CHAPTER I. 



OF THE NECESSITY OF COMMENCING WITH AN 

 ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE. 



1. IT is so much the established practice of 

 writers on logic to commence their treatises by a few 

 general observations (in most cases, it is true, rather 

 meagre) on Terms and their varieties, that it will, 

 perhaps, scarcely be required from me, in merely 

 following the common usage, to be as particular in 

 assigning my reasons, as it is usually expected that 

 those should be who deviate from it. 



The practice, indeed, is recommended by con- 

 siderations far too obvious to require a formal justifi- 

 cation. Logic is a portion of the Art of Thinking : 

 Language is evidently, and by the admission of all 

 philosophers, one of the principal instruments or helps 

 of thought ; and any imperfection in the instrument, 

 or in the mode of employing it, is confessedly liable, 

 still more than in almost any other art, to confuse and 

 impede the process, and destroy all ground of con- 

 fidence in the result. For a mind not previously 

 versed in the meaning and right use of the various 

 kinds of words, to attempt the study of methods of 

 philosophizing, would be as if some one should attempt 

 to make himself an astronomical observer, having 

 never learned to adjust the focal distance of his 

 optical instruments so as to see distinctly. 



Since Reasoning, or Inference, the principal 



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