maturity of the human reason as applied to such objects. Every thing which went before might be more properly compared to the first imperfect attempts of childhood, or the essays of inexpert though promising adolescence. Whatever has been since performed, however great in itself, and worthy of so splendid and auspicious a beginning, has never, in point of intellectual effort, surpassed that astonishing one which produced the Principia."

I refer to this treatise with a strong feeling of interest, because it is evident from the observations on nomenclature, and on science generally, that Herschel's clear English mind duly estimates the importance of settled terms with settled meanings; and while he dwells on the necessity of having exact and uniform standards of measurement and value, his reader is set upon the inquiry into the nature and purposes of measures or tests. He who can perceive the importance of a proper use of words in physical science, must feel that importance also in metaphysical. Without it, in fact, we can have nothing worthy of the name of science. Sir John Herschel would probably

smile at the idea of mathematical science disqualifying for generalization and abstraction or any useful exercise of mind.

I have indulged in these references to Dugald `Stewart, Dr. Whately, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Sir John Herschel, with a view to place before the reader in an easy manner the different lights in which the same objects, or objects closely allied in nature and character, are presented to our attention, and the necessity of close and cautious investigation.

Now bearing in mind the foregone analysis of geometrical or demonstrative reasoning, in order to perceive its connexion with logic, it is necessary to understand what logic is. Is Dr. Whately right or wrong when he says the reasoning process is the same in all cases? If he is right, of course it follows that mathematical or geometrical reasoning is but one illustration or practical application of logic.

I am unable to attach any other consistent meaning to the term logic, than that it is another word the Greek word-for reasoning.

As a science it investigates the principles of reasoning, or analyses and determines the process of the mind in reasoning; as an art it is the practical application or exemplification of the rules so deduced. On this point nothing can be clearer and more satisfactory than Dr. Whately's observations in his preface and throughout his treatise.

Yet notwithstanding this clearness, and notwithstanding Dr. Whately's correction of the error of Watts in considering logic as "the right use of reason," "a method of invigorating and properly directing all the powers of the mind," a writer on logic in the edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica now in the course of publication, says, "Logic may be defined as the science of the laws of thought considered as thought. This is the central notion towards which the various views of the science, from Aristotle downwards, gravitate; it is the one definition in which others, apparently the most opposite, find their complement and reconciliation." Then, by way of elucidating this definition, the writer (whom from his use of the term laws, and the

epithets, contingent, necessary, universal, dirigible, and so on, I could suspect to be the Edinburgh reviewer already alluded to) proceeds to tell us, first, that logic is conversant about thought; in the second place, about thought considered as thought; and in the third place, it is the science of the laws of thought, because it is conversant about the universal and necessary in thought.

These are the remarks of a writer who comments on the erroneous definition of logic, in an article which the editor of the Encyclopædia has reprinted; an article which tells us that "Logic is the art of properly conducting reason in the knowledge of things, whether for instructing ourselves or others; or it may be defined the science of human thought, inasmuch as it traces the progress of knowledge; and that its business is to evolve the laws of human thought, and the proper manner of conducting the reason, in order to the attainment of truth and knowledge." And while the writer comments on this article, he further tells us that from Aristotle downwards the purity of the science

has been contaminated by foreign infusions. He speaks of Dr. Whately's Elements as vague and vacillating in its views, its doctrines neither being developed from the primary laws of thought, nor combined together as the essential parts of one necessary whole. In short, being desirous to make something more of a subject than has ever yet been made of it, and to see further into things than any one else has seen, he plunges into darkness and a wood of words,

"hunc tegit omnis

Lucus, et obscuris claudunt convallibus umbræ,"

or, like many of his brethren, he is so blinded by the mists of his own land that he cannot enjoy the cheerful sun and daylight loved by the children of the south; and when he is pleased to consider thought as thought, he forgets that no one in his senses was likely to mistake it for "cakes and ale." Indeed, but for the eminence to which the Encyclopædia Britannica aspires, and is in part deservedly raised as an authority in the sciences, he might be benevolently left to the condition and neglect in which the New