Oiap. IX. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 151 



in this great analytical work of Ariftotle, but our various opera- 

 tions upon them, by comparing them, and putting them together, or 

 feparating them, are like wife anaiyfed and divided into different 

 clalfcs. 



The order of invention in all arts is to begin with the com.pound, 

 and to analyfe it into its firft principles, or elements, of which it is 

 compofed. The compound, in this cafe, is that operation of the 

 human intelled:, which we call reafoning, or putting together propo- 

 rtions in fuch a way, as from thi;m to infer certain conclufions; or, 

 in other words, to ioxm/yllogifms. Now, fyllogiims confifl of propo- 

 fitions; thefe again of ideas, or fimple term.s, as Arillotle calls them^ 

 and there the analyfis ends; as in fpeech, the analyfis is into fenten- 

 ces, words, and letters, or elemental founds, with which the ana- 

 lyfis of fpeech ends. Now, where, in the difcovery of any art, the 

 analyfis ends, there teaching begins ; and, accordingly, in the art of 

 fpeech, the teaching begins with letters or the elemental founds of 

 fpeech, when confidered only as vocal, or with what is called the parts 

 •of fpeech, when confidered as fignificant. And, in like manner, 

 Ariftotle's fyftem of logic begins, where the analyfis ends; that is with 

 fimple terms ^ of which he has treated in his book of Categories. To 

 enumerate all the particular terms ^ that is the ideas formed by the hu- 

 man mind, of which reafoning is compofed, would be a thing im- 

 praQicable, at leaft by creatures of finite capacities fuch as we are; 

 And it was, as I have elfewhere fhown, a wonderful difcovery, 

 and perhaps the greateft effort that ever was made by the human in- 

 telligence, to reduce them to claffcs, and to number them, making 

 them amount to ten, which are called by Ariftotle Categories, In this 

 manner we have the analyfis of propofitions, which are not only ana- 

 iyfed into their two terms of praedicate and fubjed, but are reduc- 

 ed to certain claffes, dilHnguiflied by the matter and form of the fyl- 

 logifms; and thefe clafles are numbered, and made to amount to no 

 fewer than 3024. 



And 



