NOTHING, we think, affords a more decisive proof of the oblique and partial spirit in which philosophy has been cultivated in Britain, for the last century and a half, than the combined perversion and neglect, which Logic-the science of the formal laws of thought-has experienced during that period. Since the time, and principally, we suspect, through the influence of Locke (who, as Leibnitz observed, "sprevit logicam non intellexit"), no country has been so poor in this department of philosophy, whether we estimate our dialectical literature by its mass or by its quality. Loth to surrender the subject altogether, yet unable, from their own misconception of its nature, to vindicate to logic, on the proper ground, its paramount importance, as a science a priori, distinct and independent: the few logical authors who appeared, endeavored, on the one hand, by throwing out what belonged to itself, of an unpopular and repulsive character, to obviate disgust; and, on the other, by interpolating what pertained to other branches of philosophy-here a chapter of psychology, there a chapter of metaphysic, &c.-to conciliate to the declining study a broader interest than its own. The attempt was too irrational to succeed; and served only to justify the disregard it was meant to remedy. This was to convert the interest of science with the interest of amusement: this was not to amplify logic, but to deform philosophy; by breaking down their boundaries, and running its several departments into each other.

In the Universities, where Dialectic (to use that term in its universality) once reigned "The Queen of Arts," the failure of the study is more conspicuously remarkable.

In those of Scotland the Chairs of Logic have for generations taught any thing rather than the science which they nominally profess-a science, by the way, in which the Scots have not latterly maintained the reputation once established by them in all,'

1 "Les Escossois sont bons Philosophes"-pronounced the Dictator of Letters.— (Scaligerana Secunda).-Servetus had previously testified to their character for logical subtility: "Dialecticis argutiis sibi blandiuntur." (Præf. in Ptolem. Geogr. 1533.) [My learned friend, Mr. James Broun of the Temple, shows me that the unhappy heretic had here only copied the words of Erasmus-a far higher authority. (Enc. Moria.)]-For a considerable period, indeed, there was hardly to be found a continental University of any note, without the appendage of a Scottish Professor of Philosophy [In the Key to Barclay's Satyricon, it is said of Cardinal Du Perron, under Henry IV.: 'Ejus solicitudine, in Gallia plures Scoti celebri nomine bonas artes professi sunt, quam in ipsa Scotia foventur et aluntur a Rege." Sir Thomas Urquhart is less euphuistic than usual, in his diction of the following passage: "There was a professor of the Scottish nation, within these sixteen years, in Somure, who spoke Greek with as great ease as ever Cicero did Latin, and could have expressed himself in it as well

and still retained in other departments of philosophy. To the philosophers, indeed, of our country, we must confess, that, in great part is to be attributed the prevalence of the erroneous notions on this subject promulgated by Locke.

1

No system of logic deserving of notice, in fact, ever appeared in Scotland; and for Scottish logical writers of any merit, we must travel back for more than two centuries to three contemporary authors, whose abilities, like those, indeed, of almost all the more illustrious scholars of their nation, were developed under foreign influence-to Robert Balfour, Mark and as promptly as in any other language, [Urquhart refers to Johannes Camero, the celebrated theologian--and as he himself calls him, the "bibliotheca movens"]; yet the most of the Scottish nation never having astricted themselves so much to the propriety of words as to the knowledge of things, [?] where there was one preceptor of languages among them, there were above forty professors of philosophy. Nay, to so high a pitch did the glory of the Scottish nation attaine over all the parts of France, and for so long a time together continued in that attained height, by vertue of an ascendant, the French considered the Scots to have, above all nations, in matter of their subtlety in philosophical disceptations, that there have not been, till of late, for these several ages together, any lord, gentleman, or other in all that country, who being desirous to have his son instructed in the principles of philosophy, would intrust him to the discipline of any other than a Scottish master; of whom they were no less proud than Philip was of Aristotle, or Tullius of Cratippus. And if it occurred, as very often it did, that a pretender to a place in any French university, having in his tender years been subferulary to some other kind of schooling, should enter into competition with another aiming at the same charge and dignity, whose learning flowed from a Caledonian source, commonly the first was rejected, and the other preferred; education of youth in all grounds of literature under teachers of the Scottish nation being then held by all the inhabitants of France to have been attended, cæteris paribus, with greater proficiency than any other manner of breeding subordinate to the documents of those of another country. Nor are the French the only men who have harboured this good opinion of the Scots in behalf of their inward abilities, but many times the Spaniards, Italians, Flemins, Dutch, Hungarians, Sweds, and Polonians, have testified their being of the same mind, by the promotions whereunto, for their learning, they, in all those nations at several times, have attained." (Jewel, 1652, Works, p. 258). As in literature and philosophy, so in war. Scots officers, in great numbers, and of distinguished merit, figured in the opposite armies of Gustavus and Ferdinand—especially of the former; yet the commandant of the Fort of Egra, and all the executioners or murderers of Wallenstein, were Scots-with a sprinkling of Irish-gentlemen. The Scots, too, were long the merchants of Poland, and the "traveling merchants," Anglice, peddlers, of Europe. On this, see "Hercules tuam fidem,” (1608, p. 125)—one of the squibs against Scioppius in the Scaligeran controversy.] 1 [“We find in La Logique, où art de discourir et raisonner of Scipio Dupleix, Royal Counselor, &c., a handsome eulogy of Balfour. The author declares that he draws his doctrine from Aristotle, and his most celebrated interpreters. 'Sur tous lesquels je prise M. Robert Balfor, gentilhomme Escossois, tant pour sa rare et profonde doctrine aux sciences et aux langues, que pour l'integrité de ses mœurs. Aussi luy doysje le peu de sçauoir que j'ay acquis, ayant eu l'honneur de jouir familierement de sa douce et vrayement philosophique conversation.' (Preface, f. 5.) Farther on, and in the body of the work (f. 25.), he calls 'M. Robert Balfor, le premier Philosophe de nostre memoire,' &c. This Logic of Dupleix is, with L'Organe of Philip Canaye, and the Dialectique of Ramus, one of the oldest treatises on this science written in French. It is a very competent analysis of the Organon. The third edition is of 1607; the first probably published at the close of the sixteenth century."-M. PEISSE.—MY

1

2

Duncan,' and William Chalmers, Professors in the Universities of Bordeaux, Saumur, and Anjou. In Cambridge the fortune of copy of Scipio Dupleix's Logic is of the second edition, "enlarged by the author," and in 1604. From the "Privilege," at the end, it appears that the first edition was of 1600. As M. Peisse remarks, it is an excellent work. Balfour's learned countryman and contemporary, Thomas Dempster, in his Historia Ecclesiastica (§ 209) speaks of him, as "sui seculi phoenix, Græce et Latine doctissimus, philosophus et mathematicus priscis conferendus," &c. &c.; and writing in Italy, he notices that Balfour was then (1627) living, having been for thirty years Principal of the College of Bourdeaux. Balfour's Cleomedes, edition and commentary are eulogized to the highest by Barthius and Bake; while his Council of Nice, and the notes, have gained him a distinguished reputation among theologians. His series of Commentaries on the Logic, Physics, and Ethics of Aristotle, were published at Bourdeaux, in 4°, and are all of the highest value. The second edition of that on the Organon appeared in 1620, and extends to 1055 pages. It is, however, a comparatively rare book, which may excuse subsequent editors and logicians for their ignorance of its existence.]

เ

1 [It is impossible to speak too highly of the five books of the Institutio Logica by Mark Duncan, Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine." The work, which extends only to about 280 octavo pages, was at least five times printed; the first edition ap pearing in 1612, at Saumur, for the use of that University, was republished at Paris, in the following year. It forms the basis of Burgersdyk's Institutiones Logica (Ley den, 1626), who had been Duncan's colleague in Saumur; and that celebrated logician declares that from it (speaking only of the first or unimproved edition), he had received more assistance than from all other systems of the science put together. In fact, Duncan's Institutions are, in many respects, better even than his own; and were there now any intelligent enthusiasm for such studies, that rare and little book would incon tinently be republished. I have not seen the author's Synopsis Ethica. Duncan, as physician, figures in the celebrated process of Urban Grandier and the Nuns of Laudun (1634). Medical practice seems indeed to have withdrawn him from philosophical speculation. James VI. nominated Duncan Physician Royal, and he would have transferred himself to London, but his wife and her family were averse from migrating "to a ferocious nation and an inclement sky." His elder brother, William, as Dempster assures us, "bonis artibus supra hoc seculum, et maxime Græcis literis ad miraculum imbutus,” was distinguished also as Professor of Philosophy and Physic in the schools of Tholouse and Montauban. His son, Mark also, but better known under the name of M. des Cerisantes, was a kind of Admirable Crichton; his life is more romantic than a romance. He obtained high celebrity as a Latin poet; for, though his pieces be few, they comprise what are not unjustly lauded, as the best imitations extant of Catullus. By him there is an elegiac address to his father, on the republication of the Logical Institution, in 1627. It is found also in the third, but not in the fourth, edition of that work; and it establishes, once and again, that the logician, then alive, was a native of Scotland, and not merely born of a Scottish grandfather in England:

"Ecce Caledoniis Duncanus natus in oris ;”

and addressing the book,

"Scotia cumprimis pernice adeunda volatu,
Namque patrem tellus edidit illa tuum."

Joseph Scaliger also testifies to the nativity of his friend Duncan, in Scotland, and apparently in the west of Scotland. Speaking of the Gaelic, he says: "qua in Scotia occidentalibus (unde Duncanus et Buchananus sunt oriundi) . utuntur." (Prima

Scaligerana, voce Britones). Scaliger, I may notice, had resided for some time in Scotland. Dr. Kippis (Biogr. Brit. V. 494.) states, on very respectable authority, that William and Mark were born in London, their father, Alexander, in Beverley. He is, however, wrong.]

* [The Disputationes Philosophica Gulielmi Camerarii Scoti, Congregationis Oratorii Domini Jesu Presbyteri (in folio, Paris, 1630, pp. 620), is a work of much learning, and of considerable acuteness. The first part is logical; but among other treatises

the study is indicated by the fact, that while its statutory teaching has been actually defunct for ages, the "Elements of Logic" of William Duncan of Aberdeen, have long collegially dispensed a muddy scantling of metaphysic psychology, and dialectic, in the University where Downam taught; while Murray's Compendium Logica, the Trinity College text-book, may show that matters are, if possible, at a lower pass in Dublin.

1

In Oxford, the fate of the science has been somewhat different, but, till lately, scarcely more favorable. And here it is necessary to be more particular, as this is the only British seminary where the study of logic proper can be said to have survived; and as, with one exception, the works under review all emanate from that University-represent its character-and are determined and modified by its circumstances. Indeed, with one or two insignificant exclusions, these works comprise the whole recent logical literature of the kingdom.

During the scholastic ages, Oxford was held inferior to no University throughout Europe; and it was celebrated, more especially, for its philosophers and dialecticians. But it was neither the recollection of old academical renown, nor any enlightened persuasion of its importance, that preserved to logic a place among the subjects of academical tuition, when the kindred branches of philosophy, with other statutory studies, were dropt from the course of instruction actually given. These were abandoned from no conviction of their inutility, nor even in favor of others of superior value: they were abandoned when the system under which they could be taught, was, for a private interest, illegally superseded by another under which they could not. When the College Fellows supplanted the University Professors, the course of statutory instruction necessarily fell with the statutory instruments by which it had been carried through. The same exten

of this author, I have not seen his Introductio ad Logicam (in octavo, Anjou, and of the same year). It is a curious illustration of the “ Scoti extra Scotiam agentes :" that there were five Camerarii, five Chalmerses; all flourishing in 1630; all Scotsmen by birth; all living on the Continent; and there, all Latin authors; viz., two Williams, two Davids, and one George. The preceding age shows several others.]

1 [I understand that William Duncan's Elements, and every other logical spectre, are now in Cambridge, even collegially, laid, and that mathematics are there at length left to supply the discipline which logic was of old supposed exclusively to afford. If, however, the "Philosophical Society of Cambridge" may represent the University, its Transactions are enough to show the wisdom of the old and statutory in contrast to the new and illegal, and that Coleridge (himself a Cantabrigian, and more than nominally a philosopher), was right in declaring " Mathematics to be no substitute for Logic." (See Athenæum, 24th August 1850, and Appendix II.)]

sive, the same intensive, education which had once been possitle when the work was distributed among a body of Professors, each chosen for his ability, and each concentrating his attention on a single study, could no longer be attempted, when the collegial corporations, a fortuitous assemblage of individuals, in so far as literary qualification is concerned, had usurped the exclusive privilege of instruction; and when each of these individuals was authorized to become sole teacher of the whole academical cyclopædia. But while the one unqualified Fellow-tutor could not perform the work of a large body of qualified Professors; it is evident that, as he could not rise and expand himself to the former system, that the present, existing only for his behoof, must be contracted and brought down to him. This was accordingly done. The mode of teaching, and the subjects taught, were reduced to the required level and extent. The capacity of lecturing, that is, of delivering an original course of instruction, was not now to be expected in the tutor. The pupil, therefore, read to his tutor a lesson out of book; on this lesson, the tutor might, at his discretion, interpose an observation, or preserve silence; and he was thus effectually guaranteed from all demands, beyond his ability or inclination to meet. This reversed process was still denominated a lecture. In like manner, all subjects which required in the tutor more than the Fellows' average of learning or acuteness, were eschewed. Many of the most important branches of education in the legal system were thus discarded; and those which it was found necessary or convenient to retain in the intrusive, were studied in easier and more superficial treatises. This, in particular, was the case with logic.

By statute, the Professor of Dialectic was bound to read and expound the Organon of Aristotle twice a week; and, by statute, regular attendance on his lectures was required from all undergraduates for their three last years. Until the statutory system was superseded, an energetic and improving exercise of mind from the intelligent study of the most remarkable monument of philosophical genius, imposed on all, was more especially secured in those who would engage in the subsidiary business of tuition. This, and the other conditions of that system, thus determined a far higher standard of qualification in the tutor, when the tutor was still only a subordinate instructor, than remained when he had become the exclusive organ of academical education. When, at last, the voice of the Professors was silenced in the University,