Cliap. IX. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 15; 



fpeak well ; but, not having learned the grammatical art, they can give 

 no account why fuch a form of fpeech is correct language, and ex- 

 prefles the thing intended to be exprefled, and another incorrect. 

 And, as there can be no fcicnce without rcafoning and fyRem, it 

 appears that the philofophers of Greece, before Ariftotle, did not 

 know what fcience was, any more than fuch among us as have not 

 ftudied the logic of Ariftotle. 



But, before thi« difcovery was made by Ariftotle, there was ano- 

 ther art of the reafoning kind very much pradlifed in Greece, but 

 not formed into a fyftem, nor reduced to what could be called an 

 art, till that was done by Ariftotle ; The art I mean is D'laleSlic* 

 Upon this fubje£t, Ariftotle has written eight books, which are en- 

 titled Tropics ; and it muft appear a wonderful art, in this rcfped:, 

 that it enables a man to argue upon a fubjed: of which he has no 

 fcientifical knowledge, but only knows fome qualities or properties of 

 it. The arguments ufed by this art are not taken from the nature of 

 the thing, nor from the axioms of any fcience, but from general 

 belief, or from the conceflions of the perfons with whom we argue. 

 And as the fubjeds, upon which this art is pradifed, are not only 

 things belonging to the pradice of life, but to arts and fciences, the 

 number and variety of arguments upon thefe fubjeds muft have 

 been very great ; yet, by a wonderful effort of genius and of know- 

 ledge, Ariftotle has contrived to put them all in order, and to re- 

 duce them to certain heads, upon each of which he has colleded ar- 

 guments, which he calls Topics; and fo has reduced to a fyftem 

 what we ftiould have thought was capable of no fyftem. I will add 

 no more upon this fubjed, as I have treated of it pretty fully 

 in the lirft volume of this work *, where I have ftiown, that it is 

 an art of univerfal ufe, not only in public fpeaking, but in our 

 private intercourfe with men f ; and I have alfo fiiid a good deal 

 upon it in volume fixth of Origin of Language J. But this rea- 



U 2 foning 



* Page 405. and following. f Ibid. p. 408. % Book, i. Chap. 3. 



