with the lower animals. Evidently, in Reasoning. They are all occupied in deducing, well or ill, Conclusions from Premises; each, concerning the Subject of his own particular business. If, therefore, it be found that the process going on daily, in each of so many different minds, is, in any respect, the same, and if the principles on which it is conducted can be reduced to a regular system, and if rules can be deduced from that system, for the better conducting of the process, then, it can hardly be denied that such a system and such rules must be especially worthy the attention, not of the members of this or that profession merely, but of every one who is desirous of possessing a cultivated mind. To understand the theory of that which is the appropriate intellectual occupation of Man ✓ in general, and to learn to do that well, which every one will and must do, whether well or ill, may surely be considered as an essential part of a liberal education.

Even supposing that no practical improvement in argumentation resulted from the study of Logic, it would not by any means. follow that it is unworthy of attention. The pursuit of knowledge on curious and interesting subjects, for its own sake, is usually reckoned no misemployment of time; and is

considered as, incidentally, if not directly, useful to the individual, by the exercise thus afforded to the mental faculties. All who study Mathematics are not training themselves to become Surveyors or Mechanics : some knowledge of Anatomy and Chemistry is even expected in a man liberally educated, though without any view to his practising Surgery or Medicine. The investigation of a process which is peculiarly and universally the occupation of Man, considered as Man, can hardly be reckoned a less philosophical pursuit than those just instanced.

It has usually been assumed, however, in the case of the present subject, that a theory which does not tend to the improvement of practice is utterly unworthy of regard; and then, it is contended that Logic has no such tendency, on the plea that men may and do reason correctly without it: an objection which would equally apply in the case of Grammar, Music, Chemistry, Mechanics, &c., in all of which systems the practice must have existed previously to the theory.

But many who allow the use of systematic principles in other things, are accustomed to cry up Common-Sense as the sufficient and only safe guide in Reasoning. Now by Common - Sense is meant, I apprehend,

(when the term is used with any distinct meaning,) an exercise of the judgment unaided by any Art or system of rules; such an exercise as we must necessarily employ in numberless cases of daily occurrence; in which, having no established principles to guide us, no line of procedure, as it were, distinctly chalked out,—we must needs act on the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form. He who is eminently skilful in doing this, is said to possess a superior degree of Common-Sense. But that CommonSense is only our second-best guide - that the rules of Art, if judiciously framed, are always desirable when they can be had, is an assertion, for the truth of which I may appeal to the testimony of mankind in general; which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries. For the generality have a strong predilection in favour of Common-Sense, except in those points in which they, respectively, possess the knowledge of a system of rules; but in these points they deride any one who trusts to unaided Common-Sense. A Sailor, e. g. will, perhaps, despise the pretensions of medical men, and prefer treating a disease by Common-Sense : but he would ridicule the proposal of navi

gating a ship by Common-Sense, without regard to the maxims of nautical art. A Physician, again, will perhaps contemn Systems of Political Economy,* of Logic, or Metaphysics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting to Common-Sense in such matters; but he would never approve of trusting to Common-Sense in the treatment of diseases. Neither, again, would the Architect recommend a reliance on Common-Sense alone in building, nor the Musician in music, to the neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their respective arts, have been deduced from scientific reasoning aided by experience. And the induction might be extended to every department of practice. Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unassisted Common-Sense only in those cases where he himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably resorts to the rules of art, wherever he possesses the knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind universally bear their testimony, though unconsciously and often unwillingly, to the preferableness of systematic knowledge to conjectural judg

ments.

There is, however, abundant room for the

* See Senior's Introductory Lecture on Political-Economy, p. 28.

employment of Common-Sense in the application of the system. To bring arguments, out of the form in which they are expressed in conversation and in books, into the regular logical shape, must be, of course, the business of Common-Sense, aided by practice; for such arguments are, by supposition, not as yet within the province of Science; else they would not be irregular, but would be already strict syllogisms. To exercise the learner in this operation, I have subjoined, in the Appendix, some examples, both of insulated arguments, and (in the last two editions) of the analysis of argumentative works. It should be added, however, that a large portion of what is usually introduced into Logical treatises, relative to the finding of Arguments,—the different kinds of them, &c., I have referred to the head of Rhetoric, and treated of in a work on the Elements of that Art.

It was doubtless from a strong and deliberate conviction of the advantages, direct and indirect, accruing from an acquaintance with Logic, that the University of Oxford, when re-modelling their system, not only retained that branch of study, regardless of the clamours of many of the half-learned, but even assigned a prominent place to it,