I. judgment with which it has been conducted; CHAP. Wondrous to tell! instinct with spirit, roll'd In the New Analysis, 35 I observe that Aris- Answer totle's logic has been strangely perplexed by tion 4. to objecmistranslating a sentence highly perspicuous. According to this sentence, one term is said to be contained in another, when the second can be predicated of the first in the full extent of its meaning; and one term is predicated of another in the full extent of its meaning, when there is not any particular denoted by the subject to which the predicate does not apply. Dr. Reid, on the contrary, following the ordinary misinterpretations, tells us that the being in a subject, and the being truly predicated of a subject, are used by Aristotle, in his Analytics, as synonimous phrases. 37 But the truth is, that these phrases are so far from being used as synonimous, 34 Iliad viii. 35 P. 71. 36 s6 Analyt. Prior. l. i. c. i. p. 134. edit. Buhle, and c. iv. p. 140. 37 Kames's Sketches, vol. iii. p. 316. D CHAP. that the meaning of the one is directly the I. reverse of the meaning of the other. Upon this criticism of mine, Mr. S. observes, "While I readily admit the justness of this criticism on Dr. Reid, I must take the liberty of adding, that I consider Reid's error as a mere slip of the pen. That he might have accused Aristotle of confounding two things, which, though different in part, had yet a certain degree of resemblance or affinity, is by no means impossible: but it is scarcely conceivable, that he should be so careless as to accuse him of confounding two things which he invariably states in direct opposition to each other." 38. I commend Mr. S. for his zeal in the defence of his adopted guide in philosophy, and of so wise and good a man, as from personal acquaintance, I knew Dr. Reid to be. But the defence is rendered altogether ineffectual by the words of Dr. Reid himself, who subjoins, "Aristotle's distinction between the phrases being in a subject, and being said of a subject,' in the Categories,' have led some writers to conclude that the Categories' were not written by Aristotle."39 Dr. Reid's mistake, therefore, being a matter of deliberation, could not proceed from a mere slip of the pen; it runs through the rest of his work, and sometimes becomes the cause of his speaking with much disrespect of the author, whose work he professes to illustrate.40 For this task, Dr. Reid possessed 28 Elements of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 268. $9 See Kames's Sketches, as above. 3 40 Kames's Sketches, vol. iii. p. 564. Comp. New Analysis, p. 84. I. many requisites; patience, candour, learning, CHAP. and science. What he wanted was a deeper and more intimate acquaintance with Aristotle's writings. He adopted such erroneous accounts of them as, for reasons above given, had been generally received"; and was contented with the Latin version, instead of critically examining the Greek text. Even in the latest version of all, that of the laborious and learned Theophilus Buhle, I find the same radical error that I had previously detected in Dr. Reid. 42 5. on the induction. The following animadversion is also founded Answer to entirely on a mistranslation, and one that could objection not have been easily committed by any person subject of at all conversant with Aristotle's works. It relates to a most important subject, that of induction, the direct primary source of all our knowledge. Mr. S. dwells on this subject in all his volumes, comparing, and, as he thinks, contrasting the induction of Aristotle with that of Lord Bacon, for the declared purpose of proving the great superiority of the latter. It does not appear, however, that he has thought it worth while to peruse the problems, the mechanical questions, the various treatises on the affections of brute or organised matter; above all, the original and most accurate inquiries into sensation, memory, fancy, reminiscence, and intellect, in all of which Aristotle's reasonings are inductions 41 I say this not merely from his account of the Organum in Kames's Sketches, but from his Inquiry into the Human Mind. See particularly chap. vii. p. 366. et seq. 3d edit. 42 Unum in toto esse altero, et unum de omni altero prædicari. idem est. Buhle, vol. ii. p. 87. Beponti, 1793. I. CHAP. from observation, and from experience in its largest sense, accompanied often with those distinctions, exceptions, and exclusions, so strongly and so justly recommended by Lord Bacon. 43 Without entering into this boundless field, it will better answer the purpose of a discourse aiming at all possible perspicuity, to borrow my illustration from geometry, the clearest of all sciences. From this it will appear, that Mr. S. mistakes what he calls Aristotle's induction, and that his mistake is occasioned by an erroneous translation. "Dr. Wallis 44," he says, 66 justly observes, that inductions are of frequent use in mathematical demonstration; in which, after enumerating all the possible cases, it is proved, that the proposition in question is true of each of these considered separately; and the general conclusion is thence drawn, that the theorem holds universally. Thus, if it were shown, that, in all right-angled triangles, the three angles are equal to two right angles, and that the same thing is true in all acute-angled, and also in all obtuse-angled triangles; it would necessarily follow, that in every triangle the three angles are equal to two right angles; these three cases manifestly exhausting all the possible varieties of which the hypothesis is susceptible." For introducing this passage from Wallis, Mr. Stewart says, "his motive was to correct an idea which, it is not impossible, may have contributed to mislead some of Wallis's readers. As 43 See the Novum Organum. 44 Stewart's Elements, vol. ii. p. 347. I. the professed design of the treatise in question CHA P. was to expound the logic of Aristotle, agreeably to the views of its original author; and as all its examples and illustrations assume as truths the Peripatetic tenets, it was not unnatural to refer to the same venerated source, the few incidental reflections with which Wallis has enriched his work. Of this number is the foregoing remark, which differs so widely from Aristotle's account of mathematical induction, that I was anxious to bring the two opinions into immediate contrast. The following is a faithful translation from Aristotle's own words: "If any person were to show, by particular demonstrations, that every triangle, separately considered, the equilateral, the scalene, and the isosceles, has its three angles equal to two right angles, he would not therefore know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, except after a sophistical manner. Nor would he know this as an universal property of a triangle, though besides these, no other triangle can be conceived to exist, for he does not know that it belongs to it qua triangle: nor that it belongs to every triangle, excepting in regard to number; his knowledge not extending to it as a property of the genus, although it is impossible that there should be an individual which that genus does not include." After giving this unintelligible translation from the clearest of all writers, Mr. Stewart proceeds to remark; "For what reason Aristotle should have thought of applying to such an induction as this the epithet sophistical, it is difficult to |