INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SCHEME. LOGIC is the art of using REASON* well in our enquiries after truth, and the communication of it to others, REASON* is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief emi- nences whereby we are raised above our fellow- creatures, the brutes, in this lower world. Reason, as to the power and principles of it, is the common gift of God to all men ; though all are not favoured with it by nature in an equal de- gree: but the acquired improvements of it in different men, make a much greater distinction between them than nature had made. I could even venture to say, that the " improvement of reason" bath raised the learned and the prudent in the European world, almost as much above the Hottentots, and other savages of Africa, as those savages are by nature superior to the birds, the beasts, and the fishes. Now the design of Logic is to teach us the right use of our reason, or in - tellectual powers, and the improvement of them in ourselves and others : this is not only necessary in order to attain any competent knowledge in the sciences, or the affairs of learning, but to govern both the greater and the meaner actions of life. It is the cultivation of our reason by which we are better enabled to distinguish good from evil, as well as truth from falsehood : and both these are matters of the highest importance, whether we regard this life, or the life to come. The pursuit and acquisition of truth is of infinite concernment to man- kind. Hereby we become acquainted with the nature of things both in heaven and earth, and their various relations to each other. It is by this means we discover our duty to God and our fellow - creatures: by this we ar- rive at the knowledge of iÓ natural religion," and learn to confirm our faith in " divine revelation," as well as to understand what is revealed. Our wisdom, prudence and piety, our present conduct and our future hope, are all influenced by the use of our rational powers in the search after truth. There are several things that make it very necessary that our reason should have some assistance in the exercise or use of it. This first is, the depth and difficulty of many truths, and the weakness of our reason to see far into things at once, and penetrate to the bottom of them. It was a saying among the ancients, Veritas in puteo, " Truth lies in a well ;" and, to carry on this metaphor, we may very justly say, that Logic does as it were, supply no with steps whereby we may go down to reach the water; or it frames the links of a chain, whereby we may draw the water up from the bottom. Thus, by the means of many reasonings well connected together, philosophers in our age have drawn a thousand truths out of the depths of darkness, which our fathers were utterly unacquainted with. Another thing that makes it necessary for our reason to have some assist_ * The word " reason" in this place is not confined to the mere faculty of reasoning, or inferring one thing from another, but includes all the intellectual (rowels of man,
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