Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.7

1192 LOGIC: OR, THE RIGHT PEE OE REASON. view, as God sees all things at once; therefore we must, as it were, take it to pieces, and consider of the parts separately, that we may have a more complete conception of the whole. So if I. would learn the nature of a watch ; the workman takes it to pieces' and shows me the spring, the wheels, the axles, the pinions, the balance, the dial. plate, the pointer, the case, 8fc. and describes each of these things to me apart, together with their figures and their uses. If I would know what an animal is, the anato- mist considers the head, the trunk, the limbs, the bowels, apart from each other, and gives me distinct lectures upon each ofthem. So a kingdom is divided into its several provinces ; a book into its several chapters, and any science is divided according to the several subjects of which it treats. 'Phis is what we properly call the division of an idea which is an explication of the whole by its several parts, or an enumer- ation of the several parts, that go to compose any whole idea, and to render it complete. And I think when the man is divided into body and soul, it properly comes under this part of the doctrine of integral division, as well as when the mere body is divided into head, trunk, and limbs : this division is sometimes called partition. When any of the parts of an idea, are yet farther divided in order to a clear explication of the whole, this is called a subdivi- sion; as when a year is divided into months, each month into days and each day into hours, which may also be farther subdi- vided into minutes and seconds. It is necessary, in order to the fall explication of any being, to consider each part, and the properties of it, distinct by itsc j; as well as in its relation to the whole : for there are many pro- perties that belong to the several parts of a being which cannot properly be ascribed to the whole, though these properties may fit each part for its proper station, and as it stands in that relation to the whole complex being : as in a house, the doors are move- able, the rooms square, the cielings white, the windows transparent, yet the house is neither moveable, nor square, nor white, nor transparent. The special Rules of a good Division are these: I. " Each part singly taken must contain less than the whole, but all the parts taken collectively (or together) must comain neither more nor less than the whole." Therefore if in discours- ing of a tree you divide it into the trunk and leaves, it is an im- perfect division, because the root and the branches are needful to make up the whole. So Logic would be ill divided into appre- hension, judgment and reasoning ; for method is a considerable part of the art which teaches us to use our reason right, and should by no means be omitted.

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=