The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms ----I mean in man--for in superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits----'tis all done, may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION; --and beings inferior, as your worships all know----syllogize by their noses: though there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and oft-times to make very well out too: ------but that's neither here nor there------
The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us, or--the great and principal act of ratiocination in man, as logicians tell us, is the finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with another, by the intervention of a third (called the _medius terminus_); just as a man, as _Locke_ well observes, by a yard, finds two men's nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, which could not be brought together, to measure their equality, by _juxta-position_.
Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle _Toby's_ deportment--what great attention he gave to every word--and as oft as he took his pipe from his mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of it----surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his thumb------then fore-right------then this way, and then that, in all its possible directions and foreshortenings------he would have concluded my uncle _Toby_ had got hold of the _medius terminus_, and was syllogizing and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in order, as my father laid them before him. This, by the bye, was more than my father wanted----his aim in all the pains he was at in these philosophick lectures--was to enable my uncle _Toby_ not to _discuss_----but _comprehend_----to _hold_ the grains and scruples of learning----not to _weigh_ them. ----My uncle _Toby_, as you will read in the next chapter, did neither the one or the other.
The gift of reasoning and deduction - I mean in man, not in superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits - but inferior beings, as your worships all know, syllogize by their noses.
The gift of syllogising, or reasoning, logicians tell us, is the finding out the agreement or disagreement of two ideas with one another, by the intervention of a third idea (called the medius terminus); just as a man, as Locke observes, uses a yardstick to find two nine-pin-alleys to be of the same length, although they could not be brought next to each other to compare.
Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle Toby's deportment - what great attention he gave to every word - and with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated his pipe, holding it this way and that - he would have concluded that my uncle Toby had got hold of the medius terminus, and was comparing and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, as my father laid them before him.
This, by the bye, was more than my father wanted - his aim in these lectures was not to enable my uncle Toby to discuss, but to comprehend; - to hold the grains of learning - not to weigh them. My uncle Toby, as you will read in the next chapter, did neither.