rely on his veracity, if we have no cause to doubt it; and if, at the same time, marks of sincerity, attention, or discernment appear, we cannot demand better foundation for assent. If an historian be exposed to no temptation to falsify or misrepresent, we suppose that he relates the truth; because it is much more easy to relate truth than to relate falsehood. Truth requires no anxious caution to preserve consistency, no struggle to repress the remonstrances of conscience, which even the most abandoned men cannot altogether silence. It follows the natural and consistent train of causes and effects. It presents a credibility and authority which command conviction.

3. But if, besides a general attachment to truth, we discover in an historian other symptoms of integrity, such as relating truth when it was his interest to conceal or misrepresent it; when it might hurt friends, gratify enemies, or expose himself to danger from the resentment of those whom it might offend; we have the best reason to credit his testimony; because he discovers not only great attachment to truth, but the strongest aversion to falsehood, and evinces, that the temptations which induce men of little virtue to disguise truth, and those of no virtue to suppress it, do not affect him. He is at least sincere, and his testimony must be believed, unless it can be proved that he was misinformed or had been mistaken.

4. If a relation be consistent, the only ground for charging its author with mistake or misinformation, is its contradiction of other accounts of credit, or its containing transactions of which we can explain neither the motives nor the manner. If two historians contradict one another, which seldom happens, unless in cases of the most violent prevalence of party-spirit, the evidence of both will be destroyed, or the small portion of credit that remains will operate in favor of the more respectable author. If one author omit what is related by another, the omission may excite suspicion, but forms no direct argument against the credibility; because many circumstances, unknown to us, might occasion the oversight of which we complain.

5. Neither is the containing of transactions of which we cannot explain the motives or the manner, a good argument against the authenticity of a narrative; because the deficiency may be chargeable on the hearer or the reader, not on the relater. Men of all ages measure the motives, opinions, and actions of others, however different from themselves in constitution, or dissimilar in situation, by their own; and we need not be told, that nothing can be more fallacious than such a standard. A remarkable passage of history may be produced to illustrate this observation.

Example. Herodotus, in travelling to collect materials for his history of Greece, received intelligence that some Phoenician seamen had embarked on the Red Sea, sailed round the south coast of Africa, and returned home by the Columns of Hercules, or the Straits of Gibraltar; in which voyage, they must have circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope, commonly accounted one of the most brilliant discoveries of modern enterprise. The historian subjoins his own opinion; that the incident was incredible, because the voyagers reported, that in some part of their navigations, they had beheld the ecliptic, or the line of motion of the sun, situated to the north of the zenith of their course. The historian, however, judged by a

false standard; he condemned as incredible what he did not understand; because it was unknown, perhaps, in his time, that the appearance specified actually takes place, in the navigation he had related. He reprobates the account for a circumstance which is the most plausible characteristic of its authenticity; for it could hardly be supposed to have been conjectured unless it had been seen.

Conclusion. We have now offered every rule and observation, which appeared of importance to be attended to in forming our judg ments in science, arts, and business-we have unfolded the sources of those prejudices which obstruct the rectitude of our judgmentswe have inculcated patience and attention in forming them when we have full information-we have enjoined suspense of judgment when information is wanting or deficient-we have recommended, finally, satisfaction with the best evidence that can be procured, and the propriety of judging and acting on that evidence:—we know nothing more that can be done to render our judgments sound and logical, but that we carefully habituate ourselves to the practice of these rules.

REMARK.

Having thus far conducted the pupil through a popular course of INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY, agreeably to the doctrines of the most respectable and most authentic authors, I take leave to offer him a word of advice previously to his entrance upon the remaining portion of the volume. Logic is neither a frivolous, an ostentatious, nor an unnecessary branch of your studies; but she pretends not to make mechanical reasoners; she pretends only to lend you her aid to find out truth, and to guide the exertions of your own faculties in the pursuit of knowledge. Her pretensions are at least commendable, and her efforts are entitled to the most patient reflection and candid examination. If, then, you will travel in the road that leads to the temple of truth, if you will employ your faculties to discriminate that celestial object when you have reached her sacred mansion, her handmaid, Logic, offers to conduct you thither: you have your choice, then, whether you shall remain a stranger to her power, and be always the companion of those whom Prejudice consigns to ignorance and insignificance; or press on with those who become her candidates, who are grateful for her favors, and who improve them for their advantage. Strive, then, my friend, to obtain the flattering distinction claimed by superior judgment, and by which you can avoid the disgrace attached to ignorance and stupidity.

BOOK IV.

GRAMMAR OF LOGIC.

CHAPTER I.

OF IDEAS.

443. THAT the young logician may proceed with perspicuity, we begin with examining IDEAS as existing separately, or detached from one another. Ideas, as the impressions made on the mind either by external objects, through the medium of'the senses, or by the consciousness which it has of its own internal operations, have been defined in Articles 34 and 36.

Illus. 1. When an external object presents itself to any of the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, some picture, or notion, or conception, of it is formed in the mind; but this picture, or notion, or conception, is totally different from the object, and is called the Idea of it; whereas, the object is called the Archetype of the Idea. (Art. 38. Illus. 1, 2, 3.)

2. By sight, we receive the greatest number, and the most lively of all our Ideas; as, for example, those of all the visible objects in nature, animated and inanimated, with which we are already acquainted, or can become acquainted. By hearing, we get Ideas of natural and artificial sounds, particularly of the sounds of language, and the important information which they convey. The Ideas of the other three senses, taste, smell, touch, are not nearly so numerous, and they relate mostly to the preservation or the comfortable subsistence of the individual. By taste and smell, we are directed to those aliments which are necessary and salutary, and are diverted from those which are hurtful or destructive. By the touch, we examine the surfaces of bodies, and receive all those Ideas which that operation is qualified to suggest. All the Ideas we acquire through the medium of the external senses, are said to be derived from sensation. (Art. 41.) The only other source of Ideas is our own consciousness of the feelings and operations, which pass within our own minds, and is called Reflection. (Art. 50. and 51.)

3. You will understand what is meant by Reflection, as a source

of Ideas, by the following examples. Every feeling or operation of the mind prompts an Idea of that feeling or operation: thus the Ideas suggested by the feelings of fear, joy, hope, or by the operations of perceiving, arranging, comparing, separating and compounding our Ideas, communicate as distinct and as palpable impressions, as any that we receive through the medium of the external senses. But, as these feelings and operations are all attended with consciousness or consideration passing within the mind, they are therefore called Ideas of Reflection. (Art. 88. Illus. 1, 2.)

444. After the mind has been replenished with IDEAS in the manner now explained, it begins to prepare them for the purposes of Logic, or the discovery of truth and knowledge. It arranges them into CLASSES, and assigns them different names, according as they are SIMPLE or COMPLEX, DISTINCT or CONFUSED, ADEQUATE or INADEQUATE, PARTICULAR or ABSTRACT.

I. Of simple and complex Ideas.

445. A SIMPLE IDEA, as its name imports, can be contemplated only in one view. It cannot be divided or taken to pieces, because it does not consist of parts, being naturally indivisible.

Illus. Most of our Ideas of the qualities of bodies are of this class, as hard, soft, round, smooth, white, black, cold, hot: all Ideas, perhaps, of tastes, smells, sounds, as bitter, sweet, low, loud, and many of our Ideas of the feelings and operations of the mind, as of desire, aversion, hunger, pain, thinking, willing, discerning, reasoning, are also of this class. We cannot divide them, even in imagination; they are perfectly uniform, and void of parts.

446. A COMPLEX IDEA contains two or more simple or subordinate Ideas, into which it may be divided; and these subordinate Ideas, when divided, may be considered separately.

Illus. All our Ideas of substances are complex, as of animals, vegetables, and the inanimate parts of nature. The Idea of a tree, for instance, includes a great variety of subordinate Ideas, as those of wood, stock, roots, branches, vegetable life, shape, leaves, bark, blossoms, fruit; several of which subordinate Ideas may be subdivided into other Ideas. All Ideas of figures, as of circles, squares, triangles, cubes, cylinders, pyramids; most of the Ideas of virtues and vices, as of justice, fortitude, veracity, theft, ingratitude, falsehood, deceit.

II. Of distinct and confused Ideas.

447. The second division of Ideas was, into distinct and confused, or, which is much the same thing, into clear and

obscure. Distinct or clear Ideas are those of which we have a full and perfect comprehension, and which we can readily separate or distinguish from all other Ideas. Confused or obscure Ideas are those of which we have not a full and perfect comprehension, and which we cannot easily separate or distinguish from all other Ideas.

Illus. Distinct and clear Ideas are perceived with a perspicuity and energy similar to that by which the mind contemplates figures in mathematics, or numbers in arithmetic; all their boundaries and their differences are completely discernible. Confused or obscure Ideas are like the colors of a rainbow; they run into one another, and the mind neither perceives fully their nature nor their limits.

448. The acquisition of clear and distinct Ideas is of the utmost consequence in the investigation of knowledge; for the degree of conviction with which it is presented to the mind, is always in proportion to the degree of clearness and distinctness which we have introduced among our Ideas.

` Illus. 1. Were all our Ideas clear, all our knowledge would be demonstrative-a quality which belongs only to our scientific knowledge. Obscurity, more or less, adheres to all our other Ideas, and leaves us only greater or less degrees of Probable Evidence, corresponding to the less or greater obscurity of our Ideas.

2. In the Mathematical sciences, and in Arithmetic, the evidence is demonstrative, because our Ideas of all the figures and numbers about which we reason are perfectly clear and distinct, and because, in comparing them, we perceive accurately whether they agree or disagree; and if they disagree, how great the excess of one is above another, so that we can affirm, either that they are equal, or that the one exceeds the other by a certain quantity.

3. In Morals, in Politics, in Arts, and in Business, almost all our Ideas are more or less obscure : hence, in comparing them, we cannot precisely pronounce whether they agree or disagree; and though we were sure that they disagree, yet we cannot accurately ascertain the difference.

We

Corol. The necessary consequence is, that in all these branches of knowledge, we can obtain no Demonstrative Evidence for truth. must be satisfied with Probable Evidence (Art. 309. and 311.), and we should be attentive to procure Ideas as clear and distinct as possible, that we may reach the highest degree of probability. (See Art. 440, 441, and 442, with all their Illustrations.)

III. Of adequate and inadequate Ideas.

449. The third division of Ideas is into those which are ADEQUATE or INADEQUATE. An Adequate Idea is a perfect picture of its archetype, or contains a representation of all the parts of which the archetype consists.

Illus. 1. It is different from a distinct Idea, because an Idea may