Chap. IV. AN-TIF.NT METAPHYSICS. 93 



to be the moft perfect that can be imagined ; and, indeed, more per- 

 fed than we could imagine it to be, if we did not know from fadt 

 and obfervation that it was fuch. 



Nothing, therefore, is more certain than that, befides the connec- 

 tion which things of the fame fpecies and genus have with one ano- 

 ther, every thing on this earth comprehends or is comprehended in 

 fomething elfe ; or, as I have faid, both comprehends and is .i-m- 

 prehended. And thus everv thing is a ivhole or a part of another 

 thnig, than which no clofTer union can be imagined. 



This doQrine of all things containing 01 being contained in fome- 

 thing elfe, is not only the foundatlor. of the truth of all affirmative 

 propontions, but of the truth of all reafoning ) and this is very- 

 natural, all reafoning confiding of proportions. But of the na- 

 ture of realoning, and how it is all reducible to fyllogifm, 1 have 

 fpokcn at len:.th in the preceding volume*, where I have fhown 

 that it depends upon the dodlrine of co?ita'tn'tng and being contained; 

 fo that all reafoning is reducible to thele two propofitions, that if A 

 contain B, and B contain G, then A contains C; or if A be contain- 

 ed in B, and B be contained in C, then A is contained in C. — The 

 example I have given, in the paiTage above quoted, is a fyllogifm, 

 concluding that man is a /ubjiance ; the meaning of which is, tnat 

 the general idea of /ubjiance comprehends man^ or, in other words, 

 that man is a Ipccies ot the ^unu^ fu!j}a?ice, that is to fay, is con- 

 tained in it: At the fame time it proves that man contains the genus 

 fubflance; for, as I have Ihown, the genus contains the /pedes under 

 it v.rtuatly\ at the fame tiine that the /pedes contains the genus ac- 

 fuaUy\ : — So that in this fmgle fyllogifm there is a proof not only that 

 7nan contains /ubjiance. but thjt he is contained in it. In this cafe 

 the praedicate, or greater term of the conclufion, both contains the 



/ul'jen, 



* See vol. 5. p. 15;. f See p. 56. — 61. 



