their
mother-tongue is incomprehensible to those who do not make
a study of other languages, even the accurate learning of
a single language is attended with such difficulties, that
perhaps there never yet has been an individual who was
thoroughly acquainted with all the words and modes of
verbal combination in any single language, his mother-
tongue even not excepted. But the circumstance of prin-
cipal importance is, that how copious and
The ambiguity of / .
words the principal expressive soever it may be, no language
source of error origi- i s competent adequately to denote all pos-
nating hi Language.
sible notions, and all possible relations ot
notions, and from this necessary poverty of language in all its
different degrees, a certain inevitable ambiguity arises, both
in the employment of single words and of words in mutual
connection.
As this is the principal source of the error originating in
Language, it will be proper to be a little
Two circumstances . . . . , . . , .
under this head, more explicit. And here it is expedient
which mutually affect to take into account two circumstances,
which mutually affect each other. The
first is, that as the vocabulary of every language is neces-
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 137
sarily finite, it is necessarily disproportion ed to the multi-
plicity, not to say infinity, of thought ; and the second,
that the complement of words in any given language has
been always filled up with terms significant of objects
and relations of the external world, before the want was
experienced of words to express the objects and relations of
the internal.
From the first of these circumstances, considered exclu-
sively and by itself, it is manifest that one
Th vocabulary of of two, alternatives must take place.
every language neces- Ether the wordfj of a l an g,, a g e must ^^
sarily finite. Conse-
quences of this, designate only a single notion, a single
fasciculus of thought, the multitude of
notions not designated being allowed to perish, never
obtaining more than a momentary existence in the mind of
the individual ; or the words of a language must each be
employed to denote a plurality of concepts. In the former
case, a small amount of thought would be expressed, but
that precisely and without ambiguity ; in the latter, a large
amount of thought would be expressed, but that vaguely
and equivocally. Of these alternatives (each of which has
thus its advantages and disadvantages), the latter is the one
which has universally been preferred ; and, accordingly, all
languages by the same word express a multitude of thoughts,
more or Ions differing from each othor. Now, what is the
consequence of this ? It is plain that if a word has more
than a single meaning attached to it, when it is employed
it cunnot of itself directly and peremptorily suggest any
definite thought ; all that it can do is vaguely and hy|K>
thetically to suggest a variety of different notions ; and we
are obliged from the consideration of the context, of the
tenor, of the general analogy, of the discourse, to surmise,
138 MODIFIED LOGIC.
with greater or less assurance, with greater or less precision,
what particular bundle of characters it was intended to
convey. Words, in fact, as languages are
Words are merelv ., , , , , 1 . ,,
... . constituted, do nothing more than suggest,
hints to the mind.
are nothing more than hints ; hints, like-
wise, which leave the principal part of the process of inter-
pretation, to be performed by the mind of the hearer. In
this respect, the effect of words resemblesTthe effect of an
outline or shade of a countenance with which we are
familiar. In both cases, the mind is stimulated to fill up
what is only hinted or pointed at. Thus it is that the
function of language Is not so much to infuse knowledge
from one intelligence to another, as to bring two minds into
the same train of thinking, and to confine them, to the same
track. lu this procedure what is chiefly wonderful, is the
rapidity with which the mind compares the word with its
correlations, and in general, without the slightest effort,
decides which among its various meanings is the one which
it is here intended to convey. But how marvellous soever
be the ease and velocity of this process of selection, it can-
not always be performed with equal certainty. Words are
often employed with a plurality of meanings ; several of
which may quadrate, or be supposed to quadrate, with the
general tenor of the discourse. Error is thus possible ; and
it is also probable, if we have any prepossession in favor of
one interpretation rather than of another. So copious a
source of error is the ambiguity of language, that a very
large proportion of human controversy has been concerning
the sense in which certain terms should be understood ;
and many disputes have even been fiercely waged, in con-
sequence of the disputants being unaware that they agreed
in opinion, and only differed in the meaning they attached
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 139
\
to the words in which that opinion was expressed. On this
subject I may refer you to the very amusing and very in-
structive treatise of Werenfelsius, entitled De Logomachiis
Mnditorum.
In regard to a remedy for this description of error, this
lies exclusively in a thorough study of the
Remedy for error language employed in the communication
rising from Lan- f
guage. of knowledge, and in an acquaintance
with the rules of Criticism and Interpre-
tation. The study of languages, when rationally pursued,
is not so unimportant as many fondly conceive ; for mis-
conceptions most frequently arise solely from an ignorance
of words ; and every language may, in a certain sort, be
viewed as a commentary upon Logic, inasmuch as every
language, in like manner, mirrors in itself the laws of
thought.
In reference to the rules of Criticism and Interpretation,
these especially should be familiar to those who make a
study of the writings of ancient authors, as these writings
have descended to us often in a very mutilated state, and
are composed in languages which are now dead. How many
theological errors, for example, have only arisen because the
divines were either ignorant of the principles of Criticism
and Hermeneutic, or did not properly apply them ! Doc-
trines originating in a corrupted lection, or in a figurative
expression, have thus arisen and been keenly defended.
Such errors are best combated by philological weapons ; for
these pull them up along with their roots.
A thorough knowledge of languages in genenil accustoms
the mind not to remain satisfied with the husk, but to pen-
etrate in, even to the kernel. With this knowledge we
bhall not so easily imagine that we understand a system,
140 MODIFIED LOGIC.
when we only possess the language in which it is expressed ;
we shall not conceive that we truly reason, when we
only employ certain empty words and formulae ; we shall
not betray ourselves into unusual and obscure expressions,
under which our meaning may be easily mistaken ; finally,
we shall not dispute with others about words, when we are
in fact at one with them in regard to things. So much for
the errors which originate in Language.
As to the last source of Error which I enumerated, the
Objects themselves of our knowledge, it
iv. Source of Error, is hardly necessary to say anything. It is
the Objects of our
Knowledge. evident that some matters are obscure and
abstruse, while others are clear and pal-
pable ; and that, consequently, the probability of error is
greater in some studies than it is in others. But as it is
impossible to deliver any special rules for these cases, differ-
ent from those which are given for the Acquisition of
Knowledge in general, concerning which we are soon to
speak, this source of error may be, therefore, passed over
in silence.
We have now thus finished the consideration of the
various Sources of Error, and
IT XV. The following rules may be given, as the results
of the foregoing discussion, touching
Par. XV. Rules ^ Cauges and ft erne( iies o f our False
touching the Causes
and Remedies of Judgments.
our False Jndg- jo Endeavor as f ar ag possible to
dents*
obtain a clear and thorough insight
into the laws of the Understanding, and of the Mental
Faculties in general. Study Logic and Psychology.
2, Assiduously exercise your mind in the application
of these laws. Learn to think methodically.
LANGUAGE OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 141
3, Concentrate your attention in the act of Thinking ;
and principally employ the seasons when the Intellect
is alert, the Passions slumbering, and no external causes
of distraction at work.
4, Carefully eliminate all foreign interests from the
objects of your enquiry, and allow yourselves to be
actuated by the interest of Truth alone.
5, Contrast your various convictions, your past and
present judgments, with each other ; and admit no
conclusion as certain, until it has been once and again
thoroughly examined, and its correctness ascertained.
6, Collate your own persuasions with those of
others ; attentively listen to and weigh, without pre-
possession, the judgments formed by others of the
opinions which you yourselves maintain.
VL MODIFIED METHODOLOGY,
SECTION I. OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE.
I. EXPERIENCE. A. PERSONAL : OBSERVATION
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY.
Is our last Lecture, having concluded the Second Depart-
ment of Concrete Logic,-^-that which treats
Meansby which our of the c ause8 o f Error, we now enter
knowledge obtains .
the character of Per- u pon the Third part of Concrete or Modi-
fection, viz., the AC- ne <j Logic, that which considers the Means
qnisition and the , i > i -rr 11 i i j.i \
communication of b 7 whlch our Knowledge obtains the, char-
Knowledge. acter of Perfection. These means may,
in general, be regarded as two, the Acqui-
sition and the Communication of knowledge, and these
two means we shall, accordingly, consider consecutively
and apart.
In regard to the Acquisition of Knowledge, we must
consider this by reference to the different
The acquisition of kinds Qf knowledge of which the human
Knowledge.
intellect is capable. And this, viewed in
its greatest universality, is of two species.
Human knowledge, I say, viewed in its greatest univer-
sality, is of two kinds. For either it is
Human Knowledge Qne f ^^^ ^ Q objects are given as con-
of two kinds.
tingent phsenomena, or one in which the
objects are given as necessary facts or laws. In the former
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 143
case, the cognitions are called empirical, experiential, or of
experience ; in the latter, pure, intuitive, rational, or of
reason, also of common sense. These two kinds of know-
ledge are, likewise, severally denominated cognitions a
posteriori and cognitions a priori. The distinction of these
two species of cognitions consists properly in this, that the
former are solely derived from the Presentations of Sense,
External and Internal ; whereas the latter, though first
manifested on the occasion of such Presentations, are not,
however, mere products of Sense ; on the contrary, they are
laws, principles, forms, notions, or by whatever name they
may be called, native and original to the mind, that is,
founded in, or constituting the very nature of, Intelligence ;
and, accordingly, out of the mind ntself they must be
developed, and not sought for and acquired as foreign and
accidental acquisitions. As the Presentative Faculties
inform us only of what exists and what happens, that is,
only of facts and events, such empirical knowledge consti-
tutes no necessary and universal judgment ; all, in this case,
is contingent and particular, for even our generalized know-
ledge has only a relative and precarious universality. The
cognitions, on the other hand, which are given as Laws of
Mind, are, at once and in themselves, universal and neces-
sary. We cannot but think them, if we
DoctrinofthAc- think at all. The doctrine, therefore, of
quisltlun of Know- , ... - ,., , .
led*, conibu of two the Acquisition of Knowledge, must con-
prt. sist of two parts, the first treating of
the acquisition of knowledge through the
data of experience, the second, of the acquisition of
knowledge through the data of Intelligence.
144 MODIFIED LOGIC.
In regard to the first of these sources, viz., Experience, *
this is either our own experience or the
I. The doctrine of experience of others, and in either case
Experience. Expert- . .
ence of two kinds, i* is fo r u a mean of knowledge. It is
manifest that the knowledge we acquire
through our personal experience, is far superior in degree to
that which we obtain through the experience of other men ;
inasmuch as our knowledge of an object, in the former case,
is far clearer and more distinct, far more complete and
lively, than in the latter ; while at the same time the latter
also affords us a far inferior conviction of the correctness
and certainty of the cognition than the former. On the other
hand, foreign is far superior to our proper experience in
this, that it is much more comprehensive, and that, with-
out this, man would be deprived of those branches of
knowledge which are to him of the most indispensable
importance. Now, as the principal distinction of experience
is thus into our own experience and into the experience of
others, we must consider it more closely in this two-fold
relation. First, then, of our Personal Experience.
Experience necessarily supposes, as its primary condition,
certain presentations by the faculties of External or of
Internal Perception, and is, therefore, of
i. Person*! Ex- * w kinds, according as it is conversant
perience. about the objects of the one of these
faculties, or the objects of the other. But
the presentation cf a fact of the external or of the
internal w6rld is not at once an experience. To this
there is required a continued series of such presenta-
tions, a comparison of these together, a mental separation
of the different, a mental combination of the similar, and
it, therefore, over and above the operation of the Preseiita^
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 145
tive Faculties, requires the cooperation of the Retentive,
the Reproductive, the Representative, and the Elaborative
Faculties. In regard to Experience, as the first means by
which we acquire knowledge through the legitimate use
and application of our Cognitive Faculties, I give you the
following paragraph :
1T XVI. The First Mean towards the Acquisition
of Knowledge is Experience (experi-
Par. xvi. Ex- gntia, e/xTTcipia). Experience may be,
perienc.; what,-
in general. rudely and generally, described as the
apprehension of the phenomena of
the outer world, presented by the Faculty of External
Perception, and of the phenomena of the inner world,
presented by the Faculty of Self -consciousness ; these
phenomena being retained in Memory, ready for Re-
production and Representation, being also arranged
into order by the Understanding.
This paragraph, you will remark, affords only a prelim-
inary view of the general conditions of
Explication. .
Experience. In the first place, it is evident,
that without the Preseutative, or, as they may with equal
propriety be called, the Acquisitive, Faculties of Perception,
External and Internal, no experience would be possible.
But these faculties, though affording the fundamental con-
dition of knowledge, do not of themselves make up
experience. There is, moreover, required of the phenomena
or appearances the accumulation and retention, the repro-
duction and representation. Memory, Reminiscence, and
Imagination must, therefore, also cooperate, Finally,
unless the phenomena be compared together, and be
arranged into classes, according to their similarities and
differences, it is evident that no judgments, no conclusions,
8
146 MODIFIED LOGIC.
can be formed concerning them ; but -without a judgment
knowledge is impossible ; and as experience is a knowledge,
consequently experience is impossible. The Understanding
or Elaborative Faculty must, therefore, likewise cooperate.
Manilius has well expressed the nature of experience in the
following lines.
" Pervarios iwts artem experientia fecit,
Exemplo monstrante viam. "
And Afranras in the others :
" Ueus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria ;
Sophiam voeant me Gran, vos Sapientiam. "
Our own observation, be it external or internal, is
either with, or without, intention ; and it
Common and Sci- go^gi^g either of a series of Presentations
entific Experience.
alone, or Abstraction and Reflection super-
rene, so that the presentations obtain that completion and
system which they do not of themselves possess. In the
former case, the experience may be called an Unlearned or
Common ; in the latter, a I/earned or Scientific Experience.
Intentional and reflective experience is called Observation.
Observation is of two kinds ; for either
observation wfcat. ^h e objects which it considers remain un-
Of two kinds. Ob- . , . ., ..
changed, or, previous to its application,
Experiment. they are made to undergo certain arbi-
trary change^ or are placed in certain
factitious relations. In the latter case, the observation
contains the specific name of Experiment. Observation and
experiment do not, therefore, constitute opposite or two
different procedures, the latter is, in propriety, only a
certain subordinate modification of the former ; for, while
observation may accomplish its end without experiment, ex-
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 147
periment without observation is impossible. Observation
and experiment are manifestly exclusively competent upon
the objects of our empirical knowledge ; and they corporate,
equally and in like manner, to the progress of that know-
ledge, partly by establishing, partly by correcting, partly by
amplifying it. Under observation, therefore, is not to be
understood a common or unlearned experience, which
obtrudes itself upon every one endowed with the ordinary
faculties of Sense and Understanding, but an intentional
and continued application of the faculties of Perception,
combined with an abstractive and reflective attention to an
object or class of objects, a more accurate knowledge of
which, it is proposed, by the observation, to accomplish.
But in order that the observation should accomplish this
end, more especially when the objects are numerous and a
systematic complement of cognitions is the end proposed,
it is necessary that we should know ccr-
^ toin pwecognita, 1, Wha * * g"t to
observe; 2, How we ought to observe; and
3, By what means are the data of observation to be re-
duced to system. The first of these concerns the Object ;
the second, the Procedure ; the third, the scientific Comple-
tion of the observations. It is proper to make some
general observations in regard to these, in their order ; and
first, of the Object of observation, the what we ought to
observe.
The Object of Observation can only be some given and
determined phenomenon, and this phseno-
Fit, The objct menon either an external or an internal.
Tbu fourfold Through observation, whether external or
internal, there are four several cognitions
which we propose to compass, viz., to ascertain 1, What
148 MODIFIED LOGIC*
the Phenomena themselves are ; 2, What are the Condi-
tions of their Reality ; 3, What are the Causes of their
Existence ; 4, What is the Order of their Consecution.
In regard to what the phenomena themselves are (quid
sint), that is, in regard to what consti-
1, What the Phae- .1 ,. ,,. .. .
tutes their peculiar nature. this, it is
nomena are.
evident, must be the primary matter of
consideration, it being always supposed that the fact (the
an sit) of the phenomenon itself has been established. To
this there is required, above all, a clear and distinct Presen-
tation or Representation of the object. In order to obtain
this, it behooves us to analyze, to dis-
in their individual me mber, the constituent parts of the
peculiarities and con- , . .
trastg object, and to take into proximate account
those characters which constitute the ob-
ject, that is, which make it to be what it is, and nothing
but what it is. This being performed, we must proceed to
compare it with other objects, and with those especially
which bear to it the strongest similarity, taking accurate
note always of those points in which they reciprocally
resemble and in which they reciprocally disagree.
But it is not enough to consider the several phsenomena
in their individual peculiarities and con-
As under determi- trasts, in what they are. and in what they
nate genera and spe- . . . . . , .
cies are not, it is also requisite to bring them
under determinate genera and species. To
this end we must, having obtained (as previously pre-
scribed) a clear and distinct knowledge of the several
phenomena in their essential similarities and differences,
look away or abstract from the latter, the differences, and
comprehend the former, the similarities, in a compendious
and characteristic notion, under an appropriate name.
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 149
When the distinctive peculiarities of the phenomena
have been thus definitely recognized, the
2 1 , what the Con- second question emerges, What are the
ditions of their Re- ^
^uty. Conditions of their Reality. These con-
ditions are commonly called Requisites^
and under requisite we must understand all that must have
preceded, before the phaenomena could follow. In order to
discover the requisites, we take a number of analogous
cases, or cases similar in kind, and inquire what are the
circumstances under which the phaenomena always arises,
if it does arise, and what are the circumstances under
which it never arises ; and then, after a competent ob-
servation of individual cases, we construct the general
judgment, that the phenomenon never occurs unless this or
that other phenomenon has preceded, or at least accom-
panied, it. Here, however, it must be noticed, that nothing
can be viewed as a requisite which admits of any, even the
smallest, exception.
The requisite conditions being discovered, the third ques-
tion arises, What are the Causes of the
y, what the c*ie PhaenomeBa. According to the current.
of the Phenomena. ,
doctrine, the causes of phaenomena are
not to be confounded with their requisites ; for although a
phenomenon no more occurs without its requisite than
without its cause, still, the requisite being given, the
phenomenon does not necessarily follow, and, indeed, very
frequently does not ensue. On the contrary, if the cause
occurs, the phenomenon must occur also. In other words,
the requisite or condition is that without which the pheno-
menon never is ; the cause, on the other hand, is that
through which it always is. Tims an emotion of pity never
rises without a knowledge of the misfortune of another ;
but so little does this knowledge necessitate that emotion,
150 MODIFIED LOGIC.
that its opposite, a feeling of rejoicing, complacency, at
such suffering may ensue ; whereas the knowledge of
another's misfortune must be followed by a sentiment of
pity, if we are predisposed in favor of the person to whom
the misfortune has occurred. In this view, the knowledge
of another's misfortune is only a requisite ; whereas our
favorable predisposition constitutes the cause. It must,
however, be admitted, that in different relations one and
the same circumstance may be both requisite and cause ;
and, in point of fact, it would be more coi-rect to consider
the cause as the whole sum of antecedents, without which
the phenomenon never does take place, and with which it
always must. What are commonly called requisites, are
thus, in truth, only partial causes ; what are called causes,
only proximate requisites.
In the fourth place, having ascertained the essential
qualities, the Conditions and the Causes
of phenomena, a final question emerges,
What is the Order in which they are
manifested ? and this being ascertained, the observation has
accomplished its end. This question applies either to a
phenomenon considered in itself, or to a phenomenon con-
sidered in relation to others. In relation to itself, the
question concerns only the time of its origin, of its con-
tinuance, and of its termination ; in relation to others,
it concerns the reciprocal consecution in which the several
phenomena appear.
We now go on to the second Precognitum, the Manner
of Observation, How we are to observe.
Sec ^'~ The t 1Ian - What' we have hitherto spoken of the
ner of Observation. r
Object can be known only in one way,
the way of Scientific Observation. It thei'efore remains to
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 151
be asked, How must the observation be instituted, so as
to afford us a satisfactory result in regard to all the four
sides on which it behooves an object to be observed 1 In
the first place, as preliminary to observa-
tion, it is required that the observing mind
the observing mind.
be tranquil and composed, be exempt from
prejudice, partiality, and prepossession, and be actuated by
no other interest than the discovery of truth. Tranquility
and composure of mind are of peculiar importance in our
observation of the phenomena of the internal world ; for
these phenomena are not, like those of the external, per.
oeptible by sense, enclosed in space, continuous and divi-
sible ; and they follow each other in such numbers, and with
such a rapidity, that they are at best observable with
difficulty, often losing even their existence by the inter-
ference of the observing, the reflective energy, itself.
But that the observation should be always conducted in the
calm and collected state of mind required to purify this
condition, we must be careful to obtain, more and more, a
mastery over the Attention, so as to turn it with full force
upon a single aspect of the phenomena, and, consequently,
to abstract it altogether from every other. Its proper
function is to contemplate the objects of observation tran-
quilly, continuously, and without anxiety for the result ;
and this, likewise, without too intense an activity or too
vigorous an application of its forces. But the observation
and concomitant energy of attention will be without result,
unless we previously well consider what precise object or
objects we are now to observe. Nor will our experience
obtain an answer to the question proposed for it to solve,
unless that question be of such a nature as will animate the
observing faculties by some stimulus, and give them a
152
MODIFIED LOGIC.
determinate direction. Where this is not the case, atten-
tion does not effect anything, nay, it does
2% Conditions of the not operate at all. On this account such
question to be deter- , , . . .
mined by the obser- psychological questions as the following :
vation. What takes place in the process of Self-
conscieusness, of Perception, of Vision,
of Hearing, of Imagination, etc., cannot be answered, as
thus absolutely stated, that is, without reference to some
determinate object. But if I propose the problem, What
takes place when I see this or that object, or better still,
when I see this table, the attention is stimulated and
directed, and even a child can give responses, which, if pro-
perly illustrated and explained, will afford a solution to the
problem. If, therefore, the question upon the object of
observation be too vague and general, so that the attention
is not suitably excited and applied, this question must be
divided and subdivided into others more particular, and this
process must be continued until we reach a question which
affords the requisite conditions. We should, therefore,
determine as closely as possible the object itself, and the
phases in which we wish to observe it, separate from it all
foreign or adventitious parts, resolve every question into its
constituent elements, enunciate each of these as specially as
possible, and never couch it in vague and general expres-
sions. But here we must at the same time take care that
the object be not so torn and mangled that the attention feels
no longer any attraction to the several parts, or that the
several parts can no longer be viewed in their natural con-
nection. So much it is possible to say in general, touching
the Manner in which observation ought to be carried on ;
what may further be added under this head, depends upon
the particular nature of the objects to be observed.
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 153
In tliis manner, then, must we proceed, until all has been
accomplished which the problem, to be answered by the
observation, pointed out. When the observation is con-
cluded, an accurate record or notation of what has been
observed is of use, in order to enable us to supply what is
found wanting in our subsequent observation. If we have
accumulated a considerable apparatus of results, in relation
to the object we observe, it is proper to take a survey of
these ; from what is found defective, new questions must be
evolved, and an answer to these sought out through new
observations. When the inquiry has attained its issue, a
tabular view of all the observations made upon the subject
is convenient, to afford a conspectus of the whole, and as an
aid to the memory. But how (and this is the Third Precog-
nitiou) individual observations are to be
Third,-Tbe means ^uilt up into a systematic whole, is to be
by which the d*U of f * ' .
sought <> r partly from the nature of science
uuu. in general, partly from, the nature of the
particular empirical science for the consti-
tution of which the observation is applied. Nor is what is
thus sought difficult to find. It is at once evident, that a
synthetic arrangement is least applicable in the empirical
sciences. For, anterior to observation, the object is abso-
lutely unknown ; and it is only through observation that it
becomes a matter of science. \V e can, therefore, only go to
work in a problematic or interrogative manner, and it is
impossible to commence by assertory propositions, of which
we afterwards lead the demonstration. We must, therefore,
delermine the objects on all sides, in so far as observation is
competent to this ; we must analyze every question into its
subordinate questions, and each of these must find its an-
swer iu observation. The systematic order is thus given
8*
154 MODIFIED LOGIC.
naturally and of itself ; and in this procedure it is impossible
that it should not be given. But for a comprehensive and
all-sided system of empirical knowledge, it is not sufficient
to possess the whole data of observation, to have collected
these together, and to have arranged them according to some
external principle ; it is, likewise, requisite that we have a
thorough-going principle of explanation, even though this
explanation be impossible in the way of observation, and a
power of judging of the data, according to universal laws,
although these universal laws may not be discovered by
experience alone. These two ends are accomplished by
different means. The former we compass by the aid of
Hypothesis, the latter, by the aid of Induction and Analogy.
Of these in detail. In regard to Hypothesis, I give you the
following paragraph.
H XVII. When a phenomenon is presented, which
can be explained by no principle
pfthes J-^haf 7 " afforded through Experience, we feel
discontented and uneasy ; and there
arises an effort to discover some ca\ise which may, at
least provisorily, account for the outstanding pheno-
menon ; and this cause is finally recognized as valid
and true, if, through it, the given phenomenon is
found to obtain a full and perfect explanation. The
judgment in which a phenomenon is referred to such
a problematic cause, is called an Hypothesis.
Hypotheses have thus no other end than to satisfy the
desire of the mind to reduce the objects of its
Explication. knowledge to unity and system ; and they
Hypothesis,-ite *v 7 t /
end do this in recalling them, ad interim, to
some principle, through which the mind is
enabled to comprehend them. From this view of their
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 155
nature, it is manifest how far they are permissible, and how
far they are even useful and expedient ; throwing altogether
out of account the possibility, that what is at first assumed
as Jiypothetical, may, subsequently, be proved true.
When our experience has revealed to us a certain corres-
pondence among a number of objects, we are determined,
by an original principle of our nature, to suppose the
existence of a more extensive correspondence than our
observation has already proved, or may ever be able to
establish. This tendency to generalize our knowledge by
the judgment, that where much has been found accordant,
all will be found accordant, is not properly a conclusion
deduced from premises, but an original principle, of our
nature, which we may call that of Logical, or perhaps
better, that of Philosophical, Presumption. This Presump-
tion is of two kinds ; it is either Induction or Analogy,
which, though usually confounded, are, however, to be care-
fully distinguished. I shall commence the consideration of
these by the following paragraph.
H XVIII. If we have uniformly observed that a
number of objects of the same class
Par. xviii. in- (genus or species) possess in common
duction and Ana-
logy, a certain attribute, we are disposed
to conclude that this attribute is
possessed by all the objects of that class. This conclu-
sion is properly called an Inference of Induction.
Again, if we have observed that two or more things
agree in several internal and essential characters, we
are disposed to conclude that they agree, likewise, in
all other essential characters, that is, that they are
constituents of the same class (genus or species). This
conclusion is properly called an Inference of Analogy.
156 MODIFIED LOGIC.
The principle by which, in either case, we are disposed
to extend our inferences beyond the limits of expe-
rience, is a natural or ultimate principle of intelligence ;
and may be called the principle of Logical, or, more
properly, of Philosophical Presumption.
The reasoning by Induction and the reasoning by Ana-
logy have this in common, that they both
Explication. conclude from something observed to some-
induction and Ana- .
logy, -their agree- tni g n ot observed; from something
ment and difference, within to something beyond the sphere
of actual experience. They differ, how-
ever, in this, that, in Induction, that which is observed
and from which the inference is drawn to that which is not
observed, is a unity in plurality ; whereas, in Analogy, it
is a plurality in iinity. In other words, in Induction, we
look to the one in the many ; in Analogy we look to the
many in the one ; and while in both we conclude to the
unity in totality, we do this, in Induction, from the recog-
nized unity in plurality, in Analogy, from the recognized
plurality in unity. Thus, as induction rests upon the
principle, that what belongs (or does not belong) to many
things of the same kind, belongs, (or does not belong) to all
things of the same kind ; so analogy rests upon the prin-
ciple, that things which have many observed attributes in
common, have other not observed attributes in common like-
wise. It is hardly necessary to remark that we are now speak-
ing of Induction and Analogy, not as principles of Pure Logic,
and as necessitated by the fundamental laws of thought,
but of these as means of acquiring knowledge, and as legiti-
mated by the conditions of objective reality. In Pure
Logic, Analogy has no place, and only that Indviction is
admitted, in which all the several parts are supposed to
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 157
legitimate the inference to the whole. Applied Induction,
on the contrary, rests on the constancy, the uniformity of
nature, and on the instinctive expectation we have of this
stability. This constitutes what has been called the prin-
ciple of Logical Presumption, though perhaps it might, with
greater propriety, be called the principle of Philosophical
Presumption. We shall now consider these severally ; and,
first, of Induction.
An Induction is the enumeration of the parts, in order
to legitimate a judgment in regard to the
Induction,-wht
whole. .Now, the parts may either be in-
dividuals or particulars, strictly so called. I say strictly
so called, for you are aware that the term particular is very
commonly employed, not only to denote the species, as con-
tained under a genus, but, likewise, to denote the individual,
as contained under a species. Using, however, the two
terms in their proper significations, I say, if the parts are
individual or singular things, the induction is then called.
Individual; whereas if the parts be species
or 8ub * ltern genera, the induction then
obtains the name of Special. An example
of the Individual Induction is given, were we to argue
thus, Mercury, Venus, t/tc Earth, Mars, etc., are bodies in
tlunnselves ojjaque, and which borrow their liy/U from l/te
un. But Mercury, Venus, etc., are planets. Therefore, all
planets are opaque, and borrow their light from the sun.
An example of the special is given, were we to argue as
follows, Quadrupeds, birds, Jishes, the amphibia, etc., all
have a nervous system. But quadrupeds, birds, etc., are
animals. Therefore all animals (though it is not yet
detected in some) have a nervous system. Now, here .it
in manifest that Special rests upon Individual Induction,
158 MODIFIED LOGIC.
and that, in the last result, all induction is individual. For
we can assert nothing concerning species, unless what
we assert of them has been previously observed in their
constituent singulars.
For a legitimate Induction there are requisite at least
two conditions. In the first place, it is
The two conditions nec essary, That the partial (and this word
of legitimate Indue- . . . . r \ . .
tion.-First. I use ^ including both the terms indivi-
dual and particular,) I say, it is neces-
sary that the partial judgments out of which the total or
general judgment is inferred, be all of the same quality.
For if one even of the partial judgments had an opposite
quality, the whole induction would be subverted. Hence
it is that we refute universal judgments founded on an im-
perfect induction, by bringing what is called an instance
(instantia), that is, by adducing a thing belonging to the
same class or notion, in reference to which the opposite
holds true. For example, the general assertion, All dogs
bark, is refuted by the instance of the dogs of Labrador or
California (I forget which), these do not bark. In like
manner, the general assertion, No quadruped is oviparous,
is refuted by the instance of the Ornithorhynchus Para-
doxus. But that the universal judgment must have the
same quality as the partial, is self-evident ; for this judg-
ment is simply the assertion of something to be true of all
which is true of many.
The second condition required is, That a competent
number of the partial objects from which
Second. the induction departs, should have been
observed, for otherwise the comprehension
of other objects under the total judgment would be rash.
What is the number of such objects, which amounts to a
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 159
competent induction, it is not possible to say in general.
In some cases, the observation of a very few particular or
individual examples is sufficient to warrant an assertion in
regard to the whole class ; in others, the total judgment is
hardly competent, until our observation has gone through
each of its constituent parts. This distinction is founded
on the difference of essential and unessential characters. If
the character be essential to the several objects, a compar-
atively limited observation is necessary to legitimate* our
general conclusion. For example, it would require a far
less induction to prove that all animals breathe, than to
prove that the mamalia, and the mamalia alone, have
lateral lobes to the cerebellum. For the one is seen to be a
function necessary to animal life; the other, as far as our
present knowledge reaches, appears only as an arbitrary con-
comitant. The difference of essential and accidental is, how-
ever, one itself founded on induction, and varies according
to the greater or less perfection to which this has been
carried. In the progress of science, the lateral lobes of the
cerebellum may appear to future physiologists as necessary
a condition of the function of suckling their young, as the
organs of breathing appear to us of circulation and of life.
To sum up the Doctrine of Induction, " This is more
certain, 1, In proportion to the number
and diversity of the objects observed :
doctrine of Induction J >
2, In proportion to the accuracy with
which the observation and comparison have been conducted ;
3, In proportion as the agreement of the objects is clear
and precise ; and, 4, In proportion as it has been
thoroughly explored, whether there exist exceptions or not."
Almost all induction is, however, necessarily imj>erfect ;
and Logic can inculcate nothing more important on the
160 MODIFIED LOGIC.
investigators of nature than that sobriety of mind, which
regards all its past observations only as hypothetically true,
only as relatively complete, and which, consequently, holds
the mind open to every new observation, which may cor-
rect and limit its former judgments.
So much for Induction ; now for Analogy. Analogy, in
general, means proportion, or a similarity
Analogy,-what. e '. _5 ' . J
of relations. Ihus, to judge analogically,
or acording to analogy, is to judge things by the similar-
ity of their relations. Thus, when we judge that as two is
to four, so is eight to sixteen, we judge that they are ana-
logically identical ; that is, though the sums in other
respects are different, they agree in this, that as two is the
half of four, so eight is the half of sixteen.
In common language, however, this propriety of the
term is not preserved. For by analogy is not always meant
merely by proportion, but frequently by comparison by re-
lation, or simply by similarity. In so far as Analogy con-
stitutes a particular kind of reasoning from the individual
or particular to the universal, it signifies an inference from
the partial similarity of two or more things to their com-
plete or total similarity. For example, This disease
corresponds in many symptoms with those we have observed
in typhus fevers ; it will, therefore, correspond in all, that
is, it is a typhus fev.r.
Like Induction, Analogy has two essential requisites. In
the first place, it is necessary that of two
Has two essential Qr mQre thi ft certain num b er of attri-
conditions, First.
butes should have observed, in order to
ground the inference that they also agree in those other
attributes, which it has not yet been ascertained that they
possess. It is evident that in proportion to the number of
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 1G1
points observed, in which the things compared together
coincide, in the sa,me proportion can it be with safety as-
sumed, that there exists a common principle in these things,
on which depends the similarity in the points known as in
the points unknowjj.
In the second place, it is required that the predicates
already observed should neither be all nega-
Second.
tive nor all contingent ; but that some at
least should be positive and necessary. Mere negative
characters denote only what the thing is not ; and contin-
gent characters need not be present in the thing at all. In
regard to negative attribute*, the inference, that two things,
to which a number of qualities do not belong, and which
are, consequently, similar to each other only in a negative
point of view, that these things are, therefore, absolutely
and positively similar, is highly improbable. But that the
judgment in reference to the compared things (say A and X)
must be of the same quality (t. e. either both affirmative or
both negative), is self-evident. For if it be said A is B, X
is not B, A w not C, X is C ; their harmony or similarity
is subverted, and we should rather be warranted in arguing
their discord and dissimilarity in other points. And here
it is to be noticed that Analogy differs from Induction in
this, that it is not limited to one quality, but that it admits
of a mixture of both.
In regard to contingent attributes, it is equally inanifet-t
that the analogy cannot proceed exclusively upon them.
For, if two things coincide in certain accidental attributes
(for example, two men in respect <>f gtaiure, age, and dress,)
the sii|ijm.siti')ii that there is a common principle, and a
general sirniliarity founded thereon, is very unlikely.
162 MODIFIED LOGIC.
To conclude : Analogy is certain in proportion, 1, To the
number of congruent obsovations ; 2, To
Summary of the ,-1 , f ,
doctrine of Analogy. the number of congruent characters ob-
served ; 3, To the importance of these
characters and their essentiality to the objects ; and,
4, To the certainty that the characters really belong to the
objects, and that a partial correspondence exists. Like
Induction, Analogy can only pretend at best to a high degree
of probability ; it may have a high degree of certainty, but
it never reaches to necessity.
Comparing these two processes together : The Analogical
is distinguished from the Inductive in this
induction and Anal- t ^ at induction regards a single predicate
ogy compared to-
gether. m many subjects as the attribute Z in A,
in B, in C, in D, in E, in F, etc. ; and as
these many belong to one class, say Q ; it is inferred that Z
will, likewise, be met with in the other things belonging to
this class, that is, in all Qs. On the other hand, Analogy
regards many attributes in one subject (say m, n, o, p, in
A) ; and as these many are in part found in another subject
(say m, and n, in B), it is concluded that, in that second
thing, there will also be found the other attributes (say
o and p). Through Induction we, therefore, endeavor to
prove that one character belongs (or does not belong) to
all the things of a certain class, because it belongs (or does
not belong) to many things of that class. Through Anal-
ogy on the other hand, we seek to prove that all the charac-
ters of a thing belong (or do not belong) to another or
several others, because many of these characters belong to
this other or these others. In the one it is proclaimed,
One in many, therefore one in all. In the other it is pro-
claimed, Many in one, tfterefore all in one.
INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 103
By these Processes of Induction and Analogy, as observed,
we are unable to attain absolute certainty ; a great proba-
bility is all that we can reach, and this for the simple reason,
that it is impossible, under any condition, to
induction and Anal- faf^ t jj e uno bserved from the observed,
ogy do not afford ab-
solute ceruinty. tne whole from any proportion of the
parts, in the way of any rational neces-
sity. Even from the requisites of Induction and Anal-
ogy, it is manifest that they bear the stamp of uncertainty ;
inasmuch as they are unable to determine how many objects
or how many characters must be observed, in order to draw
the conclusion that the case is the same with all the other
objects, or with all the other characters. It is possible only
in one way to raise Induction and Analogy from mere
probability to complete certainty, viz., to demonstrate that
the principles which lie at the root of these processes, and
which we have already stated, are either necessary laws of
thought, or necessary laws of nature. To demonstrate
that they are necessary laws of thought is impossible ; for
Logic not only does not allow inference from many to all,
but expressly rejects it. Again, to demonstrate that they
are necessary laws of nature is equally impossible. This
has indeed been attempted, from the uniformity of nature,
but in vain. For it is incompetent to evince the necessity
of the inference of Induction and Analogy from the fact
denominated the law of nature ; seeing that this law itself
can only be discovered by the way of Induction and
Analogy. In this attempted demonstration there is thus
the most glaring petitio jtrineipii. The result which has
been previously given remains, therefore, intact : Induction
and Analogy guarantee no perfect certainty, but only a high
degree of probability, while all probability rests at best upon
Induction and Analogy, and nothing else.
LECTURE VII. MODIFIED METHODOLOGY.
SECTION I. OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE.
I. EXPERIENCE B. FOREIGN :-ORAL TESTIMONY-
ITS CREDIBILITY.
HAVING, in our last Lecture, terminated the Doctrine of
Empirical Knowledge, considered as ob-
Foreign Experience. . .
tamed Immediately, that is, through the
exercise of our own powers of Observation, we are now to
enter on the doctrine of Empirical Knowledge considered as
obtained Mediately, that is, through the Experience of
Other Men. The following paragraph will afford you a
general notion of the nature and kinds of this knowledge.
IF XIX. A matter of Observation or Empirical
Knowledge can only be obtained
PiT. XIX. Testi- -*ir T , , ,i . T . ,. . , ,
mon Mediately, that is, by one individual
from another, through an enouncement
declaring it to be true. This enouncement is called,
in the most extensive sense of the word, a Witnessing
or Testimony (testimonium) ; and the person by whom
it is made is, in the same sense, called a Witness, or
Testifier (testis). The object of the testimony is called
the Fact (factum) ; and its validity constitutes what
is styled Historical Credibility (credibilitas historica).
To estimate this credibility, it is requisite to consider
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 165
1, The Subjective Trustworthiness of the Witnesses
(fides testium), and 2, The Objective Probability of the
Fact itself. The former is founded partly on the Sin-
cerity, and partly on the Competence, of the Witness."
The latter depends on the Absolute and Relative
Possibility of the Fact itself. Testimony is either
Immediate or Mediate. Immediate, where the fact
reported is the object of a Personal Experience ;
Mediate, where the fact reported is the object of a
Foreign Experience.
It is manifest that Foreign Experience, or the experience
of other men, is astricted to the same laws,
Explication. .
and its certainty measured by the same
criteria, as the experience we carry through ourselves. But
the experience of the individual is limited, when compared
with the exjwrience of the species ; and if men did not
possess the means of communicating to each other the results
of their several observations, were they unable to cooperate
in accumulating a stock of knowledge, and in carrying on
the progress of discovery, -they would never have risen
above the very lowest steps in the acquisition of science.
But to this mutual communication they are competent ;
and each individual is thus able to appropriate to his own
benefit the experience of his fellow-men, and to confer on
them in return the advantages which his own observations
may supply. But it is evident that this reciprocal com-
munication of their respective experiences among men, can
only be effected inasmuch as one is able to inform another of
what he hits himself observed, and that the vehicle of this
information can only be some enouncement in conventional
signs of one character or another. The enouncement of
what has been observed is, as stated in the paragraph, called
166 MODIFIED LOGIC.
a witnessing, a bearing witness, a testimony, etc., these
terms being employed in their wider acceptation ; and he by
whom this declaration is made, and on whose veracity it
rests, is called a witness, voucher, or testifier (testis). The
term testimony, I may notice, is sometimes, by an abusive
metonym, employed for witness ; and the word evidence is
often ambiguously used for testimony, and for the bearer of
testimony,- the witness.
Such an enouncement, such a testimony, is, however,
necessary for others, only when the experi-
The proper object ence which it commun i categ j g beyond the
of Testimony,
compass of their own observation. Hence
it follows, that matters of reasoning are not proper objects
of testimony, since matters of reasoning, as such, neither
can rest, nor ought to rest, on the observations of others ;
for a proof of their certainty is equally competent to all,
and may by all be obtained in the manner in which it was
originally obtained by those who may bear witness to their
truth. And hence it further follows, that matters of expe-
rience alone are proper objects of testimony ; and of matters
of experience themselves, such only as are beyond the sphere
of our personal experience. Testimony, in the strictest
sense of the term, therefore, is the communication of an
experience, or, what amounts to the same thing, the report
of an observed phenomenon, made to those whose own
experience or observation has not reached so far.
The object of testimony, as stated in the paragraph, is
called the fact ; the validity of a testimony
The Fact. is called historical credibility. The testi-
Historical credi- . .,, . ,. ,. ,
.... mony is either immediate or mediate.
Immediate when the witness has himself
observed the fact to which he testifies ; mediate, when the
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 167
witness has not himself had experience of this fact, but
has received it on the testimony of others. The former,
the immediate witness, is commonly styled
an eye-witness (testis oculatus) ; and the
latter, the mediate witness, an ear-witness
(testit auritas). The superiority of immediate to mediate
testimony is expressed by Plautus, " Pluris est oculatua
testis unus, quam auriti decem" These denominations, ey
and ear vritness, are however, as synonyms of immediate and
mediate vntness, not al ways either applicable or correct. The
person on whose testimony a fact is medi-
The Guarantee.
ately reported, is called the guarantee, or
he on whose authority it rests ; and the guarantee himself
may be again either an immediate or a mediate witness. In
the latter case he is called a second-hand or intermediate
witness ; and his testimony is commonly styled hearsay evi-
dence. Further, Testimony, whether immediate or mediate,
is either partial or complete ; either con-
Teftimonles.-pM- sistent or contradictory. ' These distinctions
tial, Complete, Con- . _. ..
rirt*nt, Contradic- qre no comment. Finally, testimony
tory. is either direct or indirect; direct, when
the witness has no motive but that of
making known the fact ; indirect, when he is actuated to
this by other enda.
The only question in reference to Testimony is that which
regards its Credibility : and the question
DhrWonofthewb- . ../... .
ject:i. Credibility of concerning the credibility of the witness
ony in general. ma y be comprehended under that touching
i^^ the Credibility of Testimony. The order
niar lorn* of immc- I ah*!! follow in the subsequent observa-
tions ia this, I shall, in the first pluce,
consider the Credibility of Testimony in general ; and,
168 MODIFIED LOGIC.
in the second, consider the Credibility of Testimony in its
particular forms of Immediate and Mediate.
First, then, in regard to the Credibility of Testimony in
general ; When we inquire whether a certain testimony is,
or is not, deserving of credit, there are two things to be con-
sidered : 1, The Object of the Testimony, that is, the fact
or facts for the truth of which the Testimony vouches ; and,
2, The Subject of the Testimony, that is, the person or
persons by whom the testimony is borne. The question,
therefore, concerning the Credibility of testimony, thus
naturally subdivides itself into two. Of these questions,
the first asks, What are the conditions of the credibility of
a testimony by reference to what is testified, that is, in
relation to the Object of the testimony ? The second asks,
What are the conditions of the credibility of a testimony
by him who testifies, that is, in relation to the Subject of
the testimony? Of these in their order.
On the first question. " In regard to the matter testified,
that is, in regard to the object of the testi-
I. Credibility oi m ony ; it is, first of all, a requisite condi-
Testimony in general. . , i , - i_ij.i_ i 11
1 The ob'ect of the tlon *"** what is reported to be true should
Testimony. be possible, both absolutely, or as an object
its absolute Possi- of tne Elaborative Faculty, and relatively,
or as an object of the Presentative Facul-
ties, Perception, External or Internal. A thing is possible
absolutely, or in itself, when it can be construed 1o thought,
that is, when it is not inconsistent with the logical laws of
thinking ; a thing is relatively possible as an object of Per-
ception, External or Internal, when it can afiect Sense or
Self-consciousness, and, through such affection, determine
its apprehension by one or other of these faculties. A
testimony is, therefore, to be unconditionally rejected, if
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 169
th fact which it reports be either in itself impossible, or
impossible as an object of the Presentative Faculties. But
the impossibility of a thing, as an object
PhyricmiMidMet*- of tuese faculties, must be decided either
physical ImpowibU-
it y . upon physical, or upon metaphysical, prin-
ciples. A thing is physically impossible as
an object of sense, when the existence itself, or its percep-
tion by us, is, by the laws of the material world, impossible.
It is metaphysically impossible, when the object itself, or its
perception, is possible neither through a natural nor through
a supernatural, agency. But, to establish the metaphysical
impossibility of a thing, it is not sufficient that its existence
cannot be explained by the ordinary laws of nature, or even
that its existence should appear repugnant with these laws ;
it is requisite that an universal and immutable law of nature
should have been demonstrated to exist, and that this law
would be subverted if the fact in question were admitted to
be physically possible. In like manner, to constitute the
metaphysical impossibility of a thing, it is by no means
enough to show that it is not explicable on natural laws, or
even that any natural law stands opposed to it ; it is further
requisite to prove that the intervention even of supernatural
agency is incompetent to its production, that its existence
would involve the violation of some necessary principle of
To establish the credibility of a testimony, in so far as
this is regulated by the nature of its object,
B*it|poibuity there ^ ^fa tne proof of the absolute
of m object.
possibility of this object, required also a
proof of its relative possibility ; that is, there must not
only be no contradiction between its necessary attributes,
the attributes by which it must be thought, but no contra-
170 MODIFIED LOGIC.
diction between the attributes actually assigned to it by tlre>
testimony. A testimony, therefore, which, qua testimony,,
is self-contradictory, can lay no claim to credibility ; for
what is self-contradictory is logically suicidal. And here
the only qxiestion is,, Does the testimony, qua testimony,,
contradict itself 1 for if the repugnancy arise from an opinion
of the witness, apart from which the testimony as such would
still stand undisproved, in thai case the testimony is not at
once to be repudiated as false. For example, it would be
wrong to reject a testimony to the existence of a thing,
because the witness had to his evidence of its observed
reality annexed some conjecture in regard to its origin or
cause. For the latter might well be shown to be absurd,
and yet the former would remain unshaken. It is, therefore,
always to be observed, that it ia only the self-contradiction
of a testimony, qua testimony, that is, the self-contradiction
of the fact itself, which is peremptorily and irrevocably
subversive of it credibility.
We now proceed to the second question ; that is, to con-
sider in general the Credibility oi a Testi-
2, The Subject oi mony by reference to its subject, that is,
the Testimony, or . . . , _ . _,
personal tmstwor- m relation to the Personal Trustworthiness
thiness of the Wit- o f the Witness. The trustworthiness of a
ness. This consists .. . , /, , , ,.
oftwoeiements:-<a) witness consists of two elements or condi-
Honesty or Veracity, tions. In the first place, he must be will-
ing, in the second place, he must be able,
to report the truth. The first of these elements is the
Honesty, the Sincerity, the Veracity ; the second is the
Competency of the Witness. Both are equally necessary,
and if one or other be deficient, the testimony becomes
altogether null. These constituents, likewise, do not infer
each other ; for it frequently happens that where the honesty
EXPERIENCE- ITS CREDIBILITY. 171
ia greatest the competency is least, and where the com-
petency is greatest, the honesty is least. But when the
veracity of a witness is established, there is established also
a presumption of his competency ; for an honest man will
not bear evidence to a point in regard to which his recollec-
tion is not precise, or to the observation of which he had
not accorded the requisite attention. In 'truth, when a fact
depends on the testimony of a single witness, the com-
petency of that witness is solely guaranteed by his honesty.
In regard to the honesty of a witness, this, though often
admitting of the highest probability, never admits of absolute
certainty ; for, though in many cases, we may knbw enough
of the general character of the witness to rely, with perfect
confidence on his veracity, in no case can we look into the
heart, and observe the influence which motives have actually
had upon his volitions. We are, however, compelled, in
many of t !,. most important concerns of our existence, to
depend on the testimony, and, consequently, to confide in
the sincerity, of others. But from the moral constitution
of human nature, -we are warranted in presuming on the
honesty of a witness ; and this presumption is enhanced in
proportion as the following circumstances concur in its con-
firmation. In the first place, a witness is to be presumed
veracious in this case, in proportion as his love of truth is
already established from others. In the second place, a
witness is to be presumed veracious, in
Tbeprwumptionof proportion as he has fewer and weaker
th.HoDrtyofmwit, motives to falsify his testimony. In the
ne enhanced by cer- *
uin drvunuunow. third place, a witness is to be presumed
veracious, in proportion to the likelihood
of contradiction which his testimony would encounter, if he
172 MOD1F1KD LOGIC.
deviated from the truth. So much for the Sincerity,
Honesty, or Veracity of a witness.
In regard to the Competency or Ability of a witness,
this, in general, depends on the supposition
(b) Competency of ^ ^ h ^ . ^ ^ cor rect]y
a Witness.
to observe the fact to which he testifies,
and correctly to report it. The presumption in favor of the
competence of a witness rises in proportion as the following
conditions are fulfilled: In the first place,
Circumstances by h e mus t be presumed competent in refer-
which the presump- , , . .
Won of competency is ence to the Case ln hand > ln Proportion as
enhanced. . his general ability to observe and to com-
municate his observation has been estab-
lished in other cases. In the second place, the competency
of a witness must be presumed, in proportion as in the par-
ticular case a lower and commoner amount of ability is
requisite rightly to observe, and rightly to report the obser-
vation. In the third place, the competency of a witness is
to be presumed, in proportion as it is not to be presumed
that his observation was made or communicated at a time
when he was unable correctly to make or correctly to com-
municate it. So much for the Competency of a witness.
Now, when both the good will and the ability, that is,
when both the Veracity and Competence of
The credibility of a witness have been sumcisntly established,
Testimony not invali- i. /
dated because the the credibility of his testimony is not to be
fact testified is one invalidated because the fact which it goes
out of the ordinary . ., ,, ,.
course of experience. to P rove ls one out of the ordinary course
of experience. Thus it would be false to.
assert, with. Hume, that miracles, that is, suspensions of the
ordinary laws of nature, are incapable of proof, because con-
tradicted by what we have been able to observe. On the
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 173
contrary, where the trustworthiness of a witness or witnesses
is unimpeachable, the very circumstance that the object is
one in itself unusual and marvellous, adds greater weight
to the testimony ; for this very circumstance would itself
induce men of veracity and intelligence to accord a more
attentive scrutiny to the fact, and secure from them a more
accurate report of their observation.
The result of what has now been stated in regard to the
credibility of Testimony in general, is :
summary regarding That a testimony is entitled to credit when
the Credibility rfTw
timony in general. tne requisite conditions, both on the purt
of the object and on the part of the sub-
ject, have been fulfilled. On the part of the object these
are fulfilled when the object is absolutely possible, as an
object of the higher faculty of experience, the Understand-
ing, the Elaborativo Faculty, and relatively possible, as an
object of the lower or subsidiary faculties of experience,
Sense, and Self-consciousness. In this case, the testimony,
qua, testimony, does not contradict itself. On the part of
the subject the requisite conditions are fulfilled when the
trustworthiness, that is, the veracity and competency of the
witness, is beyond reasonable doubt. In regard to the
veracity of the witness, this cannot be reasonably doubted,
when there is no positive ground on which to discredit the
sincerity of the witness, and when the only ground of doubt
lies in the mere general possibility of deception. And in
reference to the competency of a witness, this is exposed
to no reasonable objection, when the ability of the witness
to observe and to communicate the fact in testimony cannot
be disallowed. Having, therefore, concluded the considera-
tion of testimony in general, we proceed to treat of it in
pecial, that is, in so far as it is viewed either as Immediate
or as Mediate. Of these in their order.
174 MODIFIED LOGIC.
The special consideration of Testimony, when that testi-
mony is Immediate. An immediate testi-
ii. Testimony in mon y, or testimony at first hand, is one in
special, as Immediate
and Mediate. which the fact reported is an object of the
1, immediate Tes- proper or personal experience of the re-
timony.
porter. .Now it is manifest, that an imme-
diate witness is in general better entitled to credit than a
witness at second hand ; and his testimony rises in proba-
bility, in proportion as the requisites, already specified, both
on the part of its object and on the part of its subject, are
fulfilled. An immediate testimony is, therefore, entitled to
credit, 1, In proportion to the greater ability with which
the observation has been made ; 2, In
Conditions of its ,. ,-. , . -,. , . ,-,
m proportion to the less impediment in the
way of the observation being perfectly ac-
complished ; 3, In proportion as what was observed could be
fully and accurately remembered ; and, 4, In proportion as
the facts observed and remembered have been communicated
by intelligible and unambiguous signs.
Now, whether all these conditions of a higher credibility
be fulfilled in the case of any immediate
whether all these testimony, this cannot be directly and at
conditions are ful- . ., ,
filled in the case of once ascertained ; it can only be inferred,
any immediate testi- with greater or less certainty, from the
mony, cannot be di- ,-, f ,-, ., i ,1
rectly ascertained, qualities of the witness ; and, consequently,
the validity of a testimony can only be
accurately estimated from a critical knowledge of the per-
sonal character of the witness, as given in his intellectual
and moral qualities, and in the circumstances of his life,
which have concurred to modify and determine these. The
veracity of a witness either is, or is not, exempt from doubt;
and, in the latter case, it may not only lie open to doubt,
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 175
but even be exposed to suspicion. If the sincerity of the
witness be indubitable, a direct testimony is always prefer-
able to an indirect ; for a direct testimony being made with
the sole intent of establishing the certainty of the fact in
question, the competency of the witness is Jess exposed to
objection. If, on the contrary, the sincerity of the witness
be not beyond a doubt, and, still more, if it be actually sus-
pected, in that case an indirect testimony is of higher cogency
than a direct ; for the indirect testimony being given with
Another view than merely to establish the fact in question,
the intention of the witness to falsify the truth of the fact
has not so strong a, presumption in its favor. If both the
sincerity and the competency of the witness are altogether
indubitable, it is then of no importance whether the truth
of the fact be vouched for by a single witness, or by a
plurality of witnesses On the other hand, if the sincerity
and competency of the witness be at all doubtful, the credi-
bility of a testimony will be greater, the greater the number
of the witnesses by whom the fact is corro-
whn testimony t- borated. But here it is to be considered,
Uln the higheat de-
gree of proUtbtnty. th** when there are a plurality of testi-
monies to the same fact, these testimonies
are either consistent or inconsistent. If the testimonies be
consistent, and the sincerity and competency of all the wit-
nesses complete, in that case the testimony attains the highest
degree of probability of which any testimony is capable.
Again, if the witnesses be inconsistent, on this hypothesis
two cases are possible ; for either their discrepancy is nega-
tive, or it is positive. A negative discrep-
. ancy arises, where one witness passes over
in silence what another witness positively
avers. A positive discrepancy arises, where one witness
176 MODIFIED LOGIC.
explicitly affirms something, which something another wit-
ness explicitly denies. When the difference of testimonies
is merely negative, we may suppose various causes of the
silence ; and, therefore, the positive averment of one witness
to a fact is not disproved by the mere circumstance that
the same fact is omitted by another. But if it be made out,
that the witness who omits mention of the fact could not
have been ignorant of that fact had it taken place, and. at
the same time, that he could not have passed it over without
violating every probability of human action, in this case,
the silence of the one witness manifestly derogates from the
credibility of the other witness, and in certain circumstances
may annihilate it altogether. Where, again, the difference
is positive, the discrepancy is of greater importance, because
(though there are certainly exceptions to the rule) an overt
contradiction is, in general and in itself, of stronger cogency
than a mere non-confirmation by simple silence. Now the
positive discrepancy of testimonies either admits of concili-
ation, or it does not. In the former case, the credibility of
the several testimonies stands intact ; and the discrepancy
among the witnesses is to be accounted for by such circum-
stances as explain, without invalidating, the testimony con-
sidered in itself. In the latter case, one testimony mani-
festly detracts from the credibility of another ; for of incom-
patible testimonies, while both cannot be true, the one must
be false, when reciprocally contradictory, or they may both
be false, when reciprocally contrary. In this case, the whole
question resolves itself into one of the greater or less trust-
worthiness of the opposing witnesses. Is the trustworthi-
ness of the counter-witnesses equally great 1 In that case,
neither of the con flic tive testimonies is to be admitted.
Again, is the trustworthiness of the witnesses not upon a
EXPERIENCE ITS CREDIBILITY. 177
par ? In that case, the testimony of the witness whose
trustworthiness is the greater, obtains the preference,- and
this more especially if the credibility of the other witnesses
is suspected.
So much for the Credibility of Testimony, considered in
Special, in so far as that testimony is Immediate or at First
Hand : and I now, in the second place, pass on to consider
likewise in special, the Credibility of Testimony, in so far
as that testimony is Mediate, or at Second Hand.
A Mediate Testimony is one where the fact is an object
not of Personal, but of Foreign Experi-
2*. Mediate Testi- m i J.L. ri -r />
ence. louching the credibility of a me-
diate testimony, this supposes that the
report of the immediate, and that the report of the mediate,
witness are both trustworthy, this we are either of our-
selves able to determine, viz., from our personal acquaintance
with its veracity and competence ; or we are unable of
ourselves to do this, in which case the credibility of the
immediate must be taken upon the authority of the mediate
witness. Here, however, it is necessary for us to be aware,
that the mediate witness is possessed of the ability requisite
to estimate the credibility of the immediate witness, and of
the honesty to communicate the truth without retrenchment
or falsification. But if the trustworthiness both of the
mediate and of the immediate witness be sufficiently
established, it is of no consequence, in regard to the credi-
bility of a testimony, whether it be at first hand or at
second. Nay, the testimony of a mediate may even tend
to confirm the testimony of an immediate witness, when
his own competence fairly to appreciate the report of the
immediate witness is indubitable. If, however, the cie-
dibility of the immediate witness be unimpeachable, but
9*
178 MODIFIED LOGIC.
not so the credibility of the mediate, in that case the
mediate testimony, in respect of its authority, is inferior to
the immediate, and this in the same proportion as the
credibility of the second hand witness is inferior to that
of the witness at first hand. Further, mediate witnesses
are either Proximate or Remote ; and, in both cases, either
Independent or Dependent. The trustworthiness of proxi-
mate witnesses is, in general, greater than the trustworthi-
ness of remote ; and the credibility of
Mediate Witnesses j j -, A i j.v
are either Proximate ^dependent witnesses greater than the
or Remote.and either credibility of dependent. The remote
Independent or De- witnesg is unwort hy of belief, when the
pendent.
intermediate links are wanting between
him and the original witness ; and the dependent witness
deserves no credit, when that on which his evidence
depends is recognized as false or unestablished. Mediate
testimonies are, likewise, either direct or indirect ; and,
likewise, when more than one, either reciprocally con-
gruent or conflictive. In both cases the credibility of the
witnesses is to be determined in the same manner as if the
testimonies were immediate.
The testimony of a plurality of mediate witnesses, where
there is no recognized immediate witness,
Rumor. what. ni /> j i ^ i
is called a rumor, it the witnesses be con-
Tradition.
temporaneous ; and a tradition if the
witnesses be chronologically successive. These are both
less entitled to credit, in proportion as in either case a
fiction or falsification of the fact is comparatively easy,
and, consequently, comparatively probable.
LECTURE VIII. MODIFIED METHODOLOGY.
SECTION I. OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE.
L EXPERIENCE. R FOREIGN ; RECORDED TESTI-
MONY AND WRITINGS IN GENERAL,
n. SPECULATION.
IK our lost Lecture, we were engaged in the considera-
tion of Testimony, and the Principles by
critkjUm f R*- which its Credibility is governed, on the
corded Te.un.ony supposition always that we possess the
and of Writing! in J
yeaermi. veritable report of the witness whose tes-
timony it professes to be, and on the
supposition that we are at no loss to understand its mean-
ing and purport. But questions may arise in regard to
tfaooc point*, and, therefore, there is a further critical pro-
cess requisite, in order to establish the Authenticity, the
Integrity, and the Signification, of the documents in which
the testimony is conveyed. This leads to the important
subject, the Criticism of Recorded Testimony, and of
Writings in general. I shall comprise the heads of the
following observations on this subject in the ensuing
paragraph.
180 MODIFIED LOGIC.
IF XX. The examination and judgment of Writ-
ings professing to contain the testi-
Par. XX. Criticism /. , . ., j c
. r . mony ot certain witnesses, and of
and Interpretation. J
Writings in General professing to be
the work of certain authors, is of two parts. For the
inquiry regards either, 1, The Authenticity of the
document, that is, whether it be, in whole or in part,
the product of its ostensible author; for ancient writings
in particular are frequently suppositious or interpo-
lated ; or, 2, It regards the Meaning of the words of
which it is composed, for these, especially when in
languages now dead, are frequently obscure. The
former of these problems is resolved by the Art of
Criticism (Critica,) in the stricter sense, of the term ;
the latter by the Art of Interpretation ( Exegetica or
Hermeneutica.J Criticism is of two kinds. If it be
occupied with the criteria of the authenticity of a
writing in its totality, or in its principal parts, it is
called the Higher, and sometimes the Internal, Criti-
cism. If, again, it consider only the integrity of
particular words and phrases, it is called the Lower,
and sometimes the External, Criticism. The former of
these may perhaps be best styled the Criticism of
Authenticity ; the latter, the Criticism of Integrity.
The problem which Interpretation has to solve is,
To discover and expound the meaning of a writer,
from the words in which his thoughts are expressed.
It departs from the principle, that however manifold
be the possible meanings of the expressions, the sense
of the writer is one. Interpretation, by reference to
its sources or subsidia, has been divided into the
Grammatical, the Historical, and the Philosophiccif-,
Exegesis.
RECORDED TESTIMONY. 181
Testimonies, especially when the ostensible witnesses
themselves can no longer be interrogated,
Explication.
may be subjected to an examination under
various forms ; and this examination is in fact indispen-
sable, seeing not only that a fake testimony may be
substituted for a true, and a testimony true upon the
whole may yet be falsified in its parts, a practice which
prevailed to a great extent in ancient times ; while at the
same time the meaning of the testimony, by reason either
of the foreign character of the language in which it is ex-
pressed, or of the foreign character of thought in which it
is conceived, may be obscure and undetermined. The ex-
amination of a testimony is twofold, inasmuch as it is
either an examination of its Authenticity
The examination of j T , ., ,. f .,
a tsrtimony twofold, and Inte g nfcv or an examination of its
of it* Authenticity Meaning. This twofold process of examin-
ed integrity, and of . ^ applicable to testimonies of every
Ita Meaning. J
kind, but it becomes indispensable when
the testimony has been recorded in writing, and when this,
from its antiquity, has come down to us only in transcripts,
indefinitely removed from the original, and when the
witnesses are men differing greatly from ourselves in lan-
<MI:i'_"-. lu.ilil. .T>. customs, HU'l ;is.>ori;iti"HS of tlmll^ht. The
solution of the problem, By what laws are the authen-
ticity or spuriouKness, the integrity or
Criticism. 3 .
corruption, of a writing to be determined,
constitutes the Art of Criticism, in its stricter significa-
tion (Critica) ; and the solution of the problem, By what
law is the sense or meaning of a writing to be determined,
constitutes the Art of Interpretation
Interpretation. . . . .
or Exposition (Ifermeneutica, Exagetica).
In theory, Criticism ought to precede Interpretation, for
182 MODIFIED LOGIC.
the question, Who has spoken, naturally arises before the
question, How what has been spoken is to be understood.
But in practice, criticism and interpretation cannot be sepa-
rated ; for in application they proceed hand in hand.
First, then, of Criticism ; arid the question that presents
itself in the threshold is, What are its
Definition and Divisions ? Under Criti-
cism is to be understood the complement of logical rules, by
which the authenticity or spuriousness, the integrity or
interpolation, of a writing is to be judged. The problems
which it proposes to answer are, 1, Does
Its problems.
a writing really proceed from the author
to whom it is ascribed ; and 2, Is a writing, as we possess
it, in all its parts the same as it came from the hands of its
author. The system of fundamental rules, which are sup-
posed in judging of the authenticity and integrity of every
writing, constitutes what is called the
Universal Criticism. f T r n
Doctrine of Universal Criticism ; and the
system of particular rules, by which the authenticity and
integrity of writings of a certain kind are judged, con-
stitutes the doctrine of what is called
Special Criticism. ..,.,... T .
Universal Criticism Special Criticism. It is manifest, from
mione within the t ne nature of Logic, that the doctrine of
phere of Logic. .
Universal Criticism is alone within its
sphere. Now Universal Criticism is conversant either
with the authenticity or spuriousness of a writing con-
sidered as a whole, or with the integrity or interpolation of
certain parts. In the former case it is
Its Divisions. * . .
called Hiytier, in the latter, Lower, Criti-
cism ; but these denominations are "inappropriate. The
one criticism has also been styled the Internal, the other
the External ; but these appellations are, likewise, excep-
RECORDED TESTIMONY. 183
tionable ; and, perhaps, it would be preferable to call the
former the Criticism of the Authenticity, the latter, the
Criticism of the Integrity, of a work. I shall consider these
in particular ; and, first, of the Criticism of Authenticity.
A proof of the authenticity of a writing, more especially
of an ancient writing, can be rested only upon two grounds,
an Internal and an External, and on
UCL these either apart or in combination. By
internal grounds, we mean those indications
of authenticity which the writing itself affords. By external
grounds, we denote the testimony borne by other works, of
a corresponding antiquity, to the authenticity of the writing
in question.
In regard to the Internal Grounds ; it is evident, without
entering upon details, that these cannot of
(a) Internal Grounds. , , . . , .
Thw of themneivea themselves, that is, apart from the external
not sufficient to - grounds, afford evidence capable of estab-
lishing beyond a doubt the authenticity of
an ancient writing ; for we can easily
conceive that an able and learned forger may accommodate
his fabrications both to all the general circumstances of
time, place, people, and language, under which it is sup-
posed to have been written, and even to all' the particular
circumstances of the style, habit of thought, personal rela-
tions, etc., of the author by whom it professes to have
been written, so that everything may militate for, and
nothing militate against, its authenticity.
But if our criticism from the internal grounds alone be,
on the one hand, impotent to establish, it
But omnipotent to * ,\_ ,1 . ,.
dbprove thin 1B on tne otner omnipotent to disprove.
For it is sufficient to show that a writing
is in essential parts, that is, parts which cannot be separated
184 MODIFIED LOGIC.
from the whole, in opposition to the known manners, insti-
tutions, usages, etc., of that people with which it would, and
must, have been in harmony, were it the product of the
writer whose name it bears ; that, on tne contrary, it bears
upon its face indications of another country or of a later
age ; and, finally, that it is at variance with the personal cir-
cumstances, the turn of mind, and the pitch of intellect, of
its pretended author. And here it is to be noticed, that
these grounds are only relatively internal ; for we become
aware of them originally only through the testimony of
others, that is, through external grounds.
Jn regard to the External Grounds ; they, as I said,
consist in the testimony, direct or indirect,
(b)Extemal Grounds. . .
given to the authenticity of the writing in
question by other works of a competent antiquity. This
testimony may be contained either in other and admitted
writings of the supposed author himself ; or in those of con-
temporary writers ; or in those of writers approximating in
antiquity. This testimony may also be given either directly
by attribution of the disputed writing by title to the author ;
or indirectly, by quoting as his certain passages which are
to be found in it. On this subject it is needless to go into
detail, and it is hardly necessary to observe, that the proof
of the authenticity is most complete when it proceeds upon
the internal and external grounds together. I, therefore,
pass on to the Criticism of Integrity.
When the authenticity of an ancient work has been estab-
lished on external grounds, and been con-
2. Criticism of In- /> j , ij.-t.-j. -i r 1.*
te - t firmed on internal, the integrity of this
writing is not therewith proved ; for it is
very possible, and in ancient writings indeed very probable,
that particular passages are either interpolated or corrupted.
RECORDED TESTIMONY. 185
The authenticity of particular passages is to be judged of
precisely by the same laws which regulate our criticism of
the authenticity of the whole work. The proof most perti-
nent to the authenticity of particular passages is drawn
1, From their acknowledgment by the author himself in
other, and these unsuspected, works ; 2, From the attribu-
tion of them to the author by other writers of competent
information ; and, 3, From the evidence of the most ancient
MSB. On the other hand, a passage is to be obelized as
spurious, 1, When found to be repugnant to the general
relations of time and place, and to the personal relations of
the author ; 2, When wanting in the more ancient codices,
and extant only in the more modern. A passage is sus-
picious, when any motive for its interpolation is manifest,
even should we be unable to establish it as spurious. The
differences which different copies of a writing exhibit in
the particular passages, are called various readings (varue
lectione* or lecliones varianles). Now, as of various readings
only one can be the true, while they may all very easily
be false, the problem which the criticism of Integrity
proposes to solve is, How is the genuine reading to be
made out ; and herein consists what is technically called the
Jiecension, more properly the Emendation, of the text.
The Emendation of an ancient author may be of two
kinds ; the one of which may be called
of th Historical, the other the Conjectured. The
toxt,-of two kind*, . . , f _ . t j .
Ti., uutoricmi md former of these founds upon historical data
Conjectural. for its proof ; the latter, again, proceeds on
grounds which lie beyond the sphere of
historical fact, and this for the very reason that historical
fact is found incompetent to the restoration of the text to
its original integrity. The historical emendation necessarily
186 MODIFIED LOGIC.
precedes the conjectural, because -the object itself of emen-
dation is wholly of an historical character, and because it is
not permitted to attempt any other than an emendation on
historical grounds, until, from these very grounds themselves,
it be shown that the restitution of the text to its original
integrity cannot be historically accom-
HistoricaiEnienda- plished. Historical Emendation is again
tion of two kinds, / , i j T . i
ot two kinds, according as its judgment
External and Inter- J
rial. proceeds on external or on internal grounds.
It founds upon external grounds, when
the reasons for the truth or falsehood of a reading are
derived from testimony ; it founds upon internal grounds
when the reasons for the truth or falsehood of a reading are
derived from the writing itself. Historical emendation has
thus a two-fold function to perform (and in its application
to practice, these must always be performed in conjunction),
viz., it has carefully to seek out and accurately to weigh both
the external and internal reasons in support of the reading
in dispute. Of external grounds the principal consists in
the confirmation afforded by MSS., by printed editions which
have immediately emanated from MSS., by ancient transla-
tions, and by passages quoted in ancient authors. The
internal grounds are all derived either from the form, or
from the contents, of the work itself. In reference to the
form, a reading is probable, in proportion as it corresponds
to the general character of the language prevalent at the
epoch when the work was written, and to the peculiar
character of the language by which the author himself was
distinguished. In reference to the contents, a reading is
probable, when it harmonizes with the context, that is, when
it concurs with the other words of the particular passage in
which it stands, in affording a meaning reasonable in itself,
RECORDED TESTIMONY. 187
and conformable with the author's opinions, reasonings, and
general character of thought.
It frequently happens, however, that, notwithstanding
the uniformity of MSS., and other external
subsidia, a reading cannot be recognized as
genuine. In this case, it must be scienti-
fically shown from the rules of criticism itself that this
lection is corrupt. If the demonstration thus attempted be
satisfactory, and if all external subsidia have been tried in
vain, the critic is permitted to consider in what manner the
corrupted passage can be restored to its integrity. And
here the conjectural or divinatory emendation comes into
play ; a process in which the power and efficiency of criti-
cism and the genius of the critic are principally manifested.
So much for Criticism, in its applications both to the
Authenticity and to the Integrity of Writings. We have now
to consider the general rules by which Interpretation, that
is, the scientific process of expounding the Meaning of an
author, is regulated.
By the Art of Interpretation, called likewise technically
Ilermeneittic or Exegelic. is meant the com-
II. Interpretation.
piemen t of logical laws, by which the
sense of an ancient writing is to be evolved. Hermeneutic
is either General or Special. General,
0Hnl or SpecUL
when it contains those laws which apply
to the interpretation of any writing whatever ; Special,
when it comprises those laws by which writings of a parti-
cular kind are to be expounded. The former of these alone
is of logical concernment. The problem proposed for the
Art of Interpretation to solve, is, How are we to proceed
in order to discover from the words of a writing that sole
meaning which the author intended them to convey ? In
188 MODIFIED LOGIC.
the interpretation of a work, it is not, therefore, enough to
show in what signification its words may be understood ; for
it is required that we show in what signification they must.
To the execution of this task two conditions are absolutely
necessary ; 1, That the interpreter should be thoroughly ac-
quainted with the language itself in general, and with the
language of the writer in particular ; and 2, That the inter-
preter should be familiar with the subjects of which the
writing treats. But these two requisites, though indispen-
sable, are not of themselves sufficient. It is also of impor-
tance that the expositor should have a competent acquaint-
ance with the author's personal circumstances and character
of thought, and with the history and spirit of the age and
country in which he lived. In regard to the interpretation
itself, it is to be again observed, that as a writer could
employ expressions only in a single sense, so the result of
the exposition ought to be not mei*ely to show what meaning
may possibly attach to the doubtful terms, but what
meaning necessarily must. When, therefore, it appears that
a passage is of doubtful import, the best preparative for a
final determination of its meaning is, in the first place, to
ascertain in how many different significations it may be
construed, and then, by a process of exclusion, to arrive at
the one veritable meaning. When, however, the obscurity
cannot be removed, in that case it is the duty of the expositor,
before abandoning his task, to evince that an interpretation
of the passage is, without change, absolutely or relatively
impossible.
As to the sources from whence the Interpretation is to
be drawn, these are three in all, viz.,
Sources of Inter- ^ ^ T , l iterarum the words
pretation.
themselves, as they appear in MSS. ; 2,
The context, that is, the passage in immediate connection
RECORDED TESTIMONY. 189
with the doubtful term ; 3, Parallel or analogous passages
in the same, or in other writings. How the interpretation
drawn from these sources is to be applied, I shall not
attempt to detail ; but pass on to a more generally useful
and interesting subject.
So much for Experience or Observation, the first mean of
scientific discovery, that, viz., by which
Speculation the we apprehend what is presented as con-
Second Means of .. .
Knowledge. tingent phenomena, and by whose process
of Induction and Analogy we carry xxp
individual into general facts. We have now to consider
the other mean of scientific discovery, that, viz., by which,
from the phenomena presented as contingent, we separate
what is really necessary, and thus attain to the knowledge,
not of merely generalized facts, but of universal laws/ This
mean may, for distinction's sake, be called Speculation, and
its general nature I comprehend in the following paragraph.
1T XXI. When the mind does not rest contented
with observing and classifying the
Par. xxi. specn- objects of its experience, but, by a
of Know- reflective analysis, sunders the con-
mean*
ledge. Crete wholes presented to its cogni-
tion, throws out of account all that,
as contingent, it can think away from, and concen-
trates its attention exclusively on those elements
which, as necessary conditions of its own acts, it cannot
but think ; by this process it obtains the knowledge
of a certain order of facts, facts of Self-consciousness,
which, as essential to all Experience, are not the re-
sult of any ; constituting in truth the Laws by which
the possibility of our cognitive functions is determined.
This process, by which we thus attain to a discrimi-
190 MODIFIED LOOIC.
native knowledge of the Necessary, Native, and, as
they are also called, the Noetic, Pure, a priori, or
Transcendental, Elements of Thought, may be styled
Speculative Analysis, Analytic /Speculation, or Specula-
tion simply, and is carefully to be distinguished from
Induction, with which it is not unusually confounded.
The empirical knowledge of which we have hitherto been
speaking, does not, however varied and
Explication. . . .
extensive it may be, suffice to satisfy the
thinking mind as- such ; for our empirical knowledge itself
points at certain higher cognitions from which it may ob-
tain completion, and which are of a very different character
from that by which the mere empirical cognitions them-
selves are distinguished. The cognitions are styled, among
other names, by those of noetic, pure, or rational, and they
are such as cannot, though manifested in experience, be de-
rived from experience ; for, as the conditions under which
experience is possible, they must be viewed as necessary
constituents of the nature of the thinking principle itself.
Philosophers have indeed been found to deny the reality of
such cognitions native to the mind ; and to confine the
whole sphere of human knowledge to the limits of experi-
ence. But in this case philosophers have overlooked the
important circumstance, that the acts, that is, the appre-
hension and judgment, of experience, are themselves
impossible, except under the supposition of certain potential
cognitions previously existent in the thinking subject, and
which become actual on occasion of an object being pre-
sented to the external or internal sense. As an example of
a noetic cognition, the following propositions may suffice :
An object and all its attributes are convertible; All
that is has its sufficient cause. The principal distinctions
RECORDED TESTIMOHY. 191
of Empirical and Rational Knowledges, or rather Empirical
and Noetic Cognitions, are the following :
Principal distinc- -.o -c i rv i^-
tion. of Empirical ~ l > Empirical Cognitions originate ex-
*nd Noetic Cogni- clusively in experience, whereas Noetic
Cognitions are virtually at least before
or above all experience, all experience being only
possible through them. 2, Empirical cognitions come
piecemeal and successively into existence, and may again
gradually fade and disappear ; whereas noetic cognitions,
like Pallas, armed and immortal from the head of Jupiter,
spring at once into existence, complete and indestructible.
3, Empirical cognitions find only an application to these
objects from which they were originally abstracted, and,
according as things obtain a different form, they also
may become differently fashioned ; noetic cognitions, on
the contrary, bear the character impressed on them of
necessity, universality, sameness. Whether a cognition
be empirical or noetic, can only be determined by con-
sidering whether it can or cannot be presented in a sensible
perception ; whether it do or do not stand forward clear,
distinct, and indestructible, bearing the stamp of necessity
and absolute universality. The noetic cognitions can
be detected only by a critical analysis of the mental
phenomena proposed for the purpose of their discovery ;
and this analysis may, as I have said, be styled Speculation,
for want of a more appropriate appellation.
LECTURE IX. MODIFIED METHODOLOGY.
SECTION I. OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE.
III. COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. A. INSTRUC-
TIONORAL AND WRITTEN. B. CONFERENCE
DIALOGUE AND DISPUTATION.
I NOW go on to the last Mean of Acquiring and Perfect-
ing our knowledge ; and commence with the following
paragraph :
1T XXII. An important mean for the Acquisition
and Perfecting of Knowledge is the
Par. XXII. The Communication of Thought. Con-
Communication of i .
Thought, as a sidered in general, the Communication
means of Acquir- o f thought is either One-sided, or
ing and Perfecting
Knowiedg*. Mutual. The former is called in-
struction (institutioj, the latter, Con-
ference (collocvMo); but these, though in theory distinct,
are in practice easily combined. Instruction is again
either Oral or Written ; and Conference, as it is inter-
locutory and familiar, or controversial and solemn, may
be divided into Dialogue (colloquium, dialogus). and
Disputation (disputatio, concertatioj. The Communi-
cation of thought in all its forms is a means of intel-
COMMUNICATION OP KNOWLEDGE. 193
lectual improvement, not only to him who receives, but
to him who I>e8tows, information ; in both relations,
therefore, it ought to be considered, and not, as is
usually done, in the former only.
In illustrating this paragraph, I shall commence with the
last sentence, and, before treating in detail
Expltaatlon.
of Instruction and Conference, as means
of extending the limits of our knowledge by new acquisi-
tions derived from the communication of others, I shall
endeavour to show, that the Communica*
The Communication tion of Thought is itself an important mean
l? a ^ towards Ae Perfecting of knowledge in the
the perfecting of mind of the communicator himself. In
Knowledge in the this view, the communication of knowledge
mind of the com-
municator, is like the attribute of mercy, twice
blessed, " blessed to him that gives and
to him that takes ;" in teaching others we in fact teach
ourselves.
This view of the reflex effect of the communication of
thought on the mind, whether under the form of Instruction
or of Conference, is one of high importance, but it is one
which has, in modern times, unfortunately been almost
wholly overlooked. To illustrate it in all its bearings would
require a volume ; at present I can only contribute a few
hints towards its exposition.
Man is, by an original tendency of his nature, determined
to communicate to others what occupies
his thoughts, and by this communication
tcrniincd to com- '
munication. he obtains a clearer understanding of the
Thb fct noticed gubject of his cogitations than he could
otherwise have compassed. This fact did
not escape the acutcness of Plato. In the Protagoras,
10
19 i HODIFIEI* LOGIC,
"It has been well," says Plato (and he has had sundry
passages to the point), "It has been well, I think, observed
by Homer
'Through mutual intercourse and mmtual aid,
Great deeds are done and great discoveries made ;
The wise new wisdom on the wise bestow,
Whilst the lone thinker's thoughts come slight and slow.'
For in company we r all of us, are more alert, in deed and
word and thought. And if a man excogitate aught by
Mmself, forthwith he goes about to find some one to whom he
may reveal it, and from whom he may obtain encouragement,
aye and until his discovery be completed" The same doc-
trine is maintained by Aristotle, and illus-
Aristotle. trated by the same quotation ; (to which,
indeed, is to-be referred the adage, " Unus
Themiatius, _ , * Xlr . .
homo, nwllus homo") * We rejoice, says
Lucfliua, Themistius, " in hunting truth in company,
as in hunting game," Lucilius, "Stirs
tstnescire, nisi id me scire alius scierit ;" paraphrased in the
compacter, though, far inferior, verse of Persius, "Scire
tuum nihil est, nisi te acire hoc sciat alter."
Persiusv Cicero's Cato testifies to the same truth :
Cicero- u Non facile est invenire, qui quod sciat
Seneca. ip se > non ^^ at alteri." And Seneca :
" Sic cum hoc exceptions detur saptentia, ut
Ulam inclusam tensamnec entmciem, rejiciara,. NuUius boni,
sine socio, jucunda possessio est."
M Cmdita iabeseit, vwlgata scientia cresctt."
u In hoc gaudeo aliquid discere, ut doceam: nee me ulla res
delectabit, licet extmia sit et salutaris, quam mihi uni, scituru
rim." " Ita non solum ad discendum propensi sumus, verum
etiam ad docendum"
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 195
The modes in which the Communication of thought is
conducive to the perfecting of thought
Modes in which itself, are two ; for the mind may be de-
communiction is termilied to more exalted energy by the
conduct veto the Per- > OJ J
tecting of Thought sympathy of society, and by the stimulus
* two - of opposition ; or it may be necessitated to
more distinct, accurate, and orderly think-
ing, as this is the condition of distinct, accurate, and orderly
communication. Of these the former requires the presence
of others during the act of thought, and is, therefore, only
manifested in oral instruction or in conference : whereas
the latter is operative both in our oral and in our written
communications. Of these in their order.
In the first place, then, the influence of man on man in
reciprocally determining a higher energy of
i. By reciprocally ^he faculties, is a phenomenon sufficiently
determining highr . .
energy of the fcui- manifest. By nature a social being, man
ties. has powers which are relative to, and, con-
n.- sequently, find, their development in, the
company of his fellows ; and this is more
particularly shown in the energies of the cognitive faculties.
" As iron sharpeneth iron," says Solomon, " so a man
sharpeneth the understanding of his friend." This, as I
have said, is effected both by fellow-feeling and by opposition.
Wo see the effects of fellow-feeling in the necessity of an
audience to call forth the exertions of the orator. Eloquence
requires numbers ; and oratory has only flourished where
the condition of large audiences has been
rotig* oppo- guppije^ B u t opposition is perhaps still
more powerful than mere sympathy in
calling out the resources of the intellect.
196 MODIFIED LOGIC.
In the mental as well as in the material world, action and
reaction are ever equal : and Plutarch well
Plutarch.
observes, that as motion would cease were
contention to be taken out of the physical universe, so pro-
gress in improvement would cease were contention taken out
of the moral j TroAc/Aos aTrdvrwv Trariyp.
" It is maintained," says the subtle Scaliger, " by Vives,
that we profit more by silent meditation
Scaliger, J. C.
than by dispute. This is not true. For
as fire is elicited by the collision of stones, so truth is
elicited by the collision of minds. I myself (he adds)
frequently meditate by myself long and intently ; but in
vain ; unless I find an antagonist, there is no hope of a suc-
cessful issue. By a master we are more excited than by a
book ; but an antagonist, whether by his pertinacity or his
wisdom, is to me a double master."
But, in the second place, the necessity of communicating
a piece of knowledge to others, imposes
2. By imposingthe upon us the necessity of obtaining a fuller
necessityofobtaining consciousness of that knowledge for our-
a fuller consciousness . _.. .
of knowledge for our- selves. This result is to a certain extent
selves. secured by the very process of clothing
our cogitations in words. For speech is
an analytic process ; and to express our thoughts in language,
it is requisite to evolve them from the implicit into the
explicit, from the confused into the distinct, in order to
bestow on each part of the organic totality of a thought its
precise and appropriate symbol. But to do this is in fact
only to accomplish the first step towards the perfecting of
our cognitions or thoughts.
But the communication of thought, in its higher applica-
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 197
tions, imposes on us far more than this ; and in so doing it
reacts with a still more beneficial influence on our habits of
thinking. Suppose that we are not merely to express our
thoughts as they spontaneously arise ; suppose that we are
not merely extemporaneously to speak, but deliberately to
write, and that what we are to communicate is not a simple
and easy, but a complex and difficult, matter. In this case,
no man will ever fully understand his sub-
influence of Compo- ject who has not studied it with the view
Bitlon and Instnic- /. . t M . i_ e
tioninperfecangour of communication, while the power of
Knowledge. communicating a subject is the only com-
petent criterion of his fully understanding
Godwin quoted. it. " "When a man," says Godwin, " writes
a book of methodical investigation, he does
not write because he understands the subject, but he under-
stands the subject because he has written. He was an
uninstructed tyro, exposed to a thousand foolish and miser-
able mistakes, when he began his work, compared with the
degree of proficiency to which he has attained when he has
finished it. He who is now an eminent philosopher, or a
sublime poet, was formerly neither the one nor the other.
Many a man has been overtaken by a premature death, and
left nothing behind him but compositions worthy of ridicule
and contempt, who, if he had lived, would perhaps have
risen to the highest literary eminence. If we could examine
the school exercises of men who have afterwards done
honour to mankind, we should often find them inferior to
those of their ordinary competitors. If we could dive into
the portfolios of their early youth, we should meet with
abundant matter for laughter at their senseless incongruities,
and for contemptuous astonishment.
198 MODIFIED LOGIC.
" The one exclusive sign," says Aristotle, " that a man
is thoroughly cognizant of anything, is
Aristotle. J
that he is able to teach it ;" and Ovid,
" Quodque parum novit nemo docere potest."
In this reactive effect of the communication of knowledge
in determining the pei-fection of the knowledge communi-
cated, originated the scholastic maxim Doce ut discas, a
maxim which has unfortunately been too much overlooked
in the schemes of modern education. In former ages, teach
tJiat you may learn always constituted one
at least of the great means of intellectual
cultivation. "To teach," says Plato, "is
the way for a man to learn most and best." " Homines dum
docent discunt" says Seneca. " In teaching," says Clement
of Alexandria, " the instructor often learns
Clement of Alex- more than his pupils." "'Disce seda doctis ;
andria, . . .
Dionysius Cato. ^ndocto3 ^pse doceto, is the precept of
Dionysius Cato ; and the two following
were maxims of authority in the discipline of the middle
ages. The first
" Multa rogare, rogata tenere, reienta docere,
Haec tria, discipulum faciunt superare magistrum."
The second
" Dlscere si qitaeris doceas ; sic ipse doceris ;
Nam studio tali tibi praficis atque sodali."
This truth is also well enforced by the great Vives. " Doc-
trina est traditio corum quae quis novit ei
Vives.
qui non novit. Disciplina est illius tradt-
tionis acceptio ; nisi quod mens accipientis impletur, dantis
vero non exJiauritur, imo communicatione angetur eruditio,
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 199
*icul ignis, motu Clique agitationc. Excitatw enim ingenium,
t dixcurrit per ea quae ad pratseiu negotium pertinent : ita
inven.it *tque excudit multa, et quae in ntcntem non vcniebant
cessanti, decenti, ami disserenti occur uni, calore acueiite vig-
orfin inyeuii. Idcirco, nikil est ad maguam erudUtonem
perinde conduccns, tit docere." The celebrated logician,
Dr. Robert Sanderson, used to say : " I
tedenoo.
learn much from my master, more from
my equals, ami most of all from my disciples."
But I have occupied perhaps too much time on the
influence of the communication of know-
of led S e ^ tliO8e b y whom k is made ; and
OB thoe shall now pose on to tlio consideration of
rhom it a- j^ ijjfluenoe oa those to whom it is ad-
NHM
dressed. Aud in treating of communica-
tion in this respect, I shall, in the first place, consider it as
One-sided, and, i the second, as Reciprocal or Bilateral.
The Unilateral Communication of knowledge, or Instruc-
tion, is of two kinds, for it is either Oral or Written ; bat as
both these species of instruction propose the same end, they
are both, to a certain extent, subject to
1. Instruction. ,1 i
the same laws.
Oral and Written.
Oral and Written Instruction have each
their peculiar advantages.
In the first place, instruction by the living voice Jias this
advantage over that of books, that, as more
Oral injunction, natural, it is more impressive. Hearing
rt More natural, >"o u ^s the attention and keeps it alive far
there/ore more im- more effectually than reading. To this we
' have the testimony of the most competent
observers. " Hearing," says Theophrastua,
" i* of all the senses the most pathetic," that Is, it is the
200 MODIFIED LOGIC.
sense most intimately associated with, sentiment and passion.
" Multo magis," says the Younger Pliny,
Younger Pliny. * '
" multo magis viva vox afficit. Nam, licet
ncriora sunt quce legas, altius tamen in animo sedent quce
pronuntiatio, mdtus, habitus, gestus etiam dicentis adfigit."
"Plus prodest" says Valerius Maximus, " docentem
_, , . _, . audiere, quam in libris studere : quia ve-
Valenus Maximus. ....
hementior jit impressio in mentibus audi-
entium, ex wsu doctoris et auditu, quam ex studio et libro."
And St. Jerome " Habet nescio quid latentis energice
viva vox : et in aures discijmli de doctoris
St. Jerome. . J
ore transfusa, fortius sonat"
A second reason why our Attention (and Memory is
always in the ratio of Attention) to things
(b) Less permanent S p O ken is greater than to things read, is
therefore more at- ...
tended to. * na " ; w at is written we regard as a per-
manent possession to which we can always
recur at pleasure ; whereas we are conscious that the
" winged words" are lost to us forever, if we do not catch
them as they fly. As Pliny hath it : " Legendi semper est
occasio ; audiendi non semper. v
A third cause of the superior efficacy of oral instruction
is that man is a social animal. He is thus naturally disposed
to find pleasure in society, and in the performance of the
actions -performed by those with whom he consorts. But
reading is a solitary, hearing is a social act. In reading,
we are not determined to attend by any fellow-feeling with
others attending ; whereas in hearing, our
attention is not only engaged by our sym-
cial act. J J J
pathy with the speaker, but by our sym-
pathy with the other attentive auditors around us.
Such are the causes which concur in rendering Oral
COMMUNICATION- OF KNOWLEDGE. 201
Instruction more effectual than Written. "M. Varillas,"
says Menage (and Varillas was one of the
Menage quoted. j r j I_-_L
most learned of modern historians.- and
Menage one of the most learned of modern scholars),
"M. Varillas himself told me one day, that of every ten
things he knew, he had learned nine of them in conversation.
I myself might say nearly the same thing."
On the other hand, Heading, though only a substitute for
Oral Instruction, has likewise advantages
nading,-Ua *d- peculiar to itself. In the first place, it is
- more **s&Y accessible. In the second, it
v
(xsit>ie. is more comprehensive in its sphere of
(b) More oompre- operation. In the third, it is not transitory
'''''"'"' i i_ i_ a
(c) More prmw>- ~^iih the voice, but may again and again
* be taken up and considered, so that the
object of the instruction may thus more
fully be examined and brought to proof. It is thus manifest,
that oral and written instruction severally supply and
severally support each other ; and that, where this is com-
petent, they ought always to be employed in conjunction.
Oral instruction is, however, in the earlier stages of educa-
tion, of principal importance ; and written ought, therefore,
at first only to be brought in as a subsidiary. A neglect of
the oral instruction, and an exclusive employment of the
written, the way in which those who are self-taught (the
autodidacti) obtain . their education, for the most pm-t
betrays its one-sided influence by a contracted cultivation
of the intellect, with a deficiency in the power of communi-
cating knowledge to others.
Oral instruction necessarily supposes a speaker and a
hearer ; and written instruction a writer and a reader. In
these, the capacity of the speaker and of the writer must
10*
202 MODIFIED LOGIC.
equally fulfil certain common requisites. In the first place,
they should be fully masters of Ihe subject with which their
instruction is conversant ; and in the second, they should be
able and willing to communicate to others the knowledge
which they themselves possess. But in reference to these
several species of instruction, there are various special rules
that ought to be attended to by those who would reap the
advantages they severally afford. I shall commence with
Written Instruction, and comprise the rules by which it
ought to be regulated, in the following paragraph.
U XXIII. In regard to Written Instruction, and
its profitable employment as a means
Par. xxill. Writ- o f intellectual improvement, there
ten Instruction,
and its employ- are certain rules which ought to be
ment as a means o b serve( j and which together consti-
of intellectual im-
provement, tute the Proper Method of Reading.
These may be reduced to three classes,
as they regard, 1, The Quantity, 2, The Quality, of
what is to be read, or, 3, The Mode of Heading what
is to be read.
I. As concerns the Quantity of what is to be read,
there is a single rule, read much, but not many
works (multum non multa).
II. As concerns the Quality of what is to be read,
there may be given five rules, l v Select the works of
principal importance, estimated by relation to the
several sciences themselves, or to your particular aim
in reading, or to your individual disposition and
wants. 2, Read riot the more detailed works upon
a science, until you have obtained a rudimentary
knowledge of it in general. 3, Make yourselves
familiar ^ith a science in its actual or present
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 203
state, before you proceed to study it in its chronolo-
gical development. 4, To avoid erroneous and
exclusive views, read and compare together the more
important works of every sect and party. 5, To avoid
a one-sided development of mind, combine with the
study of works which cultivate the Understanding, the
study of works which cultivate the Taste.
III. As concerns the Mode or Manner of reading
itself, there are four principal rules. 1, Read that
you may accurately remember, but still more, that
you may fully understand. 2, Strive to compass the
general tenor of a work, before you attempt to judge
of it in detail. 3, Accommodate the intensity of the
reading to the importance of the work. Some books
are, therefore, to be only dipped into ; others are to be
run over rapidly ; and others to be studied long and
sedulously. 4, Regulate on the same principle the ex-
tracts which you make from the works you read.
I. In reference to the head of Quantity, the single rule
is Read much, but not many works. Though this golden
rule has risen in importance, since the
Explication. WOrld > bv the art f P rintin g. has ****
i. quantity to be overwhelmed by the multitude of books,
it was still fully recognized by the great
Solomon. thinkers of antiquity. It is even hinted
(juintiuun. by Solomon, when he complains that " of
Younger Pliny. . .. . , . , .
v making many books there is no end. J3y
Luther quoted. Quintillian, by the younger Pliny, and by
Seneca, the maxim, "multum Ugendum
eM, non mulla" is laid down as the great rule of study.
" All," says Luther in his Table Talk, " who would study
with ad vantage in any art whatsoever, ought to betake
204 MODIFIED LOGIC.
themselves to the reading of some sure and certain books
oftentimes over ; for to read many books produceth con-
fusion, rather than learning, like as those who dwell every-
where, are not anywhere at home." He alludes here to the
saying of Seneca, " Nusquam eat qui vJtnque est." And like
as in society, we use not daily the community of all our
acquaintances, but of some few selected friends, even so
likewise ought we to accustom ourselves to the best books,
and to make the same familiar unto us, thai is, to have
them, as we used to say, at our finger ends. The great
logician, Bishop Sanderson, to whom I
formerly referred, as his friend and bio-
grapher Isaac Walton informs us, said " that he declined
reading many books ; but what he did read were well
chosen, and read so often that he became very familiar with
them. They were principally three, Aristotle's Hhetoric,
Aquinas's Secunda Secundoe^ and Cicero, particularly his
Offices" The ereat Lord Burleigh, we
Lord Burleigh. * . . 6 '
are told by his biographer, earned Cicero
De Ojficiis, with Aristotle's Rhetoric, always in his bosom ;
these being complete pieces, " that would make both a
scholar and an honest man." " Our age,"
Herder.
says Herder, " is the reading age ;" and
he adds, " it would have been better, in my opinion, for the
world and for science, if, instead of the multitude of books
which now overlay us, we possessed only a few works good
and sterling, and which, as few, would, therefore, be more
diligently and profoundly studied." I might quote to you
many other testimonies to the same effect ; but testimonies
are useless in support of so manifest a truth.
For what purpose, with what intent, do we read ? We
read not for the sake of reading, but we read to the end
COMMUNICATION OF KHOWLEDOE. 206
that we may think. Reading is valuable only as it may
supply to us the materials which the mind
End of Reading.
itself elaborates. As it is not the largest
quantity of any kind of food, taken into the stomach, that
conduces to health, but such a quantity of such a kind as
can be best digested ; so it is not the greatest complement
of any kind of information that improves the mind, but
such a quantity of such a kind as determines the intellect
to most vigorous energy. The only profitable reading is
that in which we are compelled to think, and think in-
tensely ; whereas that reading which serves only to dissipate
and divert our thought, is either positively hurtful, or useful
only as an occasional relaxation from severe exertion. But
the amount of vigorous thinking is usually in the inverse
ratio of multifarious reading. Multifarious reading is
agreeable ; but, as a habit, it is, in its way, as destructive
to the mental as dram-drinking is to the bodily health.
II. In reference to the Quality of what is to be read,
the First of the five rules is " Select the
works of principal importance, in accom-
modation either to the several sciences
runt Kule.
themselves, or to your particular aim in
reading, or to your individual disposition and wants. This
rule is too manifestly true to require any illustration of
its tiuth. No one will deny that for the accomplishment
of an end you Qught to employ the means best calculated
for its accomplishment This is all that the rule incul-
cates. But while there is no difficulty about the expediency
of obeying the rule, there is often considerable difficulty
in obeying it. To know what lxx)ks ought to be read in
order to learn a science, is in fiict frequently obtained after
the science has been already learned. On this point no
206 MODIFIED LOGIC.
general advice can be given. We have, on all of the
sciences, works which profess to supply the advice which
the student here requires. But in general, I must say,
they are of small assistance in pointing out what books we
should select, however useful they may be in showing us
what books exist upon a science. In this respect, the
British student also labours under peculiar disadvantages.
The libraries in this country are, one and all of them,
wretchedly imperfect ; and there are few departments of
science in which they are not destitute even of the works
of primary necessity, works which, from their high priee,
but more frequently from the difficulty of procuring them,
are beyond the reach of ordinary readers.
Under the head of Quality the Second Rule is " Read
not the more detailed works upon a science,
Second Rule. .
until you have obtained a rudimentary
knowledge of it in general." The expediency of this rule
is sufficiently apparent. It is altogether impossible to read
with advantage an extensive work on any branch of know-
ledge, if we are not previously aware of its general bearing,
and of the relations in which its several parts stand to
each other. In this case, the mind is overpowered and .
oppressed by the mass of details presented to it, details,
the significance and subordination of which it is as yet
unable to recognize. A conspectus, a survey of the science
as a whole, ought, therefore, to precede the study of it in
its parts ; we should be aware of its distribution, before
we attend to what is distributed, we should possess the
empty frame-work, before we collect the materials with
which it is to be filled. Hence the utility of an ency-
clopaedical knowledge of the sciences in general, preliminary
to a study of the several sciences in particular ; that is,
COMMUNICATION OP KNOWLEDGE. 207
a summary knowledge of their objects, their extent, their
connection with each other. By this means the student
is enabled to steer his way on the wide ocean of science.
By this means he always knows whereabouts he is, and
becomes aware of the point towards which his author is
leading him.
In entering upon the study of such authors as Plato,
Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, Kant, etc.,
it is, therefore, proper that we first obtain a preparatory
acquaintance with the scope, both of their philosophy in
general, and of the particular work on which we are about
to enter. In the case of writers of such ability this is not
difficult to do, as there are abundance of subsidiary works,
affording the preliminary knowledge of which we are in quest.
But in the case of treatises where similar assistance is not
at hand, we may often, in some degree, prepare ourselves
for a regular perusal, by examining the table of contents,
and taking a cursory inspection of its several departments.
In this respect, and also in others, the following advice of
Gibbon to young students is highly de-
Gibbon quoted.
serving of attention. " After a rapid
glance (I translate from the original French) after a rapid
glance on the subject and distribution of a new book, I
suspend the reading of it, which I only resume after having
myself examined the subject in all its relations, after
having called up in my solitary walks all that I have read,
thought, or learned in regard to the subject of the whole
book, or of some chapter in particular. I thus place
myself in a condition to estimate what the author may add
to my general stock of knowledge ; and I am thus some-
times favorably disposed by the accordance, sometimes
armed by the opposition, of our views.
208 MODIFIED LOGIC.
The third Rule under the head of Quality is " Make
yourselves familiar with a science in its
Third Rule.
present state, before you proceed to study
it in its chronological development." The propriety of this
procedure is likewise manifest. Unless we be acquainted
with a science in its more advanced state, it is impossible to
distinguish between what is more or less important, and,
consequently, impossible to determine what is or is not
worthy of attention in the doctrines of its earlier cultivators.
We shall thus also be overwhelmed by the infinitude of
details successively presented to us ; all will be confusion
and darkness where all ought to be order and light. It is
thus improper to study philosophy historically, or in its past
progress, before we have studied it statistically, or in its
actual results.
The Fourth Rule under the same head is " To avoid
erroneous and exclusive views, read and
Fourth Rule.
compare together the more important works
of every party." In proportion as different opinions may be
entertained in regard to the objects of a science, the more
necessary is it that we should weigh with care and imparti-
ality the reasons on which these different opinions rest.
Such a science, in particular, is philosophy, and such sciences,
in general, are those which proceed out of philosophy. In
the philosophical sciences, we ought, therefore, to be especi-
ally on our guard against that partiality which considers
only the arguments in favor of particular opinions. It is
true that in the writings of one party we find adduced the
reasons of the opposite party ; but frequently so distorted,
so mutilated, so enervated, that their refutation occasions
little effort. We must, therefore, study the arguments on
both sides, if we would avoid those one-sided and contracted
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 209
views which are the result of party-spirit. The precept of
the Apostle, " Test all things, hold fast by that which is
good," is a precept which is applicable equally in philosophy
as in theology, but a precept that has not been more fre-
quently neglected in the one study than in the other.
The Fifth Rule under the head of Quality is To avoid
a one-sided development of mind, combine
Fifth ttule.
with the study of works which cultivate
the Understanding, the study of works which cultivate the
Taste." The propriety of this rule requires no elucidation ;
I, therefore, pass on to the third head
m. Manner of v j z ^ t jj e manner o f reading itself: under
Reading.
First Rule which the First Rule is " Read that you
may accurately remember, but still more
that you may fully understand."
This also requires no comment. Reading should not
be a learning by rote, but an act of reflective thinking.
Memory is only a subsidiary faculty, is valuable merely as
supplying the materials on which the understanding is to
operate. We read, therefore, principally, not to remember
facts, but to understand relations. To commit, therefore, to
memory what we read, before we elaborate it into an intel-
lectual possession, is not only useless but detrimental ; for
the habit of laying up in memory what has not been digested
by the understanding, is at once the cause and the effect of
mental weakness.
The Second Rule under this head is " Strive to compass
the general tenor of a work, before you
Second Rule. ... , ., -w T i.
attempt to judge of it in detail. Nothing
can be more absurd than the attempt to judge a part before
comprehending the whole ; but unfortunately nothing ia
.210 MODIFIED LOGIC.
more common, especially among professional critics,
reviewers. This proceeding is, however, as frequently
the effect of wilful misrepresentation, as of uninten-
tional error.
The Third Rule under this head is " Accommodate the
intensity of the reading to the importance
of the work. Some books are, therefore,
to be only dipped into ; others are to be run over rapidly ;
and others to be studied long and sedulously." All books
are not to be read with the same attention; and, accordingly,
an ancient distinction was taken of reading into lectio
cursoria and lectio stataria. The former of
Lectio eunoria. thege wg haye ad ted ^to English, CUr-
Lectio statana.
sorary reading being a familiar and correct
translation of lectio cursoria. But lectio stataria cannot be
so well rendered by the expression of stationary reading.
" Read not," says Bacon, in his Fiftieth
Bacon quoted.
Kasay " read not to contradict and con-
fute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk
and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are
to be tasted, others are to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read
only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and
some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention.
Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made
of them by others ; but that would be only in the less
important arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; else
distilled books are, like common distilled waters, fleshy
things." " One kind of book," says the
Jshann von Muller. . . -.. n // T
great historian, Johann von Muller, " I
read with great rapidity, for in these there is much dross
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 211
to throw aside, and little gold to be found ; some, however,
there are all gold and diamonds, and he who, for example,
in Tacitus can read more than twenty pages in four hours,
certainly does not understand him."
Rapidity in reading depends, however, greatly on our
acquaintance with the subject of discussion. At first, upon
a science we can only read with profit few books, and labo-
riously. By degrees, however, our knowledge of the
matters treated -expands, the reasonings appear more manifest,
we advance more easily, until at length we are able,
without overlooking anything of importance, to read with
a velocity which appears almost incredible for those who are
only commencing the study.
The Fourth Rule under this head is " Regulate on the
same principle the extracts which you
Fourth Rule.
make from the works you read.
So much for the Unilateral Communication of thought,
as a mean of knowledge. We now proceed to the Mutual
Communication of thought, Conference.
This is either mere Conversation, mere
Dialogue, or Formal Dispute, and at
present we consider both of these exclu-
sively only as a means of knowledge, only as a means for
the communication of truth.
The employment of Dialogue as such a mean, requires
great skill and dexterity ; for presence of
mind, confidence, tact, and pliability are
necessary for this, and these are only obtained by exercise,
independently of natural talent. This was the method which
Socrates almost exclusively employed in the communication of
knowledge ; and he called it his art of intellectual midwifery t
212 MODIFIED LOGIC.
because in its application truth is not given over by the
master to the disciple, but the master, by skilful questioning,
only helps the disciple to deliver himself of the truth
explicity, which his mind had before held implicitly. This
method is not, however, applicable to all kinds of knowledge,
but only to those which the human intellect is able to evolve
out of itself, that is, only to the cognitions of Pure Reason.
Disputation is of two principal kinds, inasmuch as it is oral
or written ; and in both cases, the controversy may be con-
ducted either by the rules of strict logical disputation, or
left to the freedom of debate. Without entering on details,
it may be sufficient to state, in regard to
2. Disputation, Logical disputation, that it is here essential
Oral and Written. tn&t the j nt j n quegt j on tne status con .
Academical dispu-
tation, troversice, the thesis, should, in the first
place, be accurately determined, in order to
prevent all logomachy, or mere verbal wrangling. This
being done, that disputant who denies the thesis, and who is
called the opponent, may either call upon the disputant who
affirms the thesis, and who is called the defendant, to allege
an argument in its support, or he may at once himself
produce his counter-argument. To avoid, however, all
misunderstanding, the opponent should also advance an
antithesis, that is, a proposition conflictive with the thesis,
and when this has been denied by the defendant the process
of argumentation commences. This proceeds in regular
syllogisms, and is governed by definite rules, which are all
so calculated that the discussion is not allowed to wander
from the point at issue, and each disputant is compelled, in
reference to every syllogism of his adversary, either to
admit, or to deny, or to distinguish. These rules you will
COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 213
find in most of the older systems of Logic ; in particular I
may refer you to them as detailed in Heerebord's Praxis
Logica, to be found at the end of his edition of the Synopsis
of Burgersdicius. The practice of disputation was long and
justly regarded as the most important of academical exer-
cises ; though liable to abuse, the good which it certainly
ensures greatly surpasses the evil which it may accidentally
occasion.
THE END.
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