DEFINITION AND PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 3 



analysis, for conducting the process correctly. There 

 can be no doubt as to the propriety of the emendation. 

 A right understanding of the mental process itself, of 

 the conditions it depends upon, and the steps of 

 which it consists, is the only basis on which a system 

 of rules, fitted for the direction of the process, can 

 possibly be founded. Art necessarily presupposes 

 knowledge ; art, in any but its infant state, presup- 

 poses scientific knowledge : and if every art does not 

 bear the name of the science upon which it rests, it 

 is only because several sciences are often necessary to 

 form the groundwork of a single art. Such is the 

 complication of human affairs, that to enable one 

 thing to be done, it is often requisite to know the 

 nature and properties of many things. 



Logic, then, comprises the science of reasoning, 

 as well as an art, founded on that science. But the 

 word Reasoning, again, like most other scientific 

 terms in popular use, abounds in ambiguities. In 

 one of its acceptations, it means syllogizing ; or the 

 mode of inference which may be called (with suffi- 

 cient accuracy for the present purpose) concluding 

 from generals to particulars. In another of its senses, 

 to reason, is simply to infer any assertion, from asser- 

 tions already admitted : and in this sense, induction 

 is as much entitled to be called reasoning as the 

 demonstrations of geometry. 



Writers on logic have generally preferred the for- 

 mer acceptation of the term ; the latter, and more 

 extensive signification, is that in which 1 mean to use 

 it. I do this by virtue of the right I claim for every 

 author, to give whatever provisional definition he 

 pleases of his own subject. But sufficient reasons 

 will, I believe, unfold themselves as we advance, why 

 this should be not only the provisional but the final 



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