Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 1 (1853).djvu/12

iv Wherefore, while primarily connected with the laws of Thought, Logic is secondarily and practically allied to language as enunciative of Thought. To enter into the mental processes incident thereto, though so tempting a theme as already to have seduced many from the direct subject of the science, would far exceed the limits of this Introduction. We shall therefore content ourselves with a few observations upon the utility of the study connected with the Organon itself.

It is a quaint remark of Erasmus, that the human understanding, like a drunken clown lifted on horseback, falls over on the farther side the instant he is supported on the nearer; and this is the characteristic of human praise and censure. From an ignorant and exaggerated notion of its purport, Logic, instead of being limited to its proper sphere, was supposed commensurate with the whole investigation of abstract truth in relation to matter, cause, and entity,—in fact, the substance of a folio volume, describing every phase of human life, compressed into a few pages of Boethius and Aldrich. Thus, not having effected what nothing short of a miraculous expansion of the understanding could effect, it sunk into insignificance, until recently vindicated, and placed upon its proper footing, by Whately, Hansel, and others.

It is true that, whether viewed as an art or a science,