2 INTRODUCTION. 



shows to be the most appropriate. Until we know 

 the particulars themselves, we cannot fix upon the 

 most correct and compact mode of circumscribing 

 them by a general description. It was not till after 

 an extensive and accurate . acquaintance with the 

 details of ch'erhical 1 "phenomena, that it was found 

 possible to ; frame a rational definition of chemistry; 

 and the definition of the science of life and organi- 

 zation is still a matter of dispute. So long as the 

 sciences are imperfect, the definitions must partake 

 of their imperfections; and if the former are pro- 

 gressive, the latter ought to be so too. As much, 

 therefore, as is to be expected from a definition 

 placed at the commencement of a subject, is that it 

 should define the scope of our inquiries: and the 

 definition, which I am about to offer of the science of 

 logic, pretends to nothing more,, than to be a state- 

 ment of the question which I have put to myself, and 

 which this book is an attempt to resolve. The reader 

 is at liberty to object to it as a definition of logic; but 

 it is at all events a correct definition of the subject of 

 these volumes. 



2. Logic has often been called the Art of Rea- 

 soning. A writer* who has done more than any 

 other living person to restore this study to the rank 

 from which it had fallen in the estimation of the cul- 

 tivated classes in our own country, has adopted the 

 above definition with an amendment; he has defined 

 logic to be the Science, as well as the Art, of reason- 

 ing ; meaning, by the former term, the analysis of the 

 mental process which takes place whenever we reason, 

 and by the latter, the rules, grounded upon that 



Archbishop Whately. 



