1. Various significations of the word "reason." The word reason in the English language has different
significations: sometimes it is taken for true and clear principles: sometimes for clear and fair
deductions from those principles: and sometimes for the cause, and particularly the final cause. But
the consideration I shall have of it here is in a signification different from all these; and that is, as it
stands for a faculty in man, that faculty whereby man is supposed to be distinguished from beasts,
and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them.
2. Wherein reasoning consists. If general knowledge, as has been shown, consists in a perception
of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas, and the knowledge of the existence of all things
without us (except only of a God, whose existence every man may certainly know and demonstrate
to himself from his own existence), be had only by our senses, what room is there for the exercise of
any other faculty, but outward sense and inward perception? What need it there of reason? Very
much: both for the enlargement of our knowledge, and regulating our assent. For it hath to do both
in knowledge and opinion, and is necessary and assisting to all our other intellectual faculties, and
indeed contains two of them, viz., sagacity and illation. By the one, it finds out; and by the other, it so
orders the intermediate ideas as to discover what connexion there is in each link of the chain,
whereby the extremes are held together; and thereby, as it were, to draw into view the truth sought
for, which is that which we call illation or inference, and consists in nothing but the perception of the
connexion there is between the ideas, in each step of the deduction; whereby the mind comes to
see, either the certain agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, as in demonstration, in which it
arrives at knowledge; or their probable connexion, on which it gives or withholds its assent, as in
opinion. Sense and intuition reach but a very little way. The greatest part of our knowledge depends
upon deductions and intermediate ideas: and in those cases where we are fain to substitute assent
instead of knowledge, and take propositions for true, without being certain they are so, we have
need to find out, examine, and compare the grounds of their probability. In both these cases, the
faculty which finds out the means, and rightly applies them, to discover certainty in the one, and
probability in the other, is that which we call reason. For, as reason perceives the necessary and
indubitable connexion of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in each step of any demonstration
that produces knowledge; so it likewise perceives the probable connexion of all the ideas or proofs
one to another, in every step of a discourse, to which it will think assent due. This is the lowest
degree of that which can be truly called reason. For where the mind does not perceive this probable
connexion, where it does not discern whether there be any such connexion or no; there men's
opinions are not the product of judgment, or the consequence of reason, but the effects of chance
and hazard, of a mind floating at all adventures, without choice and without direction.
3. Reason in its four degrees. So that we may in reason consider these degrees: four the first and
highest is the discovering and finding out of truths; the second, the regular and methodical
disposition of them, and laying them in a clear and fit order, to make their connexion and force be
plainly and easily perceived; the third is the perceiving their connexion; and the fourth, a making a
right conclusion. These several degrees may be observed in any mathematical demonstration; it
being one thing to perceive the connexion of each part, as the demonstration is made by another;
another to perceive the dependence of the conclusion on all the parts; a third, to make out a
demonstration clearly and neatly one's self; and something different from all these, to have first
found out these intermediate ideas or proofs by which it is made.
4. Whether syllogism is the great instrument of reason: first cause to doubt this. There is one thing
more which I shall desire to be considered concerning reason; and that is, whether syllogism, as is
generally thought, be the proper instrument of it, and the usefullest way of exercising this faculty.
The causes I have to doubt are these:--
First, Because syllogism serves our reason but in one only of the forementioned parts of it; and that
is, to show the connexion of the proofs in any one instance, and no more; but in this it is of no great
use, since the mind can perceive such connexion, where it really is, as easily, nay, perhaps better,
without it.
Men can reason well who cannot make a syllogism. If we will observe the actings of our own minds,
we shall find that we reason best and clearest, when we only observe the connexion of the proof,
without reducing our thoughts to any rule of syllogism. And therefore we may take notice, that there
are many men that reason exceeding clear and rightly, who know not how to make a syllogism. He
that will look into many parts of Asia and America, will find men reason there perhaps as acutely as
himself, who yet never heard of a syllogism, nor can reduce any one argument to those forms: and I
believe scarce any one makes syllogisms in reasoning within himself. Indeed syllogism is made use
of, on occasion, to discover a fallacy hid in a rhetorical flourish, or cunningly wrapt up in a smooth
period; and, stripping an absurdity of the cover of wit and good language, show it in its naked
deformity. But the weakness or fallacy of such a loose discourse it shows, by the artificial form it is
put into, only to those who have thoroughly studied mode and figure, and have so examined the
many ways that three propositions may be put together, as to know which of them does certainly
conclude right, and which not, and upon what grounds it is that they do so. All who have so far
considered syllogism, as to see the reason why in three propositions laid together in one form, the
conclusion will be certainly right, but in another not certainly so, I grant are certain of the conclusion
they draw from the premises in the allowed modes and figures. But they who have not so far looked
into those forms, are not sure by virtue of syllogism, that the conclusion certainly follows from the
premises; they only take it to be so by an implicit faith in their teachers and a confidence in those
forms of argumentation; but this is still but believing, not being certain. Now, if, of all mankind those
who can make syllogisms are extremely few in comparison of those who cannot; and if, of those few
who have been taught logic, there is but a very small number who do any more than believe that
syllogisms, in the allowed modes and figures do conclude right, without knowing certainly that they
do so: if syllogisms must be taken for the only proper instrument of reason and means of
knowledge, it will follow, that, before Aristotle, there was not one man that did or could know
anything by reason; and that, since the invention of syllogisms, there is not one of ten thousand that
doth.
Aristotle. But God has not been so sparing to men to make them barely two-legged creatures, and
left it to Aristotle to make them rational, i.e., those few of them that he could get so to examine the
grounds of syllogisms, as to see that, in above three score ways that three propositions may be laid
together, there are but about fourteen wherein one may be sure that the conclusion is right; and
upon what grounds it is, that, in these few, the conclusion is certain, and in the other not. God has
been more bountiful to mankind than so. He has given them a mind that can reason, without being
instructed in methods of syllogizing: the understanding is not taught to reason by these rules; it has
a native faculty to perceive the coherence or incoherence of its ideas, and can range them right,
without any such perplexing repetitions. I say not this any way to lessen Aristotle, whom I look on as
one of the greatest men amongst the ancients; whose large views, acuteness, and penetration of
thought and strength of judgment, few have equalled; and who, in this very invention of forms of
argumentation, wherein the conclusion may be shown to be rightly inferred, did great service against
those who were not ashamed to deny anything. And I readily own, that all right reasoning may be
reduced to his forms of syllogism. But yet I think, without any diminution to him, I may truly say, that
they are not the only nor the best way of reasoning, for the leading of those into truth who are willing
to find it, and desire to make the best use they may of their reason, for the attainment of knowledge.
And he himself, it is plain, found out some forms to be conclusive, and others not, not by the forms
themselves, but by the original way of knowledge, i.e., by the visible agreement of ideas. Tell a
country gentlewoman that the wind is south-west, and the weather lowering, and like to rain, and
she will easily understand it is not safe for her to go abroad thin clad in such a day, after a fever: she
clearly sees the probable connexion of all these, viz., south-west wind, and clouds, rain, wetting,
taking cold, relapse, and danger of death, without tying them together in those artificial and
cumbersome fetters of several syllogisms, that clog and hinder the mind, which proceeds from one
part to another quicker and clearer without them: and the probability which she easily perceives in
things thus in their native state would be quite lost, if this argument were managed learnedly, and
proposed in mode and figure. For it very often confounds the connexion; and, I think, every one will
perceive in mathematical demonstrations, that the knowledge gained thereby comes shortest and
clearest without syllogism.
Inference is looked on as the great act of the rational faculty, and so it is when it is rightly made: but
the mind, either very desirous to enlarge its knowledge, or very apt to favour the sentiments it has
once imbibed, is very forward to make inferences; and therefore often makes too much haste,
before it perceives the connexion of the ideas that must hold the extremes together.
Syllogism does not discover ideas, or their connexions. To infer, is nothing but by virtue of one
proposition laid down as true, to draw in another as true, i.e., to see or suppose such a connexion of
the two ideas of the inferred proposition. V.g. Let this be the proposition laid down, "Men shall be
punished in another world," and from thence be inferred this other, "Then men can determine
themselves." The question now is, to know whether the mind has made this inference right or no: if it
has made it by finding out the intermediate ideas, and taking a view of the connexion of them,
placed in a due order, it has proceeded rationally, and made a right inference: if it has done it
without such a view, it has not so much made an inference that will hold, or an inference of right
reason, as shown a willingness to have it be, or be taken for such. But in neither case is it syllogism
that discovered those ideas, or showed the connexion of them; for they must be both found out, and
the connexion everywhere perceived, before they can rationally be made use of in syllogism: unless
it can be said, that any idea, without considering what connexion it hath with the two other, whose
agreement should be shown by it, will do well enough in a syllogism, and may be taken at a venture
for the medius terminus, to prove any conclusion. But this nobody will say; because it is by virtue of
the perceived agreement of the intermediate idea with the extremes, that the extremes are
concluded to agree; and therefore each intermediate idea must be such as in the whole chain hath a
visible connexion with those two it has been placed between, or else thereby the conclusion cannot
be inferred or drawn in: for wherever any link of the chain is loose and without connexion, there the
whole strength of it is lost, and it hath no force to infer or draw in anything. In the instance above
mentioned, what is it shows the force of the inference, and consequently the reasonableness of it,
but a view of the connexion of all the intermediate ideas that draw in the conclusion, or proposition
inferred? V.g. "Men shall be punished"; "God the punisher"; "Just punishment"; "The punished
guilty"; "Could have done otherwise"; "Freedom"; "Self-determination"; by which chain of ideas thus
visibly linked together in train, i.e., each intermediate idea agreeing on each side with those two it is
immediately placed between, the ideas of men and self-determination appear to be connected, i.e.,
this proposition "men can determine themselves" is drawn in or inferred from this, "that they shall be
punished in the other world." For here the mind, seeing the connexion there is between the idea of
men's punishment in the other world and the idea of God punishing; between God punishing and the
justice of the punishment; between justice of punishment and guilt; between guilt and a power to do
otherwise; between a power to do otherwise and freedom; and between freedom and self-
determination, sees the connexion between men and self-determination.
The connexion must be discovered before it can be put into syllogisms. Now I ask, whether the
connexion of the extremes be not more clearly seen in this simple and natural disposition, than in
the perplexed repetitions, and jumble of five or six syllogisms. I must beg pardon for calling it
jumble, till somebody shall put these ideas into so many syllogisms, and then say that they are less
jumbled, and their connexion more visible, when they are transposed and repeated, and spun out to
a greater length in artificial forms, than in that short and natural plain order they are laid down in
here, wherein everyone may see it, and wherein they must be seen before they can be put into a
train of syllogisms. For the natural order of the connecting ideas must direct the order of the
syllogisms, and a man must see the connexion of each intermediate idea with those that it connects,
before he can with reason make use of it in a syllogism. And when all those syllogisms are made,
neither those that are nor those that are not logicians will see the force of the argumentation, i.e.,,
the connexion of the extremes, one jot the better. [For those that are not men of art, not knowing the
true forms of syllogism, nor the reasons of them, cannot know whether they are made in right and
conclusive modes and figures or no, and so are not at all helped by the forms they are put into;
though by them the natural order, wherein the mind could judge of their respective connexion, being
disturbed, renders the illation much more uncertain than without them.] And as for the logicians
themselves, they see the connexion of each intermediate idea with those it stands between, (on
which the force of the inference depends,) as well before as after the syllogism is made, or else they
do not see it at all. For a syllogism neither shows nor strengthens the connexion of any two ideas
immediately put together, but only by the connexion seen in them shows what connexion the
extremes have one with another. But what connexion the intermediate has with either of the
extremes in the syllogism, that no syllogism does or can show. That the mind only doth or can
perceive as they stand there in that juxta-position by its own view, to which the syllogistical form it
happens to be in gives no help or light at all: it only shows that if the intermediate idea agrees with
those it is on both sides immediately applied to; then those two remote ones, or, as they are called,
extremes, do certainly agree; and therefore the immediate connexion of each idea to that which it is
applied to on each side, on which the force of the reasoning depends, is as well seen before as after
the syllogism is made, or else he that makes the syllogism could never see it at all. This, as has
been already observed, is seen only by the eye, or the perceptive faculty, of the mind, taking a view
of them laid together, in a juxta-position; which view of any two it has equally, whenever they are laid
together in any proposition, whether that proposition be placed as a major or a minor, in a syllogism
or no.
Use of syllogism. Of what use, then are syllogisms? I answer, their chief and main use is in the
Schools, where men are allowed without shame to deny the agreement of ideas that do manifestly
agree; or out of the Schools, to those who from thence have learned without shame to deny the
connexion of ideas, which even to themselves is visible. But to an ingenuous searcher after truth,
who has no other aim but to find it, there is no need of any such form to force the allowing of the
inference: the truth and reasonableness of it is better seen in ranging of the ideas in a simple and
plain order: and hence it is that men, in their own inquiries after truth, never use syllogisms to
convince themselves or in teaching others to instruct willing learners. Because, before they can put
them into a syllogism, they must see the connexion that is between the intermediate idea and the
two other ideas it is set between and applied to, to show their agreement; and when they see that,
they see whether the inference be good or no; and so syllogism comes too late to settle it. For to
make use again of the former instance, I ask whether the mind, considering the idea of justice,
placed as an intermediate idea between the punishment of men and the guilt of the punished, (and
till it does so consider it, the mind cannot make use of it as a medius terminus,) does not as plainly
see the force and strength of the inference as when it is formed into a syllogism. To show it in a very
plain and easy example; let animal be the intermediate idea or medius terminus that the mind
makes use of to show the connexion of homo and vivens; I ask whether the mind does not more
readily and plainly see that connexion in the simple and proper position of the connecting idea in the
middle thus:
Homo--Animal--Vivens, than in this perplexed one,
Animal--Vivens--Homo--Animal: which is the position these ideas have in a syllogism, to show the
connexion between homo and vivens by the intervention of animal.
Not the only way to detect fallacies. Indeed syllogism is thought to be of necessary use, even to the
lovers of truth, to show them the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved
discourses. But that this is a mistake will appear, if we consider, that the reason why sometimes
men who sincerely aim at truth are imposed upon by such loose, and, as they are called, rhetorical
discourses, is, that their fancies being struck with some lively metaphorical representations, they
neglect to observe, or do not easily perceive, what are the true ideas upon which the inference
depends. Now, to show such men the weakness of such an argumentation, there needs no more
but to strip if of the superfluous ideas, which, blended and confounded with those on which the
inference depends, seem to show a connexion where there is none; or at least to hinder the
discovery of the want of it; and then to lay the naked ideas on which the force of the argumentation
depends in their due order; in which position the mind, taking a view of them, sees what connexion
they have, and so is able to judge of the inference without any need of a syllogism at all.
I grant that mode and figure is commonly made use of in such cases, as if the detection of the
incoherence of such loose discourses were wholly owing to the syllogistical form; and so I myself
formerly thought, till, upon a stricter examination, I now find, that laying the intermediate ideas
naked in their due order, shows the incoherence of the argumentation better than syllogism; not only
as subjecting each link of the chain to the immediate view of the mind in its proper place, whereby
its connexion is best observed; but also because syllogism shows the incoherence only to those
(who are not one of ten thousand) who perfectly understand mode and figure, and the reason upon
which those forms are established; whereas a due and orderly placing of the ideas upon which the
inference is made, makes every one, whether logician or not logician, who understands the terms,
and hath the faculty to perceive the agreement or disagreement of such ideas, (without which, in or
out of syllogism, he cannot perceive the strength or weakness, coherence or incoherence of the
discourse) see the want of connexion in the argumentation, and the absurdity of the inference.
And thus I have known a man unskilful in syllogism, who at first hearing could perceive the
weakness and inconclusiveness of a long artificial and plausible discourse, wherewith others better
skilled in syllogism have been misled: and I believe there are few of my readers who do not know
such. And indeed, if it were not so, the debates of most princes' councils, and the business of
assemblies, would be in danger to be mismanaged, since those who are relied upon, and have
usually a great stroke in them, are not always such who have the good luck to be perfectly knowing
in the forms of syllogism, or expert in mode and figure. And if syl ogism were the only, or so much
as the surest way to detect the fallacies of artificial discourses; I do not think that all mankind, even
princes in matters that concern their crowns and dignities, are so much in love with falsehood and
mistake, that they would everywhere have neglected to bring syllogism into the debates of moment;
or thought it ridiculous so much as to offer them in affairs of consequence; a plain evidence to me,
that men of parts and penetration, who were not idly to dispute at their ease, but were to act
according to the result of their debates, and often pay for their mistakes with their heads or fortunes,
found those scholastic forms were of little use to discover truth or fallacy, whilst both the one and the
other might be shown, and better shown without them, to those who would not refuse to see what
was visibly shown them.
Another cause to doubt whether syllogism be the only proper instrument of reason, in the discovery
of truth. Secondly, Another reason that makes me doubt whether syllogism be the only proper
instrument of reason, in the discovery of truth, is, that of whatever use mode and figure is pretended
to be in the laying open of fallacy, (which has been above considered,) those scholastic forms of
discourse are not less liable to fallacies than the plainer ways of argumentation; and for this I appeal
to common observation, which has always found these artificial methods of reasoning more adapted
to catch and entangle the mind, than to instruct and inform the understanding. And hence it is that
men, even when they are baffled and silenced in this scholastic way, are seldom or never
convinced, and so brought over to the conquering side: they perhaps acknowledge their adversary
to be the more skilful disputant, but rest nevertheless persuaded of the truth on their side, and go
away, worsted as they are, with the same opinion they brought with them: which they could not do if
this way of argumentation carried light and conviction with it, and made men see where the truth lay;
and therefore syllogism has been thought more proper for the attaining victory in dispute, than for
the discovery or confirmation of truth in fair inquiries. And if it be certain, that fallacies can be
couched in syllogism, as it cannot be denied; it must be something else, and not syllogism, that
must discover them.
I have had experience how ready some men are, when all the use which they have been wont to
ascribe to anything is not allowed, to cry out, that I am for laying it wholly aside. But to prevent such
unjust and groundless imputations, I tell them, that I am not for taking away any helps to the
understanding in the attainment of knowledge. And if men skilled in and used to syllogisms, find
them assisting to their reason in the discovery of truth, I think they ought to make use of them. All
that I aim at, is, that they should not ascribe more to these forms than belongs to them, and think
that men have no use, or not so full an use, of their reasoning faculties without them. Some eyes
want spectacles to see things clearly and distinctly; but let not those that use them therefore say
nobody can see clearly without them: those who do so will be thought, in favour of art (which,
perhaps, they are beholden to,) a little too much to depress and discredit nature. Reason, by its own
penetration, where it is strong and exercised, usually sees quicker and clearer without syllogism. If
use of those spectacles has so dimmed its sight, that it cannot without them see consequences or
inconsequences in argumentation, I am not so unreasonable as to be against the using them. Every
one knows what best fits his own sight; but let him not thence conclude all in the dark, who use not
just the same helps that he finds a need of.
5. Syllogism helps little in demonstration, less in probability. But however it be in knowledge, I think I
may truly say, it is of far less, or no use at all in probabilities. For the assent there being to be
determined by the preponderancy, after due weighing of all the proofs, with all circumstances on
both sides, nothing is so unfit to assist the mind in th