i 4 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



ought to be employed in those mental processes of ours which 

 lead us to a knowledge of the truth. Those thought-materials, 

 and thought-processes, and thought-products, are therefore the 

 object (or subject-matter] with which logic has to deal. They 

 are briefly : our elementary notions, concepts, ideas, in the first 

 place ; then, the judgments we form by comparing our concepts 

 with one another ; next, the processes of reasoning or inference 

 by which we compare our judgments together for the purpose of 

 arriving at other and more complex judgments ; and, finally, 

 those more elaborate mental or rational constructions built up by 

 our reasoning processes and commonly called sciences, or philo 

 sophy itself, as the case may be. The science which studies the 

 proper order and arrangement of all those mental functions which 

 lead us into the possession of truth or knowledge, is the science of 

 logic. Thus understood, logic is a science; it is even, in a 

 certain sense, the highest in the hierarchy of the sciences inas 

 much as it studies what science is, how a science is constructed, 

 and how all the human sciences should be related and arranged. 

 Our thoughts themselves ideas, judgments, reasoning processes 

 and methods are its material object or subject-matter. The 

 special point of view from which it studies them its formal 

 object, therefore is their adaptability to the acquiring of accurate 

 and scientific knowledge about all things. 1 Only in so far as 

 they are the means and instruments by which we acquire such 

 knowledge, does logic concern itself with them. To help us to 

 a knowledge of the truth by the proper arrangement and utiliza 

 tion of the materials of thought : such is the end logic has in 

 view. 



8. Is LOGIC A SCIENCE OR AN ART ? It is both ; or rather 

 there is a Science of logic a practical science and an Art of 

 logic. This, in brief, we consider to be the most satisfactory 

 answer to a disputed question of secondary importance. 2 



A scientific knowledge of any subject-matter is a knowledge of 

 it through its causes, and reasons, and principles, a knowledge of 

 its laws, a systematized, co-ordinated knowledge of it, got by 

 mental application, analysis, demonstration. Science is specula- 



1 There can be several distinct sciences about the same subject-matter provided 

 each has its own proper point of view. They are then said to have a common 

 material object, but each its own proper formal object. 



2 Cf. JOANNES A S. THOMA, Cursus Philosophicus, Logica, p. 2, q. i ; MILL, 

 Examination of Hamilton s Philosophy, chap. xx. ; WELTON, Manual of Logic, 

 vol. i., p. 12 (6) ; JOSEPH, Introduction to Logic, pp. 8, 9. 



