neceffary and affifting to all our other intellectual f ties, and indeed contains two of them, viz. fagacita illation; by the one it finds out, and by the othr fo orders the intermediate ideas, as to difcover what ce nection there is in each link of the chain whereby extremes are held together, and thereby, as it were, draw into view the truth fought for, which is that call illation or inference, and conlifts in nothing but tr perception of the connection there is between the is in each step of the deduction, whereby the mind com to fee either the certain agreement or difagreement any two ideas, as in demonftration, in which it arrives knowledge, or their probable connection, on which gives or withholds its affent, as in opinion. Sente intuition reach but a very little way. The greatest p of our knowledge depends upon deductions and interm diate ideas; and in thofe cafes where we are fain: fubftitute affent inftead of knowledge, and take prope tions for true, without being certain they are fo, have need to find out, examine, and compare grounds of their probability. In both thefe cafes, the f culty which finds out the means, and rightly applie them to difcover certainty in the one, and probability in the other, is that which we call reafon; for as reafon perceives the neceffary and indubitable connection of a the ideas or proofs one to another, in each step of any demonftration that produces knowledge, fo it likewife perceives the probable connection of all the ideas or proofs one to another in every step of a discourse to which it will think affent due. This is the lowest degree of that which can be truly called reafon; for where the mind does not perceive this probable connection, where it does not difcern whether there be any fuch connection! or no, there mens opinions are not the product of judgment, or the confequence of reafon, but the effects of chance and hazard, of a mind floating at all adven tures, without choice, and without direction.

$3. Its four Paris.

So that we may in reafon consider thefe four degrees; e firft and higheft, is the difcovering and finding out

of proofs; the fecond, the regular and methodical difpofition of them, and laying them in a clear and fit order, to make their connection and force be plainly and eafily perceived; the third is the perceiving their connec tion; and the fourth, a making a right conclufion. Thefe feveral degrees may be obferved in any mathematical demonftration, it being one thing to perceive the connection of each part, as the demonftration is made by another; another to perceive the dependence of the conclufion on all the parts; a third, to make out a demonstration clearly and neatly one's felf; and fomething different from all thefe, to have first found out those intermediate ideas or proofs by which it is made.

§4. Syllogifm not the great Inftrument of Reafon. THERE is one thing more, which I fhall defire to be confidered concerning reafon; and that is, whether fyl logifm, as is generally thought, be the proper inftrument of it, and the ufefulleft way of exercifing this faculty. The caufes I have to doubt are thefe :

Firft, Becaufe fyllogifm ferves our reafon but in one only of the fore-mentioned parts of it, and that is, to fhow the connection of the proofs in any one inftance, and no more; but in this it is of no great use, fince the mind can perceive fuch connection where it really is, as cafily, nay, perhaps better without it.

If we will obferve the actings of our own minds, we fhall find that we reafon beft and cleareft, when we only obferve the connection of the proof, without reducing our thoughts to any rule of fyllogifm; and therefore we may take notice, that there are many nien that reafon exceeding clear and rightly, who know not how to make a fyllogifm. He that will look into many parts of Afia and America, will find men reafon there perhaps as acutely as himself, who yet never heard of a fyllogifm, nor can reduce any one argument to those forms; and I believe fcarce any one ever makes fyllogifms in reasoning within himfelf. Indeed fyllogifm is made ufe of on occafion, to difcover a fallacy hid in a rhetorical flourish, or cunningly wrapped up in a smooth period; and ftripping an abfurdity of the cover of wit

and good language, fhow it in its naked deformity. But the weaknefs or fallacy of fuch a loose difcourfe, it fhows by the artificial form it is put into, only to those who have thoroughly ftudied mode and figure, and have fo examined the many ways that three propofitions may be put together, as to know which of them does certainly conclude right, and which not, and upon what grounds it is that they do fo. All who have fo far confidered fyllogifm, as to fee the reason why, in three propofitions laid together in one form, the conclufion will be certainly right, but in another, not certainly fo, 1 grant are certain of the conclufions they draw from the premises in the allowed modes and figures; but they who have not fo far looked into thofe forms, are not fure by virtue of fyllogifm, that the conclufion certainly follows from the premises; they only take it to be fo by an implicit faith in their teachers, and a confidence in thofe forms of argumentation; but this is ftill but be lieving, not being certain. Now if, of all mankind, those who can make fyllogifms are extremely few in comparison of thofe who cannot; and if of thofe few who have been taught logic, there is but a very fmall number who do any more than believe that fyllogifms in the allowed modes and figures do conclude right, without knowing certainly that they do fo; if fyllogifms must be taken for the only proper inftrument of reafon and means of knowledge; it will follow, that before Ariftotle there was not one man that did or could know any thing by reafon; and that fince the invention of fyllogifms, there is not one of ten thousand that doth.

But God has not been fo fparing to men to make them barely two-legged creatures, and left it to Ariftotle to make them rational; i. e. thofe few of them that he could get fo to examine the grounds of fyllogifms, as to fee that in above threefcore ways that three propofitions may be laid together, there are but about fourteen wherein one may be fure that the conclufion is right, and upon what ground it is, that in these few the conclufion is certain, and in the other not. God has been more bountiful to mankind than fo: He has given them

a mind that can reafon, without being instructed in methods of fyllogifing; the understanding is not taught to reafon by thefe rules; it has a native faculty to perceive the coherence or incoherence of its ideas, and can range them right, without any fuch perplexing repetitions. I fay not this any way to leffen Ariftotle, whom I look on as one of the greateft men amongst the ancients, whofe large views, acuteness and penetration of thought, and strength of judgment, few have equalled; and who in this very invention of forms of argumentation, wherein the conclufion may be fhown to be rightly inferred, did great service against thofe who were not ashamed to deny any thing; and I readily own, that all right reafon ing may be reduced to his forms of fyllogif, sut yet I think, without any diminution to him, I may truly fay, that they are not the only nor the best way of reafoning, for the leading of thofe into truth who are willing to find it, and defire to make the best use they may of their reafon, for the attainment of knowledge; and he himfelf, it is plain, found out foine forms to be conclufive and others not, not by the forms themselves, but by the original way of knowledge, i. c. by the visible agreement of ideas. Teil a country gentlewoman that the wind is fouth-west, and the weather lowering, and like to rain, and the will eafily understand it is not fafe for her to go abroad thin clad in fuch a day, after a fever; he clearly fees the probable connection of all thefe, viz. fouth-west wind, and clouds, rain, wetting, taking cold, relapfe, and danger of death, without tying them together in thofe artificial and cumberfome fetters of feveral fyllogifs, that clog and hinder the mind, which proceeds from one part to another quicker and clearer without them; and the probability which the eafily perceives in things thus in their native ftate would be quite loft, if this argument were managed learnedly, and propofed in mode and figure; for it very often confounds the connection. And, I think, every one will perceive in mathematical demonftra VOL. III. H

tions, that the knowledge gained thereby comes thorteft and clearest without fyllogifms.

Inference is looked on as the great act of the ta tional faculty, and fo it is when it is rightly made; but the mind, either very defirous to enlarge its kne ledge, or very apt to favour the fentiments it has one imbibed, is very forward to make inferences, and therefore often makes too much hafte before it perceives the connection of the ideas that must hold the extremes together.

To infer, is nothing but by virtue of one propo tion laid down as true, to draw in another as true, i. to fee or fuppofe fuch a connection of the two ideas of the inferred propofition: v. g. Let this be the propofi tion laid down, men fhall be punished in another world, and from thence be inferred this other, then men can determine themselves. The queftion now is to know whe ther the mind has made this inference right or no; if it has made it by finding out the intermediate ideas, and taking a view of the connection of them, placed in a due order, it has proceeded rationally, and made a right inference; if it has done it without fuch a view, it has not fo much made an inference that wil hold, or an inference of right reafon, as fhowing a willingness to have it be, or be taken for fuch; bat in neither cafe is it fyllogifm that discovered that ideas, or fhowed the connection of them, for they mu be both found out, and the connection every where perceived, before they can rationally be made ule of in fyllogifm; unlefs it can be faid that any idea, without confidering what connection it hath with the two other, whofe agreement fhould be thown by it, will do well enough in a fyllogifm, and may be taken at a venture for the medius terminus, to prove any con clufion; but this nobody will fay, becaufe it is by virtue of the perceived agreement of the intermediate idea with the extremes, that the extremes are concluded to agree; and therefore each intermediate idea muft be fuch, as in the whole chain hath a vifible connecion with thofe two it is placed between, or elfe there