cottage is a mean house in the country. A supper is that meal which we make in the evening. A triangle is a figure composed of three sides. A gallon is a measure containing eight pints. A porter is a man who carries burthens for hire. A king is the chief ruler in a kingdom. Veracity is the conformity of our words to our thoughts. Covetousness is an excessive love of money, or other possessions. Killing is the taking away the life of an animal. Murder is the unlawful killing of a man. Rhetoric is the art of speaking in a manner fit to persuade. Natural philosophy is the knowledge of the properties of bodies, and the various effects of them, or it is the knowledge of the various appearances in nature, and their causes; and logic is the art of using our reason well, &c."

2. To reason well, you must clearly understand what is asserted about the subject.

"A proposition is a sentence wherein two or more ideas or terms are joined or disjoined by one affirmation or negation; as, 'Plato was a philosopher: every angle is formed by two lines meeting: no man living on earth can be completely happy.' When there are ever so many ideas or terms in the sentence, yet if they are joined or disjoined merely by one single affirmation or negation, they are properly called but one proposition, though they may be resolved into several propositions which are implied therein, as will appear hereafter.

"There are three things which go to the nature and constitution of a proposition; namely, the subject, the predicate, and the copula.

"The subject of a proposition is that concerning which anything is affirmed or denied: So 'Plato, angle, man living on earth,' are the subjects of the foregoing propositions.

"The predicate is that which is affirmed or denied of the subject: so philosopher' is the predicate of the first proposition; formed by two lines meeting,' is the predicate of the second; 'capable of being completely happy,' the proper predicate of the

third.

"The subject and predicate of a proposition taken together, are called the matter of it; for these are the materials of which it is made.

"The copula is the form of a proposition; it represents the act of the mind affirming or denying, and it is expressed by the words, am, art, is, are, &c.; or am not, art not, is not, are not, &c.

The subject and predicate of a proposition, are not always to be known and distinguished by the placing of the words in the sentence, but by reflecting duly on the sense of the words, and on the mind or design of the speaker or writer: as if I say, In Africa there are many lions, I mean many lions are existent in

Africa: many lions' is the subject, and 'existent in Africa' is the predicate. It is proper for a philosopher to understand geometry: here the word 'proper' is the predicate, and all the rest is the subject, except is," the copula."

"But there are some propositions, wherein the terms of the subject and predicate seem to be the same; yet the ideas are not the same; nor can these be called pure identical or trifling propositions; such as, Home is home; that is, home is a convenient or delightful place; Socrates is Socrates still; that is, the man Socrates is still a philosopher; The hero was not a hero; that is, the hero did not show his courage; What I have written, I have written; that is, what I wrote I still approve, and will not alter it: What is done, is done; that is, it cannot be undone. It may be easily observed in these propositions the term is equivocal, for in the predicate it has a different idea from what it has in the subject."

3. To reason well, you must know how to express yourself in clear and intelligible language.

"As we are led into the knowledge of things by words, so we are oftentimes led into error, or mistake, by the use or abuse of words also. And in order to guard against such mistakes, as well as to promote our improvements in knowledge, it is necessary to acquaint ourselves a little with words and terms.

'Words (whether they are spoken or written) have no natural connexion with the ideas they are designed to signify, nor with the things which are represented in those ideas. There is no manner of affinity between the sounds white in English, or blanc in French, and that colour which we call by that name; nor have the letters, of which these words are composed, any natural aptness to signify that colour rather than red or green. Words and names therefore are mere arbitrary signs invented by men to communicate their thoughts or ideas to one another."

'Words and terms are either univocal or equivocal. Univocal words are such as signify but one idea, or at least but one sort of thing; equivocal words are such as signify two or more different deas, or different sorts of objects. The words book, bible, fish, house, elephant, may be called univocal words; for I know not that they signify anything else but those ideas to which they are generally affixed; but head is an equivocal word, for it signifies the head of a nail, or of a pin, as well as of an animal: nail is an equivocal word, it is used for the nail of the hand, or foot, and for an iron nail to fasten anything. Post is equivocal, it is a piece of timber, or a swift messenger. A church is a religious assembly, or the large fair building where they meet; and sometimes the same word means a synod of bishops, or of presbyters; and in some places it is the pope and a general council.

"Here let it be noted, that when two or more words signify the same thing, as wave and billow, mead and meadow, they are usually called synonymous words; but it seems very strange, that words, which are directly contrary to each other, should sometimes represent almost the same ideas; yet thus it is in some few instances: a valuable or an invaluable blessing; a shameful, or a shameless villain; a thick skull, or a thin-skulled fellow-a mere paper skull; a man of a large conscience, little conscience, or no conscience; a famous rascal, or an infamous one. So uncertain a thing is human language, whose foundation and support is custom. 'As words signifying the same thing are called synonymous, so equivocal words, or those which signify several things, are called homonymous, or ambiguous; and when persons use such ambiguous words with a design to deceive, it is called equivocation.'

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"In your own studies, as well as in the communication of your thoughts to others merely for their information, avoid ambiguous and equivocal terms as much as possible. Do not use such words as have two or three definitions of the name belonging to them; that is, such words as have two or three senses, where there is any danger of mistake. Where your chief business is to inform the judgment, and to explain a matter, rather than to persuade or affect, be not fond of expressing yourselves in figurative language, when there are any proper words that signify the same idea in their literal sense."

"When we communicate our notions to others, merely with a design to inform and improve their knowledge, let us, in the beginning of our discourse, take care to adjust the definition of names, wheresoever there is need of it; that is, to determine plainly what we mean by the chief words which are the subject of our discourse; and be sure always to keep the same ideas whensoever we use the same words, unless we give due notice of the change. This will have a very large and happy influence, in securing not only others, but ourselves too, from confusion and mistake; for even writers and speakers themselves, for want of due watchfulness, are ready to affix different ideas to their own words, in different parts of their discourses, and hereby bring perplexity into their own reasonings, and confound their hearers."

"In communicating your notions, use every word as near as possible in the same sense in which mankind commonly use it; or which writers that have gone before you have usually affixed to it, upon condition that it is free from ambiguity. Though names are in their original merely arbitrary, yet we should always keep to the established meaning of them, unless great necessity requires the alteration; for when any word has been used to signify an idea, that old idea will recur in the mind when the word is heard or read, rather than any new idea which we may fasten to it. And this is one reason why the received definition of names should be changed as little as possible."

4. To reason well, you must accustom yourself to observe the reasonings of others, whether in books or conversation, and try to improve your own by meditation and practice.

"Accustom yourselves to clear and distinct ideas, to evident propositions, to strong and convincing arguments. Converse much with those friends, and those books, and those parts of learning, where you meet with the greatest clearness of thought and force of reasoning. The mathematical sciences, and particularly arithmetic, geometry, and mechanics, abound with these advantages and if there were nothing valuable in them for the uses of human life, yet the very speculative parts of this sort of learning are well worth our study; for by perpetual examples they teach us to conceive with clearness, to connect our ideas and propositions in a train of dependence, to reason with strength and demonstration, and to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Something of these sciences should be studied by every man who pretends to learning, and that, as Mr. Locke expresses it, not so much to make us mathematicians, as to make us reasonable creatures.

"We should gain such a familiarity with evidence of perception and force of reasoning, and get such a habit of discerning clear truths, that the mind may be soon offended with obscurity and confusion then we shall, as it were, naturally and with ease restrain our minds from rash judgment, before we attain just evidence of the proposition which is offered to us and we shall with the same ease, and, as it were, naturally seize and embrace every truth that is proposed with just evidence.

"This habit of conceiving clearly, of judging justly, and of reasoning well, is not to be attained merely by the happiness of constitution, the brightness of genius, the best natural parts, or the best collection of logical precepts. It is custom and practice that must form and establish this habit. We must apply ourselves to it till we perform all this readily, and without reflecting on rules. A coherent thinker, and a strict reasoner, is not to be made at once by a set of rules, any more than a good painter or musician may be formed extempore, by an excellent lecture on music or painting. It is of infinite importance, therefore, in our younger years, to be taught both the value and the practice of conceiving clearly and reasoning right; for when we are grown up to the middle of life, or past it, it is no wonder that we should not learn good reasoning any more than that an ignorant clown should not be able to learn fine language, dancing, or a courtly behaviour, when his rustic airs have grown up with him till the age of forty."

PART II.

THE PRINCIPLES OF REASONING.

WE have now made some progress. We have gone through the first part of our book. We have considered the nature of reasoning-the subjects to which it is applied-its usefulness, and the dispositions and knowledge necessary to enable us to reason well.

We have ascertained that reasoning is that operation of the mind, whereby we infer one proposition from another proposition. It is obvious that there must be some connexion or relation between these two propositions. There must be a relation between the proposition containing the proof and the proposition which is to be proved. These relations are the foundation of all our reasonings. They are the principles on which we reason. There must be a relation between any doctrine, and the reasons we assign for believing that doctrine. There must be a relation between any act, and the reason we assign for performing that act. If we say,

Fire will burn,

Water will drown;

here are two independent propositions. They have no connexion with each other. We can infer nothing from them. If we say, Fire will burn, and therefore water will drown, we see at once that the reasoning is absurd. Both the facts are true, but there is no foundation for the word "therefore." One fact is not the cause of the other. But if we say, Fire will burn, and therefore do not approach it too nearly; water will drown, and therefore do not bathe in deep water, unless you can swim; here the reasoning is obvious. Here is a relation or connexion between the proposition and the inference.

The power or faculty by which the mind perceives these relations is called common-sense. We cannot explain