CHAPTER III. 



LOGIC AND KINDRED SCIENCES. DEFINITION AND 

 SOURCES OF LOGIC 



1 8. RELATIONS OF LOGIC TO KINDRED SCIENCES. What 

 has been said in the preceding chapter on the nature and 

 scope of logic will be made clearer by a brief comparison of this 

 science with certain other more or less nearly related sciences. 



Logic is sometimes called the &quot;science of sciences,&quot; because, 

 although it does not deal with the special methods and rules of 

 procedure peculiar to any particular science, it brings to light 

 general laws and canons to which reason must conform in all ; 

 and because, furthermore, its scope embraces the principles that 

 underlie the classification of all the other sciences and the unifica 

 tion as far as this is possible of all human knowledge. 



19. LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS. The mind has all Being, all 

 Reality as the object of its knowledge. Metaphysics considers 

 being in its most abstract state, being in general, apart from all its 

 specific and individual realizations. And hence, having such a 

 simple, abstract, universal object, it helps us to comprehend the 

 more complex objects of the special sciences. Just as mathe 

 matics helps the study of physics, so, a fortiori, does metaphysics 

 aid us in the study of all the sciences ; for it gives their principles 

 and axioms to all the sciences, and guarantees the validity of all 

 their initial assumptions including those of logic itself. 



But since being is the object of our knowledge, while logic 

 aims at knowing the process by which all being is known, it is 

 manifest that logic also has a sort of indirect interest in all 

 being. It has, therefore, the same material object as meta 

 physics ; not, however, the same formal object. For while meta 

 physics studies the common nature of those things that are 

 treated in detail by the special (physical and mathematical) 

 sciences, i.e. while it studies real being as it is in itself (Ens 

 Reale] and the real attributes of real being, logic studies that 



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