I grant that mode and figure is commonly made use
of in such cases, as if the detection of the incoherence
of such loose dbcourses were wholly owing to the
syllogistical form ; and so I myself formerly thought,
till upon a stricter examination I now find, that lay^
ing the intermediate ideas naked in their due order
shows the incoherence of the argumentation better
than syllogism; not only as subjecting each link of
the chain to the immediate view of the mind in its
proper place, whereby its connexion is best observed ;
but also because syllogism shows the incoherence only
to those (who are not one of ten thousand) who per-
fectly understand mode and figure, and the reason
upon which those forms are established : whereas a
due and orderly placing of the ideas upon which the
inference is made makes every one, whether logician
or not logician, who understands the terms, and hath
the faculty to perceive the agreement or disagree-
ment of such ideas (without which, in or out of syllo-
gism, he cannot perceive the strength or weakness,
coherence or incoherence of the discourse) see the



Digitized by VjOOQIC



124 ReascM. Book 4.
wimt of coimexion in the argumrafation^ and the Ab-
surdity of the inference.
