3 5 o DISEASES Class III. 2. 2. 4. 



but not even a verbal analogy to the preceding proportions. 

 Thus a ruitic devotee faid to his pried, « I have often wonder- 

 ed, why God Almighty called the firft man Adam ?" « Don't 

 you know," replied the teacher, " that A is the firft letter of the 

 alphabet ?" " Aye, fo it is," anfwered the contented inquirer. 



Another kind of falfe reafoning is called by logicians a logic- 

 al vice y and another kind arifes from the firft propofition being 

 untrue in refpect to its exiftence : bu. as all thefe, and perhaps 

 many other fources of falfe reafonings, may be refolved into the 

 miftaken ufe of ideas of words, or general terms, inftead of ideas 

 of the things, or parts of things, which they ought to fuggeft ; 

 they belong properly to this article of ratiocinatio verbofa : 

 while the rare faculty of reafoning withour words by comparing 

 ideas of things, as in the invention of new machines, and other 

 new difcoveries, diftinguilhes the philofopher from the fophift, 



M. M. Children lhould he permitted to ufe their hands early 

 in their infancy, and fhould be fupplied with pencils, pens, and 

 various tools j by which they will acquire accurate ideas of ex- 

 ternal things by the organ of touch, at the fame time that they 

 ic quire words ; and will thence be lefs liable to be ferioufly de- 

 ceived by general terms, or by the double meanings of words, 

 or of fentences, or laitly by falfe proportions or inconclufive de- 

 ductions \ and will thus be enabled to compare the analogies of 

 things, and to think without words ; the faculty, which confti- 

 tutes genius, and which fo few poflefs ! 



4. Credulitas. Credulity. Life is fhort, opportunities of 

 knowledge rare ; our fenfes are fallacious, our reafonings un- 

 certain, man therefore druggies with perpetual error from the 

 cradle to the coffin. He is neceffitated to correct experiment 

 by analogy, and analogy by experiment ; and not always to reft 

 Satisfied in the belief of facts even with this two-fold teftimony, 

 till future opportunities, or the obfervations of others, concur in 

 their fupport. 



Ignorance and credulity have ever been companions, and have 

 milled and enflaved mankind , philofophy has in all ages en- 

 deavoured to oppofe their progrefs, and to loofen the fhackles 

 they had impofed j philofophers have on this account been called 

 unbelievers ; unbelievers of what ? of the fictions of fancy, of 

 witchcraft, hobgobblins, apparitions, vampires, fairies ; of the 

 influence of {tars on human acfions, miracles wrought by the 

 bones of faints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions 

 from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, for- 

 tune-tellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, cheiro- 

 mancy, animal magnetifm, metallic tractors, with endlels varies 



