350 DISEASES CLASS III. 2. 2. 4. 



but not even a verbal analogy to the preceding propofitions. 

 Thus a ruftic devotee faid to his prieft, " I have often wonder- 

 ed, why God Almighty called the firft man Adam ?" " Don't 

 you know," replied the teacher, " that A is the firft letter of the, 

 alphabet ?" Aye, ib it is," anfwered the contented inquirer. 



Another kind of falfe reafoning is called by logicians a logic- 

 al vice ; and another kind arifes from the firft propoiition being 

 untrue in reipecl to its exigence : buc as all thefe, and perhaps 

 many other fources of falfe reafonings, may be refolved into the 

 miftaken ufe of ideas of words, or general terms, inftead of ideas 

 of the things, or parts of things, which they ought to fuggeft ; 

 they belong properly to this article of ratiocinatio verbofa : 

 \vhile the rare faculty of reafoning without words by comparing 

 ideas of things, as in the invention of new machines, and other 

 new discoveries, diftinguifties the ph'Jofopher from the fophift, 



M. ;M. Children mould be permitted to ufe their hands early 

 in their infancy, and mould be fupplied with pencils, pens, and 

 various tools ; by which they will acquire accurate ideas of ex- 

 ternal things by the organ of touch, at the fame time that they 

 acquire woids ; and will thence be If -o be feriouily de- 



ceived by general terms, or by the double meanings of words, 

 >f fentences, or laftly by falfe propofitions or ineonclufive de~ 

 ; and will thus be enabled to compare the analogies of 

 things, and to think without words ; the faculty, which confti- 

 tutes genius, and which fo few poiTefs I 



4. Credulitas, Credulity. Life is fhort, opportunities of 

 knowledge rare j our fenfes are fallacious, our reafonings un- 

 certain,, man therefore ftruggles with perpetual error from the 

 cradle to the coffin. He is neceflitated to correct experiment 

 by analogy, and analogy by experiment ; and not always to reft 

 fatisfied in the belief of fatts even with this two-fold teftimony, 

 till future opportunities, or the obiervations of others, concur in 

 their fupport. 



Ignorance and credulity have ever been companions, and have 

 rnifled and enflaved mankind ; philoiophy has in all ages en- 

 deavoured to oppofe their progrefs, and to loofen the (hackles 

 they had impoied ; philofophers have on this account been called 

 unbelievers : unbelievers of what ? of the fictions of fancy, of 

 witchcraft, hobgobblins, apparitions, vampires, fairies ; of the 

 influence of ftars on human actions, miracles wrought by the 

 bones of faints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions 

 from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, for- 

 tune-tellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, cheiro- 

 mancy, animal magnetifm., metallic trators 5 with endlefs varie- 



