OR THE ART OF REASONING SIMPLIFIED. IN THIS WORK REMARKS ARE MADE ON Entuitive and Deductive Evidence; DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN REASONING BY INDUCTION, ANALOGY, AND SYLLOGISM, ILLUSTRATED; THE Ancient and Modern Modes of Argumentation Contrasted, AND THE General Process of Reasoning, and its susceptibility of Improvement from Art stated. IT ALSO CONTAINS THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN Metaphysical, Moral, and Mathematical Demonstration, the Method of CLOSING WITH EXERCISES On a variety of interesting topics, to guide and develope the reasoning powers of the BY S. E. PARKER, AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLES PROSODY, QUANTITY, AND VERSIFICATION IN Robert Davis, Publisher. Philadelphia; WILLIAM STAVELY, PRINTER AND GENERAL AGENT, SOLD BY GEORGE & BYINGTON, CORNER OF CHESNUT AND FIFTH STS. Eduet 5337.37-670 MARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 1L OF EDUCATION Mar 31, 1924 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by REV. ROBERT DAVIS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. THAT man is an intelligent creature, or a being capable of receiving intelligence to an indefinite extent, is not only a well known and established fact, but also one which involves the most important consequences. This single attribute of human existence not only elevates man in the scale of being, constitutes him capable of unlimited improvement, and of communicating it to others, but at the same time, as to the discharge of his duties, grants him the privilege to increase not only his respectability, but also his usefulness to the society with which he is connected. Though, on the one hand, it would be impossible duly to appreciate a gift so inestimable, yet on the other, be it remembered, that there is nothing given to man, there is no talent with which he is endued, but what requires cultivation. Not only our corporeal but also our mental faculties, unless they have salutary exercise, are liable to decline. The body for want of it is liable to wane into the most lamentable state of langor and imbecility; and the mind, for reasons perfectly analogous, through the want of exercising the means, with which we are so abundantly privileged, becomes inert and capable of being not only deceived by others, but also irrevocably injured through our own neglect. It cannot for a single moment be doubted, that man, as a sentient, intelligent being, stands as a candidate for happiness. All men seek it, in one way or the other: a single exception would be a parodox in the history of humanity. According to the extent precisely of our mental vision, not only happiness on the one hand, is before us, until it prospectively rise into all the excellency of a prize whose value is ineffable, but also on the other, the risk of losing that at which all, in one way or the other aim, is felt with a vigilant sensibility that constitutes the best guarantee of success. Attention is an important act in the mind of man; when that is gained much is done, yet not all. Though the prospect of success, from attention, immediately rise above zero in the scale of expectancy, yet more is wanting. An object the most desirable may be proposed, yet information of the means of its attainment may be either wanting, or we are not possessed of the method of so connecting the several parts of that information together, as from thence to deduce a conclusion such, as shall infallibly lead to the attainment of the object desired. Hence man, though capable of intelligence, is fallible: but especially is that man fallible, who through want of attention, through neglect of information, and of the method of deriving correct and practical conclusions from the same, is as the field, which though capable of producing grain, wheat, and the most luxuriant fruits, remains, through want of culture, not only barren, but encumbered with the most noxious weeds. And happy indeed would it be, were this mere negative loss, this simple unproductiveness and sterility, all;-happy, in this case, would it be, were we warranted by truth and fact, to consider that this would be all the consequence; as if man, man to whom so much is given, could be irresponsible, when his sibility rises precisely in proportion to his intellectual superiority, and the privileges of which it is his indispensable duty to avail himself. respon It is no part of our present object to define what happiness is, for which we are all, in one way or the other, candidates; nor to say, from whence we are principally expecting it; whether in one, or in many ways. It is sufficient to affirm that we are all waiting for that, which questionless is the very fruition of our being, and whose loss renders it even desirable that that being had never existed. We are all either expecting it, in an OBJECT, purely intellectual, or perhaps we in viewing ourselves as members of a society, from whose interests we are not isolated, contemplate it, at least as to all its minor sources, divided into diverse branches of secular and civil polity. In each and in all these, and in all the various departments of human life, we are surrounded by various means of artifice and deception, and our security from their subterfuges, and the possibility of our ultimate attainment of intellectual excellency and happiness, entirely depend on the correct and successful culture of the inestimable talent with which we are endued, and the attentive and diligent use of the privileges with which we are so highly favored. TRUTH and ERROR stand so pre-eminently opposed to each other that nothing more than their simple juxta-position is requisite to indicate their immutable hostility. Truth implies and comprehends that which is of the highest importance to man: and the more accurate and ready our methods of detecting and exposing errors are, the more certain are we of being armed against the most fatal enemies not only to ourselves, but to the human family at large. Truth, one would imagine, is so remote from error, or so totally distinct from it, that every rational being, every one capable of discrimination, could need no Rule, no Art, no System, to assist him to separate the one from the other. Yet the experience, not of a day, nor yet of a life, but the history of centuries past, informs us that nothing is more imperatively needed than such Rule, Art, or System. However opposite the characters of Truth and Error may be, yet there is no fact in history more important and striking, than that man, notwithstanding his capability of intelligence and information, has not always distinguished the one from the other. The pages of history, the schisms in the church, the divisions in the schools, the countless tomes of controversy, the opposition of counsel at the bar, and the conflicts of party in politics, and even the very wars and bloodshed in which they have too often issued, all rise in voluminous testimony of this serious and melancholy fact. Error, however opposed to Truth, yet nevertheless may be so disguised, so diluted, so presented under the illusions of twilight or so mixed up with what is true, that unless we are possessed of the means to expose the counterfeit, the test to detect the ingredient that vitiates, we are liable to be deceived through semblances the most specious and imposing. Error is not inaptly compared to poison. In the extent of their destruction they may differ; the latter kills a few bodies, the former its thousand, its myriad souls. "Poison," observes one, "in its concentrated state, nauseates at once, but diluted it may deceive and destroy a city." Thus error exists, even in the present age, diluted, disguised, throughout the whole of human society, to an extent such, that on no subject, theological, political, philosophical, domestic, or foreign, can we find two men, that in all points agree: yet truth in each subject is only one, whilst error, sophistry, or the mistake of a figure in the calculation, may be multiplied, blended, and distorted to an extent indefinite, proportionate to the opacity in the mental vision, or to the means neglected to point out the fallacy and rectify the whole. That for ages past Error and Sophistry have imposed their destructive effects on myriads reputed rational, is one proof out of many, of the necessity of an aid, which unassisted nature does not ordinarily bestow. Even in the political department how often may it be observed, that one speaker advocates measures diametrically opposed to the other; and the address of each perhaps is so plausible, as to gain half the house. Are both right? Certainly not, perhaps neither, but, at least, half the house is deceived! and that half, if it prevail, will, on a vital question mislead the nation, and involve it in privation and suffering. Are there no means then of analyzing the address that contains the fallacy; no mode of discovering either the false premises assumed; or if they are right, of showing that the conclusion does not logically follow from them? there no fallacy, whether of composition, division, or accident, no begging the question, nor of building consequences on a mistaken one? Impossible; these, or one or more of them, must have been concealed, possibly even from the speaker himself, in one or the other of these orations. And the question yet remains, is there no means of more frequently and successfully exposing error, which in its whole extent may be justly pronounced to be, the most grievous curse that afflicts humanity. Was How does it happen that in matters which immediately affect our secular interest, or touch dishonestly our pocket, we provide laws and a vigilant police to detect the offender, that has practised on us to our injury, the artifices of deception, whilst in a thousand cases |