with as much plausibility as possible, to form a system which he conceives calculated to explain the phenomena in question. The inductive reasoner collects with care the phenomena that lead to a particular conclusion, and compares them with those that seem to contradict or to limit it. He observes the circumstances on which every phenomenon depends, and carefully distinguishes each from that which is accidentally conjoined with it. He puts natural bodies in various situations, and applies them to one another in various ways, in order to observe the effect. An extensive knowledge of the course of nature is thus acquired in a short time; he has been able to observe that certain things have always happened in certain circumstances, and that certain bodies have always been found to have the same properties. From these matters of fact attested by sense, memory, and testimony, he is enabled to draw the most important conclusions, and to form such general rules as constitute true science.

The hypothetical mode of reasoning prevailed in the world for many centuries. The inductive mode was introduced by Bacon, and successfully followed up by Newton; and to its general adoption by succeeding philosophers is to be ascribed the rapid progress of philosophy in modern times.

Of Propositions and Syllogisms.

A PROPOSITION is a sentence in which one thing is affirmed or denied of another; the thing affirmed or denied is called the predicate, the thing of which it is affirmed or denied is called the subject; and these are called the terms of the proposition. "Literature is the fairest test of mental ability," is a proposition in which literature is the subject, and the rest of the sentence the predicate.

Logicians have generally considered propositions as affirmative or negative, universal or particular; but as a multiplicity of distinctions is always embarrassing, and tends little to our real knowledge, it seems unnecessary, in the present instance, to do more than name them.

A syllogism is an argument or reasoning consisting of three propositions; the last is called the conclusion, and is inferred from the two first, which are called the premises. The following is an example of a syllogism:

No work of God is bad;

The natural passions and appetites
Of men, are the work of God;
Therefore none of them is bad.

Of the various modes and figures of syllogism, it

is not my intention to treat. Though for nearly two thousand years the syllogistic art was much and generally cultivated, it seems but ill-adapted to the improvement of science, and is now deservedly treated with neglect. The following passage from the writings of Dr. Reid, shews in what estimation it was held by that eminent philosopher.

"The slow progress of useful knowledge, during the many ages in which the syllogistic art was most highly cultivated as the only guide to science, and its quick progress since that art was disused, suggest a presumption against it; and this presumption is strengthened by the puerility of the examples which have always been brought to illustrate its rules."

In the following lines, Butler, with his usual wit, notices the futile nature of that logic which for many centuries engrossed so much the attention of the learned. In enumerating the rare qualifications of his hero sir Hudibras, he informs us, that,

"He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skilled in analytic;
He could distinguish and divide

A hair, 'twixt south and south-west side;

On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;

He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl;
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees:
He'd run in debt by disputation,

And pay with ratiocination:

All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure he would do."

Though it is thus admitted, that little advantage is to be derived from syllogism, let it not be imagined, that the art of reasoning in general is useless, or that it is incapable of being highly improved. When the mind of man is employed in investigating any subject, with which he is desirous of becoming acquainted, and from known facts or circumstances deduces the existence of what he could not otherwise have discovered, it is an exercise in the highest degree interesting and improving. Of its beneficial results we have in our language many admired specimens.

Of Classification.

The objects of our knowledge are innumerable; and were we, in our reasonings and observations concerning them, obliged to know them individually, our conclusions would be few, limited, and useless.

But we are so constituted, that we naturally arrange or group together those objects, in which we discover, or imagine that we discover, similar properties, and the objects so arranged form what we call classes. These are again subdivided into sorts that have a greater number of qualities in common; thus, all the objects in the universe, which it is possible for us to know, pass in review before us, and we are enabled to form all those general reasonings that constitute science.

Every object of human knowledge is either material or intellectual: this classification is the most extensive that can be made, and each part of it, especially the former, may be subdivided without end. The globe which we inhabit, the materials of which it consists, its various produce and the beings it sustains, are all comprehended in the divisions of mineral, vegetable, and animal. The last of these may be subdivided into beast, bird, reptile, insect, &c., and each of these may form a variety of more limited species. What is true of a genus is true of a species; and what is true of a species, is true also of the individuals of which it is composed. The mind accustomed to observe the peculiarities in which several objects agree or in which they differ, gradually acquires an