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_.

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.
