iji ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IIL 



And thus we arc at lafl: arrived at the compound, with which the 

 art of logic, as well as of other arts, muft have begun; I mean Rea~ 

 foning^ which is compofed of ideas and proportions, put together 

 fo as from them to infer certain conclufions, that is, Syllogifed. 

 Now, it was to be fliown in what manner propofitions were to be 

 put together fo as to form a fyllogifm ; and this, as it is the finifh- 

 ing part of logic, is the moft difficult: For it was performed by di- 

 viding the fyllogifm into figures, and thofe figures into modes, from 

 wdiich all the various forms and figures in which reafoning appears 

 are to be deduced. Of all this 1 have faid a good deal in the pre- 

 face to the third volume of this work* ; where I have fhown the 

 very great difficulty of the invention of the art, and, at the fame 

 time, the great beauty of it, viz. that, however intricate and difficult it 

 may be, it is all reducible to this fimple principle, that the whole id 

 greater than any of the parts, and contains them allf. And I will 

 fay nothing more of it here, except to add fomething to what I have 

 faid of the utility of it, which is fo great, that, without the know- 

 led"-e of it, we cannot tell what fcience, what certainty, or truth, 

 is. For p.roof of this, I will give an example of an argument that 

 1 have mentioned elfewhere J: It is to prove that Man is a Sub- 

 ilance ; and, put into the fyliogiftical form, it is this: 



Every Animal is a Subjlance. 

 Every Man is an Animal, 

 Ihcrtfore every Man is a Suhjlance, 



There is no man, I believe, who is not convinced of the truth of 

 the conclufion of this fyllogifm: But, how he is convinced of this, 

 and for what reafon does he beUeve it to be true, no man can tell, 

 who has not learned, from the logic of Arifiotle, to know what a 

 propofition, and what a fyllogifm, is. There he will learn, that every 

 propofition affirms or denies fome thing of fome other thing. What 



is 



" Page xl.-ix. and following. f Ibid. p. li. 1 Ibid. p. liii. 



