BOOK II. 



OF REASONING. 



Aiupianivuv 6e tovtuv, Tih/ufiEv f/671, diu rivuv, Kai nore, Kat nuc yivtrai rruf troAAo- 

 yicT/idc' varepov 6^ XeKriov nKpl utto Jtjff wf. JlpoTepov yap Tvepl (TV%?.oyiaiiWV TiEKriov, fj 

 TTfpl uTToihiieuc, ^lu to KaOo'Aov fiuA?iOV eival rov avX'koyLaiiov. 'H fiiv yap uK6dei^i(, 

 <rv?^Aoyi(jfi6g rig- 6 ayXXoyLCjiog 6i ov Traf , uttu6ei^ic. 



Arist. Analyt. Prior., 1. i. cap. 4. 



CHAPTER 1. 



OF INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL. 



§ 1, In the preceding Book, we have been occupied not with the 

 nature of Proof, but with the nature of Assertion : the import conveyed 

 by a Proposition, whether that Proposition be true or false ; not the 

 means by which to discriminate true from false Propositions. The 

 proper subject, however, of Logic is Proof, Before we could under- 

 stand what Proof is, it was necessary to understand what that is to 

 which proof is applicable ; what that is which can be a subject of be- 

 lief or disbelief, of afiirmation or denial ; what, in short, the different 

 kinds of Propositions assert. 



This preliminary inquiry we have prosecuted to a definite result. 

 Assertion, in the first place, relates either to the meaning of words, or 

 to some property of the things which words signify. Assertions re- 

 specting the meaning of words, among which definitions are the most 

 important, hold a place, and an indispensable one, in philosophy ; but 

 as the meaning of words is essentially arbitrary, this class of assertions 

 is not susceptible of truth or falsity, nor therefore of proof or dis- 

 proof. Assertions resjiecting Things, or what may be called Real 

 Propositions in contradistinction to verbal ones, ore of various sorts. 

 We have analyzed the im]>ort of each sort, and have ascertained the 

 nature of the things they relate to, and the nature of what they sever- 

 ally assert respecting those things. We found that whatever be the 

 form of the proposition, and whatever its nominal subject or predicate, 

 the real subject of every proposition is some one or more facts or phe- 

 nomena of consciousness, or some one or more of the hidden causes or 

 powers to which we ascribe those facts ; and that what is predicated 

 or asserted, either in the affirmative or negative, of those phenomena 

 or those powers, is always either Existence, Order in Place, Order in 

 Time, Causation, or Resemblance. This, then, is the theory of the 

 Import of Propositions, reduced to its ultimate elements : but there is 

 another and a less abstnise expression for it, which though stopping 

 short in an earlier stage of the; analysis, is sufficiently scientific for 

 many of the puqioses for which such a general expression is required. 



