rules may be that have been given, or may be given, for conducting this latter process, and others connected with it; and however properly such rules may be subjoined to the precepts of that system to which the name of Logic is applied in the narrowest sense. Such rules as I now allude to may be of eminent service; but they must always be, as I have before observed, comparatively vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular demonstrative theory like that of the Syllogism; to which theory they bear much the same relation as the principles and rules of Poetical and Rhetorical criticism to those of Grammar; or those of practical Mechanics, to strict Geometry. I find no fault with the extension of a term; but I would suggest a caution against confounding together, by means of a common name, things essentially different; and above all I would deprecate the sophistry of striving to depreciate what is called "the school✓ Logic," by perpetually contrasting it with systems with which it has nothing in common but the name, and whose object is essentially different.

§ 3.

It is not a little remarkable that writers, Aristotle's whose expressions tend to confound together, Bacon's.

T

Organon and

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by means of a common name, two branches of study which have nothing else in common (as if they were two different plans for attaining one and the same object), have themselves complained of one of the effects of this confusion, viz. the introduction, early in the career of Academical Education, of a course of Logic; under which name, they observe, men now* universally comprehend the works of Locke, Bacon, &c." which, as is justly remarked, are unfit for beginners. Now this would not have happened, if men had always kept in mind the meaning or meanings of each name they used. And it may be added, that, however justly the word Logic may be thus extended, we have no ground for applying to the Aristotelian Logic the remarks above quoted respecting the Baconian; which the ambiguity of the word, if not carefully kept in view, might lead us to do. Grant that Bacon's work is a part of Logic; it no more follows, from the unfitness of that for learners, that the Elements of the Theory of Reasoning should be withheld from them, than it follows that the elements of Euclid, and common Arithmetic, are unfit for boys, because Newton's Principia, which also bears the title of Mathematical, is above their grasp. Of two branches of study which

* i. e. in the Scotch universities.

bear the same name, or even of two parts of the same branch, the one may be suitable to the commencement, the other to the close of the Academical career.

At whatever period of that career it may be proper to introduce the study of such as are usually called Metaphysical writers, it may be safely asserted, that those who have had the most experience in the business of giving instruction in Logic, properly so called, as well as in other branches of knowledge, prefer and generally pursue the plan of letting their pupils enter on that study, next in order after the elements of Mathematics.

CHAP. IV.

Of Verbal and Real Questions.

§ 1.

THE ingenious author of the Philosophy of Rhetoric having maintained, or rather assumed, that Logic is applicable to Verbal ✓ controversy alone, there may be an advantage (though it has been my aim throughout to show the application of it to all Reasoning) in pointing out the difference between Verbal

Difference between a

real question.

and Real Questions, and the probable origin of Campbell's mistake; for to trace any error to its source, will often throw more light on the subject in hand than can be obtained if we rest satisfied with merely detecting and refuting it.

this.

Every Question that can arise, is in fact a Question whether a certain Predicate is or is not applicable to a certain subject, or what Predicate is applicable; * and whatever other account may be given by any writer, of the nature of any matter of doubt or debate, will be found ultimately to resolve itself into But sometimes the Question turns on verbal and a the meaning and extent of the terms employed; sometimes, on the things signified by Xthem. If it be made to appear, therefore, that the opposite sides of a certain Question may be held by persons not differing in their opinion of the matter in hand, then that Question may be pronounced Verbal; as depending on the different senses in which they respectively employ the terms. If, on the contrary, it appears that they employ the terms in the same sense, but still differ as to the application of one of them to the other, then it may be pronounced that the Question is Real,-that they differ as to the opinions they hold of the things in Question.

*See Chap. iii. § 2.

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If, for instance, two persons contend whether Augustus deserved to be called a great man," then, if it appeared that the one included, under the term " great," disinterested patriotism, and on that ground excluded Augustus from the class, as wanting in that quality; and that the other also gave him no credit for that quality, but understood no more by the term "great," than high intellectual qualities, energy of character, and brilliant actions, it would follow that the parties did not differ in opinion except as to the use of ✓ a term, and that the Question was Verbal. If, again, it appeared that the one did give Augustus credit for such patriotism, as the other denied him, both of them including that idea in the term great, then the Ques✓tion would be Real. Either kind of Question, (it is plain, is to be argued according to Logical principles; but the middle terms employed would be different; and for this reason, among others, it is important to distinguish Verbal from Real controversy. In the former case, e. g. it might be urged with truth, that the common use of the expression "great and good" proves that the idea of good is not implied in the ordinary sense of the word great; an argument which could have, of course, no place in deciding the other Question.