PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 276 



them to be true and act on that conviction ; and that it is impos- 

 sible they should ever believe the contrary. 



The lecturer then proceeded to analyze the process which the 

 mind pursues in every act of reasoning; and from the general 

 uniformity of the operations of nature in the intellectual as well 

 as in the material world, he argued that this process must neces- 

 sarily be the same in the mind of every individual. If a theo- 

 retical system of reasoning therefore — if Logic for instance, be 

 founded on an accurate analysis of the mental operations of Per- 

 ceptiouy Judgment, and Reasoning, it would necessarily follow 

 that it is the onli/ mode of reasoning, and that a man only reasons 

 correctly, in so far as he reasons logically. To ascertain whether 

 the claims of Logic in this respect were well-founded, the lecturer 

 instituted a comparison between the principles of the Aristotelian 

 theory and the preceding analysis of the mental process in rea- 

 soning. The result of this comparison shewed that the Aristote- 

 lian Logic is founded on an accurate observation and analysis of 

 the natural principles of reasoning : and that every argument that 

 has ever been employed on any subject whatever, is capable of 

 being reduced to the structure of a formal syllogism. Various 

 illustrations of this fact were offered. 



The Rev. gentleman then reviewed and replied to the objections 

 of Locke, Brown, and Campbell, to the Aristotelian logic, espe- 

 cially that of its insufficiency for the discovery of new truths. 

 On this point the lecturer contended that as he had already shewn 

 Logic to be nothing more than an analysis of the natural princi- 

 ples of the mind in reasoning, the objection, if good for any thing, 

 was in reality, an objection to the mental process of reasoning 

 itself. Its insufficiency for the discovery of new truth was also 

 shewn to be no valid test of its utility ; that it might, with as 

 much propriety, be objected to the study of grammar, that it did 

 not discover new languages; to botany that it did not discover 

 new plants; to anatomy that it did not discover new bodies; or 

 to intellectual philosophy that it did not discover new minds. 

 The objection was also shewn to be untrue, in its full extent, in 

 as much as Logic was admitted by these same authors to be a 

 powerful instrument for the detection of error; and to the mind 

 of the lecturer, the detection of error appeared very much like the 

 discovery of truth — at least to be an important step towards that 

 discovery. 



The lecturer noticed and replied to various other objections, 

 and then proceeded to examine the claims of mathematics as the 

 proposed substitute for tho study of logic. 



