advanced in its favour; and that you must weigh these arguments, and see which side preponderates. Logic will teach you that after having done this, you must be ready to admit any new facts or arguments that may appear on either side of the question. In these various ways a knowledge of the art of reasoning will be useful to yourself. By thus examining the reasons for your opinions you will soon learn to distinguish between good reasons and bad ones. You will get into the practice of using good reasons and discarding bad ones. You will thus acquire the habit of reasoning well, and when assailed with bad reasons you will know how to refute them. II. The Art of Reasoning is useful in teaching us how to give instruction and advice to others. You will have occasion to give instruction or advice to others. You will often have occasion to do this in your family. But, besides, you may be a director in a public company, or on the committee of a charitable institution, or may be consulted by your friends in cases of emergency. In all these positions it is desirable you should be able to give good advice, and to enforce it by reasonable considerations. You know that the counsel of Ahithophel was so highly esteemed that it was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God, (2 Sam. xvi. 23,) and doubtless you have known men who, though not gifted with eloquence or talent, have yet been so remarkable for soundness of judgment that they have been treated with universal respect. If you accustom yourself to reason well when forming your own opinions, you will insensibly acquire the habit of reasoning well when stating those opinions to other people. III. The Art of Reasoning is useful by enabling us to defend our own principles against the attacks of opponents, and to give them currency in the world. You may have to defend your opinions against the attacks of those who hold contrary opinions. You must not hesitate to do this when the cause of truth or of justice requires it. When your own character or that of your friends, or your political or religious principles are assailed, you are bound to make resistance, and it will be useful to be able to do it well. The political and religious differ ences that exist among mankind are by no means to be deplored as unmingled evils. They serve to awaken the nobler feelings of the soul, and to maintain attention to principles that might otherwise be forgotten. They stimulate the intellectual powers, and impart an energy to all the faculties and to all the operations of the mind. To engage in controversy does not imply that you are to vituperate the person, misrepresent the opinions, or calumniate the character of your opponents. You will be less liable to fall into these practices if you understand the art of reasoning. You will then have no occasion for these ignoble weapons.-You will be conscious that the force of truth and the power of logic will have much greater effect in defeating your antagonists. "A dispute," says Mr. Robinson, "is an oral controversy, and a controversy is a written dispute. To controvert or dispute a point, either by word or writing, is only to agitate a question in order to obtain clear ideas of it. Can it be admitted that religion does not admit of this? The whole of the Jewish religion was a controversy against heathenism. The writings of prophets are eminently argumentative. The book of Job is a controversy. St. Paul's Epistles are most of them controversial. The Apostles arrived at truth by means of much disputing among themselves (Acts xv. 7.) And they convinced the Jews and the Gentiles by disputing with both. (Acts xvii. 17; xix. 8.) Every article of religion is denied by some, and cannot be believed without examination and discussion by any. Religion authorizes us to investigate, debate, dispute, and controvert each article, in order to ascertain its evidence."* IV. The Art of Reasoning is useful by strengthening the memory and systematizing our knowledge :— Memory may be wonderfully strengthened," says Sidney Smith, "by referring single facts and observations to one simple principle, and by these means we can either remember the principle by remembering the fact, or the fact by remembering the principle. Thus, if we were to prove that democracy leads to despotism, we may refer to Julius Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte. France has fallen under the dominion of a single man, so did Rome, so have innumerable free countries: the cause in many instances has been precisely the same that anarchy which has been produced by the licentiousness of the people, and which has *Notes to Claude's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon. rendered them an easy prey to the first ambitious man who could ingratiate himself with the army. Such examples are very trite, and what may occur to any one. I only mention them to illustrate the importance of philosophical arrangement to memory, and to show how much more likely facts are to reappear when we want them, if we have clustered numbers of them together as illustrative of a simple principle, than if they are promiscuously scattered through the understanding without any such connecting tie."* V. The Art of Reasoning is useful by tending to prevent those evils that arise from the passions or the imagination obtaining an ascendancy over the judgment. "The registers of the Bicêtre, for a series of years, show that even when madness affects those who belong to the educated classes, it is chiefly seen in those whose education has been imperfect or irregular, and very rarely indeed in those whose minds have been fully, equally, and systematically exercised. Priests, artists, painters, sculptors, poets, and musicians, whose professions so often appear marked in that register, are often persons of very limited or exclusive education; their faculties have been unequally exercised; they have commonly given themselves up too much to imagination, and have neglected comparison, and have not habitually exercised the judgment. Even of this class it is to be remembered that it is commonly those of the lowest order of the class, in point of talent, who become thus affected: whilst of naturalists, physicians, chemists, and geometricians, it is said not one instance occurs in these registers. If one go from individual to individual in any lunatic establishment, and investigate the character and origin of the madness of each, we shall find for every one who has become insane from the exercise of his mind, at least a hundred have become insane from the undue indulgence of their feelings. Those men who really most exercise the faculties of their minds, meaning thereby all their faculties, their attention, reflection, or comparison, as well as their imagination and memory, are least liable to insanity. An irregular and injudicious cultivation of poetry and painting has often concurred to produce madness, but nothing is rarer than to find a mad mathematician: for, as no study demands more attention than mathematics, so it secures the student, during a great part of his time, from the recurrence of feelings which are always the most imperious in those who are the least occupied." + VI. The Art of Reasoning is useful, as it will not only give method and system to our own habits, but it will by Elementary sketches of Moral Philosophy. + On Man's Power over himself to prevent or control Insanity. (Pickering.) the force of example, enforce corresponding modes of thinking and acting on those around us. And thus their reasonings will often be useful in return to ourselves : It is useful to a husband to have a logical wife. "But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burntoffering and a meat-offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these."-Judges xiii. 21-23. It is useful to a wife to have a logical husband. "Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"-Job ii. 9, 10. It is useful to a master to have logical servants. "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper... So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.' 2 Kings v. 1, 9-14. It is useful to servants to have a logical master. وو "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”—John xiii. 13-15. It is useful to public bodies to have logical advisers. "Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; and said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."-Acts v. 34-39. : : "And when the town-clerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter? Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another. But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. For we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse. And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly."Acts xix. 35-41. It is useful to religion to have logical advocates. "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."-Acts xvii. 28, 29. "Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses : as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, |