COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



such consisted almost exclusively of the doc- 

 trine of the syllogism. Besides this there was 

 nothing save the Baconian logic, containing in- 

 deed many valuable hints for inquirers, but not 

 organized into a coherent system. Now Comte 

 held in small esteem the syllogistic logic. He 

 held, and justly, that something besides the 

 scholastic quibbling over Baroco, Camestres, and 

 Barbara, was needed in prosecuting the search 

 after new truths. To attempt, by prolonged 

 dealing in these dialectic subtleties, to acquire 

 the art of correct reasoning, was, in his opinion, 

 much like trying to learn the art of correct 

 speaking by prolonged study of the rules of 

 grammar. Men do not learn to swim, to fence, 

 or to hunt, by reading elaborate treatises on 

 gymnastics and sportsmanship. The study of 

 rhetoric, however thorough, careful, and syste- 

 matic, will never of itself enable us to write a 

 clear and forcible style. We may know all the 

 commandments of ethics by heart, and be able 

 to utter the soundest judgment upon the com- 

 parative merits of the utilitarian and the in- 

 tuitional theories, and yet be unable to lead 

 upright lives. And similarly we may go on 

 stringing together majors and minors until we 

 are gray, and yet after all be unable to make an 

 accurate observation, or perform a legitimate 

 induction. Therefore, according to Comte, logic 

 is not so much a science as an art, indispensable 

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