PREFACE. 



and accurately, operations with which, at least in 

 their elementary form, the human intellect, in some 

 one or other of its employments is already familiar. 



In the portion of the work which treats of Katio- 

 cination, the author has not deemed it necessary to 

 enter into technical details which may be obtained in 

 so perfect a shape from the existing treatises on what 

 is termed the Logic of the Schools. In the contempt 

 entertained by many modern philosophers for the 

 syllogistic art, it will be seen that he by no means 

 participates ; though the scientific theory on which 

 its defence is usually rested appears to him erro- 

 neous : and the view which he has suggested of the 

 nature and functions of the Syllogism may, perhaps, 

 afford the means of conciliating the principles of the 

 art with as much as is well grounded in the doctrines 

 and objections of its assailants. 



The same abstinence from details could not be 

 observed in the First Book, on Names and Proposi- 

 tions; because many useful principles and distinc- 

 tions which were contained in the old Logic, have 

 been gradually omitted from the writings of its later 

 teachers ; and it appeared desirable both to revive 

 these, and to reform and rationalize the philosophical 

 foundation on which they stood. The earlier chap- 

 ters of this preliminary Book will consequently 

 appear, to some readers, needlessly elementary and 

 scholastic. But those who know in what darkness 

 the nature of our knowledge, and of the processes by 

 which it is obtained, is often involved by a confused 

 apprehension of the import of the different classes of 

 Words and Assertions, will not regard these discus- 

 sions as either frivolous, or irrelevant to the topics 

 considered in the later Books. 



