division in the first part of Logic, which treats of Conception. The answer to this may be suggested by that to the preceding one. We do not deny that the processes of the mind run into one another, that a man judges when he forms conceptions, and so on; we only ask for leave to describe each process separately. Our arrangement is confessedly artificial. § 43. Some logicians indeed argue that properly speaking Judgment is no distinct act of thought, but rather a part and condition of every act. Every notion seems to imply a judgment; when I think of the the Queen, gravitation, or virtue, I mean that the Queen-gravitation-virtue exists; so that we have one common attribute which we affirm of every thing, that of existence. But it is one thing to say that a judgment may be, and another that it is, made. Before the component parts of any complex notion could be brought together in the mind, many judgments must have been passed; but when the notion recurs, we do not surely pass the judgment over again. My notion of freedom implies that it is the state of being able to do as I will, having respect however to the rights of others, and that this is a state possible for men; but I do not formally affirm either that it contains these attributes or that it is possible, and therefore my mentioning freedom involves no judgment, although I may if I please form judgments about it. We must carefully distinguish between a possible and an actual judgment-between a notion which is and one which may be the subject of a judgment. § 44. Method, which is usually described as the fourth part of Logic, is rather a complete practical Logic. Whilst the other three parts describe each a distinct and complete product of thought, the Conception, the Judgment, and the Syllogism, no such whole is treated of in the doctrine of Method ; which may be used for making a whole science, or a whole speech, a system or a sentence. Method is rather a power or spirit of the intellect, prevading all that it does, than its tangible product. Hence we put in the place of rules for Method as a part of Logic, an Applied Logic, which shows under what conditions in the several regions of inquiry the three acts of thought may be safely performed, and how far rules can avail to direct the mind in the use of them to profitable or beautiful results. * § 45. The attempt to apply the rules of Logic will both raise and lower the opinion which obtains concerning the worth of the science. Those who condemn it altogether, as arbitrary and artificial, as a set of rules for arguing, put together in an age when truth was less the object of desire than argument, may find to their surprise that it is only a searching * See the fragment on Method in Coleridge's Friend, vol. iii. and systematic account of processes which they daily perform, whether in thought, or in argument, in the pursuit of a science or in the transactions of the street and market. Those on the other hand who expect that Logic will be to them a golden key to unlock the treasure-house of the knowledge of the universe, will find that it neither gives them nor pretends to give, any new power; that it only refines and strengthens powers they already possess ; that out of a dunce it never yet made a philosopher. Whilst its rules apply to every science, and it may therefore lay some claim to its ancient titles,-the Art of Arts, the Instrument of Instruments,-it only assists us in the study of the sciences, not stands in their stead. We must fight our own way over every inch of ground in the field; but Logic will often prevent our throwing away our blows. She can do no more. Sophists of Greece may offer to teach us a trick worth a hundred minæ," which is to be the secret of all wisdom; or Lully and Bruno may pretend so to arrange in tables the results of human research that a child may know where to put his hand on the most recondite secrets, and employ them at pleasure. But these are wild. dreams of the infants of science, which thinkers in their sober, waking moments hardly mention but with a smile. We only affirm, that when men think, these are the rules according to which their thoughts run, that the knowledge of laws and principles, indepen 66 86 OUTLINE OF THE LAWS OF THOUGHT. dent of ulterior profit, is always gratifying to active minds, and that, inasmuch as the clear understanding of what is right is always useful for the avoidance of what is wrong, Logic is an useful instrument in thinking. But it gives us the forms of knowledge, not the matter. It will not lay bare the hidden springs of moral action; nor explain the mystery of life, of sleep, of fancy, of memory; nor display the future destination of man and the world. Still less will it be to us instead of eyes, if, turning away from this ball of earth on which we stand, we try to look off to the Infinite-the Absolute-the Eternal, whose nature will not take the mould of our intellectual forms, who comprehends us, when we vainly think that we comprehend Him. |