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course ought to have its fource in the invariable nature of truth, and right; whereas the expreffion can derive its energy only from the arbitrary conventions of men, fources as unlike, or rather as widely different, as the breath of the Almighty and the duft of the earth. In every region of the globe, we may foon discover, that people feel and argue in much the fame manner, but the fpeech of one nation is quite unintelligible to another. The art of the logician is accordingly, in fome sense, universal, the art of the grammarian is always particular and local. The rules of argumentation laid down by Ariftotle, in his Analytics, are of as much ufe for the difcovery of truth in Britain or in China, as they were in Greece; but Prifcian's rules of inflection and conftruction, can affift us in learning no language but Latin. In propriety there cannot be fuch a thing as an univerfal grammar, unless there were fuch a thing as an univerfal language. The term hath fometimes, indeed, been applied to a collection of obfervations on the fimilar analogies that have been discovered in all tongues, ancient and modern, known to the authors of fuch collections. I do not mention this liberty in the use of the term with a view to cenfure it. In the appli

cation of technical or learned words, an author · hath greater scope, than in the application of those which are in more frequent use, and is only then thought cenfurable, when he expofeth himself to be misunderstood. But it is to my purpose to obferve, that as fuch collections convey the knowledge of no tongue whatever, the name grammar, when applied to them, is ufed in a fenfe quite different from that which it has in the common acceptation; perhaps as different, though the fubject be language, as when it is applied to a fyftem of geography.

Now the grammatical art hath its completion. in fyntax; the oratorical, as far as the body or expreffion is concerned, in ftyle. Syntax regards only the compofition of many words into one fentence; ftyle, at the fame time that it attends to this, regards further, the compofition of many fentences into one difcourfe. Nor is this the only difference; the grammarian, with respect to what the two arts have in common, the Atructure of fentences, requires only purity; that. is, that the words employed belong to the language, and that they be conftrued in the manper, and used in the fignification, which custom hath rendered neceffary for conveying the fenfe.

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The orator requires alfo beauty and ftrength. The highest aim of the former, is the loweft aim of the latter where grammar ends, eloquence begins.

Thus the grammarian's department bears much the fame relation to the orator's, which the art of the mafon bears to that of the architect. There is, however, one difference, that well deferves our notice. As in architecture it is not neceffary that he who defigns, fhould execute his own plans, he may be an excellent artist in this way, who would handle very awkwardly the hammer and the trowel. But it is alike incumbent on the orator, to defign and to execute. He must therefore be mafter of the language he speaks or writes, and must be capable of adding to grammatic purity, those higher qualities of elocution, which will render his difcourfe graceful and energetic.

So much for the connexion that fubfifts between rhetoric and thefe parent arts, logic and grammar.

CHAP.

CHAP. V.

Of the different fources of Evidence, and the different Subjects to which they are respectively adapted.

LOGI

OGICAL truth confifteth in the conformity of our conceptions to their archetypes in the nature of things. This conformity is perceived by the mind, either immediately on a ⚫ bare attention to the ideas under review, or mediately by a comparison of these with other related ideas. Evidence of the former kind is called intuitive; of the latter, deductive.

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OF intuitive evidence there are different forts. One is that which refults purely from intellection. Of this kind is the evidence of these propofitions,

• I have here adopted the term intellection rather than percep tion, because, though not fo ufual, it is both more appofite, and less equivocal. Perception is employed alike to denote every immediate object of thought, or whatever is apprehended by the mind, our fenfations themfelves, and thofe qualities in body, suggested by our fenfations, the ideas of these upon reflection,

H 4

whether

pofitions, One and four make five. Things equal to the fame thing, are equal to one another. The whole is greater than a part;' and in brief, all axioms in arithmetic and geometry. Thefe are in effect but fo many different expofitions of our own general notions, taken in different views. Some of them are no other than definitions, or equivalent to definitions. To say, ⚫ One and four make five,' is precifely the fame as to fay, We give the name five to one added to four.' In fact, they are all, in fome refpect, reducible to this axiom, Whatever is, is.' I do not fay, they are deduced from it, for they have in like manner that original and intrinfic evidence, which makes them, as foon as the terms are understood, to be perceived intuitively. And if they are not thus perceived, no deduction of reafon will ever confer on them any additional

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evidence. Nay, in point of time,

the discovery

of the lefs general truths has the priority, not from their fuperior evidence, but folely from

whether remembered, or imagined, together with thofe called general notions, or abftract ideas. It is only the last of these kinds which are confidered as peculiarly the object of the understanding, and which, therefore, require to be distinguished by a peculiar name. Obscurity arising from an uncommon word, is eafily furmounted, whereas ambiguity, by misleading us, ere we are aware, confounds our notion of the subject altogether.

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