shall have proved that all thinking is comparison; nor need you be alarmed, Destrawney, at any nice distinctions of the sort, for to pass your examination it is not necessary to notice them at all. Remember this:

1. The term or concept is anything we can see or imagine. Our minds are stocked with concepts or terms formed in our earliest years. How came they there? Take an infant, hold a dog up to it, and the infant will recoil with a start of horror; it has experienced a mere undefined sensation of the presence of something strange, and therefore terrible. Repeat the operation daily, always taking care to accompany it with the word "bow-wow," and the child, from a comparison of the sensations, forms a concept, and associates these familiar sensations grouped into one idea with the name of "bow-wow," and if, after a time, you merely say "bow-wow," without introducing the dog, the child will manifest joy or terror according as it likes or dislikes the dog, proving that it has formed in its mind the concept or term dog, and can shut its eyes, so to speak, and see a dog though no dog is near. Thus, concepts are the results of the comparison of simple sensations and concepts expressed are terms. We gradually accumulate our concepts and distinguish one from another. As infants we had only a few under which to arrange all the objects that met our view. Papa, moo-cow, gee-gee, and bow-bow formed our stock,

then, and under one or other of these heads came every man and every animal we saw. Nor can we boast much now, for in botany, for instance, many of us have one vague concept, "plant," under which to arrange all the phenomena of that science, and in geology it is generally considered a sufficient reply to the question, "What is this?" if we say "A kind of rock."

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(2.) As the term or concept is a result of the comparison of simple sensations, so the proposition or judgment is a result of the comparison of terms or concepts, and henceforth we shall speak only of terms and propositions, having shown that they are identical with concepts and judgments. With propositions thought proper begins. It is true that terms are necessary to form propositions, but they do not by themselves constitute a thought. We cannot have a brace of birds without single birds; but single birds do not by themselves constitute a brace. Suppose our infant to have formed several terms-horse, book, house, sun, large, dry, tall, bright, &c.—and never to attempt to couple them together, but simply to repeat them singly, we should at once question its sanity, as being unable to attain to a thought, for, as we have said, man has an innate tendency to group together the like, and this is the origin of thought. We should exclaim impatiently, "Horse, horse, horse! What about it? What is the use of going on repeating

house, house, house-sun, sun, sun? If you repeat them from your birth to your death you will not have expressed a thought!" Thought begins when the child, having formed in one part, so to speak, of his mind a term-for instance, book, derived from observations in his father's library, &c., and in another part another term, for instance, "nasty," derived from sensations of medicine, chastisement, &c., couples the two together, and exclaims "Books are nasty." Thus propositions are the results of a comparison of terms.

(3.) Lastly, the syllogism is a result of the comparison of two propositions. When the child upon being told to open its spelling book says "nasty," and further, upon being asked why he thinks the book nasty, replies "all books are nasty," he has given utterance to a syllogism which in its full form would read "All books are nasty; this is a book; therefore it is nasty."

'We have traced, then, the gradual formation of the term from sensations, the proposition from terms, and the syllogism from propositions; and shown that they are all results of comparison; and these are the three parts of thought; they are also called (as we have seen) the forms of thought.

CHAPTER IX.

THE TERM.

'As thought,' resumed Mr. Practical, is divided into term, proposition, inference, so Logic, or the science of thought, is divided into three parts, under the heads of TERM, PROPOSITION, and INFERENCE; and you will find this analysis of the subject very useful.

I. The term.

1. Definition of term and various kinds of terms.

2. Connotation and denotation of terms.

II. The proposition.

1. Definition of proposition and various kinds of propositions. 2. The copula of a proposition.

3. Distribution of terms in a proposition.

4. Heads of predicables, or a list of the relations which the predicate of a proposition can bear to the subject.

5. Definition, or propositions expressing the connotation of a

term.

6. Division, or propositions expressing the denotation of a

term.

III. The inference or syllogism.1

1. Definition of inference and various kinds of inference.

2. Moods and figures.

3. Principles, laws, and canons of syllogism.

4. Reduction of syllogisms.

5. Trains of syllogisms.

6. Hypothetical syllogisms.

7. Probable reasoning.

8. The fallacies.

The third division, inference,' includes inductive inference as well as deductive inference, or the syllogism. But we are only now concerned with that part of inference called 'syllogism.'

If you learn this analysis and can give some account of each of the heads, your knowledge will be sufficient for the purpose in view. The analysis is taken from Mr. Fowler's "Deductive Logic," and I refer you to that work or to Mr. Jevons's "Logic " for information upon points that do not seem to require further explanation.'

'I hope,' said I, 'you will not leave us too much to our own reading, for somehow or other things seem to me to be put so difficultly in books.'

'I will do my best,' he continued; and first let us discuss the term. It comes from "terminus," or "boundary," because terms are the boundaries of propositions; for a term is defined as anything that may stand as the subject or predicate of a proposition. If a term is to express anything we can see or imagine, it is clear that we must give an exhaustive account of all things if we wish to enumerate terms. Now everything that we can see or think of must be a thing or a quality of thing; in other words, an individual or an attribute of an individual. Mention a few things, Destrawney.'

'A star, fair, whiteness, chair, Lexicon, beauty,' said I; fun, William, suicide.'

'Every one of these is either an individual or thing, or an attribute or quality; and you must content yourselves with these expressions, as the question as to "What is the meaning of thing?" is beyond the sphere of Logic.'