PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 129 



FEBRUARY CTH. Mr. W. R. BENNETT, On Logic. 



In this paper a distinction was first drawn between Logic as a 

 Science and an Art. It was shown that under Logic as a science is 

 comprehended an examination of those unerring principles that must 

 and do guide us in every exercise of sound reasoning in any depart- 

 ment of knowledge : but that which is termed the art of logic, is 

 little more than an arbitrary and tedious assemblage of rules, almost 

 if not altogether unpracticable, whereby it is proposed to instruct us 

 how to reason aright, and how to ascertain the correctness of any 

 argumentative process. A slight sketch was drawn of the history of 

 logic, with especial reference to the labours of the ancient Greek 

 sophists whose peculiar habits and high intellectual refinement, ge- 

 nerated that passion for disputation which so eminently characterised 

 them as a people. Zeno was spoken of as the earliest systematic 

 writer on the subject, and as the author of a plan by which an anta- 

 gonist might be entrapped into admissions of the truth of some ap- 

 parently obvious propositions which would be eventually discovered 

 to involve a palpable absurdity. How far his countrymen acted on 

 his suggestions, and amused each other with specimens of their 

 skill in learned subtleties and acute deceptions we have recorded 

 facts too notorious to need illustration from him : but it was evident 

 that the modern art of wrangling, which originally emanated from 

 our Universities, and for a considerable time was allowed to throw 

 an air of disgraceful pedantry over their transactions, owed its exis- 

 tence to the venerable treatise referred to, in connexion with that 

 specious instrument of perversion and error, the SYLLOGISM, which 

 Aristotle had placed in their hands. 



The idea of constructing an art by which it was pretended all the 

 powers of the mind might be properly directed, had no doubt induced 

 many excellent and talented individuals to devote themselves to the 

 cultivation of logic; yet after all their researches and well-intended 

 exertions, there was an extraordinary discrepancy in their estimates 

 of the real province and applicability of the system they had been 

 ultimately enabled to devise. This was proved by numerous quo- 

 tations from the various authors who have written on the subject, 

 from the earliest period even down to our own times ; but the lec- 

 turer, wishing to give the society the fairest and most impartial view 

 of the merits of the art, would direct their attention principally to 

 what he believed to be the latest authority, the work of Archbishop 

 Whately. He observed that, throughout the whole course of that 

 book, it was insisted that logic is concerned only about expression, 

 and that its chief object is to employ language properly for the pur- 



VOL. in. 1834. s 



