Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/79

Rh not its fundamental truths. And it is so in the purely mathematical sciences. An almost boundless diversity of theorems which are known, and an infinite possibility of others as yet unknown, rest together upon the foundation of a few simple axioms; and yet these are all general truths. They are truths which, to an intelligence sufficiently refined, would shine forth in their own unborrowed light, without the need of those connecting links of thought, those steps of wearisome and often painful deduction, by which the knowledge of them is actually acquired. Let us define as fundamental those laws and principles from which all other general truths of science may be deduced, and into which they may all be again resolved. Shall we then err in regarding that as the true Science of Logic which, laying down certain elementary laws, confirmed by the very testimony of the mind, permits us thence to deduce, by uniform processes, the entire chain of its secondary consequences, and furnishes, for its practical applications, methods of perfect generality? Let it be considered whether in any science, viewed either as a system of truth or as the foundation of a practical art, there can properly be any other test of the completeness and the fundamental character of its laws, than the completeness of its system of derived truths, and the generality of the methods which it serves to establish. Other questions may indeed present themselves. Convenience, prescription, individual preference, may urge their claims and deserve attention. But as respects the question of what constitutes Science in its abstract integrity, I apprehend that no other considerations than the above are properly of any value."—Laws of Thought, ch. i § 5.