none acquainted with antiquity will deny, how great a secret soever modern divines may make of it, that as polite scholars (which is the thing their despisers now most affect to value) the Christian writers have indisputably the advantage, both in eloquence and ethics. And we may venture to say that there are some of them who have successively rivaled the best writers of the higher and purer antiquity. St. Chrysostome has more good sense than Plato; and the critic may find in Lactantius almost as many good words as in Tully. So that if, on the principles of a classical taste, we discard the fathers, we should send along with them the Pagan writers of the same ages; unless the wonderful theology of the latter can atone for (what they both have in common) their false rhetoric and bad reasoning.

These imperfections, therefore, in both, being equal, it is plain they were the faults of the times. For whatever advantages the ancients had over us in the arts of poetry, oratory, and history, it is certain, we have over them in the science of reasoning, as far as it concerns the investigation of moral truth.

Those who are not able to form a comparison between them, on their own knowledge, may be reconciled to this conclusion, when the peculiar hindrances, in the ancient world, to the advancement of moral truth, on the principles of a just logic, have been laid before them.

The cultivation of the art of reasoning was, in the most early times of learning, in the hands of their ORATORS and SOPHISTS. Whatever was the profession, the real business of the orator was not to convince, but to persuade; and not in favour of truth, but of convenience or utility: which, again, was not general utility (for that coincides with truth), but

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particular;

particular; which is often at variance with it. So that their art of reasoning was as much an art to hinder the discovery of truth*, as to promote it. Nor was that part which was employed in the support of error merely lost to the service of truth. The mischief went further. It brought in It brought in many fallacious rules and modes of reasoning, which greatly embarrassed and misled the advocate when employed in a better cause. Particularly those by similitude and analogy which had their rise from hence; and soon spread, like a leprosy, over all the argumentation of antiquity.

We need not wonder then, if under this management truth was rarely found. What seems to be more wonderful is, that, when it was found, its value was so little understood that it was as frequently sacrificed to the empty vanity,, as to the more solid interests of the disputer. For the sophists, the speculative inquirers after truth, made their wisdom (from whence they took their name) to consist in bringing truth to the side of their reasoning; not their reasoning to the side of truth. Hence it became the glory of their profession to demonstrate for, or against any opinion, indifferently: and they were never better pleased than when that proposition (let it be what it would) was prescribed to them for their subject, which their auditors had a mind should be the truth. The difficulties they frequently had to encounter, in support of so extravagant a character, introduced into the ancient reasoning new modes of fallacies, a set of metaphysical quibbles; which being the invention of these SOPHISTS, or wise men, are fitted only to impose on others as wise.

* Ubi verò animis judicum vis afferenda est, et ab ipsa veri contemplatione abducenda mens, IBI PROPRIUM ORATORIS OPUS EST. Quint. 1. vi. c. ii.

But

But though so much had been done to betray, to discredit, and to estrange us from truth; yet common sense revolts against every thing when it becomes, to a certain degree, unnatural. This insolent abuse of reason, now proceeding to an open mockery of truth, brought the sophists into public contempt; and gave room to another set of men, of a modester denomination, to raise theinselves upon their ruins.

These were the PHILOSOPHERS and to these, it must be owned, the Gentile world owed all its real improvements in the art of reasoning, and advancement in truth. But the defects of their constitution, the errors of their principles, and the folly of their conduct, were so great, that truth was kept in that state of inferiority, in which, we say, it came to and was unhappily espoused by the fathers. It would ill suit the confined nature of this discourse to explain these things at large we can only hint at some of the most considerable of their errors.

They soon ran into the two extremes, of scepticism and dogmatizing; of all other, the two disorders of the mind, most hurtful to sound reason. These maladies they contracted of the stock from which they sprung, the sophists: who, by their custom of disputing for and against every thing, brought every thing, in its turn, according to the temper of the recipients, to be firmly embraced, or wantonly suspected. For extremes often beget, and, when they have begot, always support one another.

A second violation of right reason was that principle, which they all held in common, that truth was ever to give place to utility. A principle which had the appearance of modesty, as seeming only to imply, what is too true, that we are less able to judge of causes than effects; but, indeed, the natural issue of

the

the inveteracy and absurdity of popular Paganism, and of its incorporation with the state.

Another principle as universal, and no less injurious to the rights of reason, was that the fundamental doctrines of each sect were to be held unquestioned by its followers. For, in most societies, truth is but the second care; the first is to provide for themselves : and as this can be done only by uniformity of opinions, and opinions will continue no longer uniform than while they remain unquestioned, an ipse dixit was the rule of all, though the badge only of a single sect. These several defects in the constitution of ancient philosophy had, in course of time, brought on others. The dogmatists, as was natural, grew enthusiastic ; and the sceptics immoral. The two worst disorders that can befall a searcher after truth; for her abode is neither in the clouds, nor on the dung-hill.

Take then all these things together, and we shall see, they must be insuperable bars to any great improvement, in the science of moral reasoning.

But to this it will be said, that those two famous instruments of truth, LOGIC and MATHEMATICS, were, the one invented, and the other highly advanced, in these very ages. It is certain they were. But if the plain truth may be told, the use of these boasted instruments goes no further than to assist us, the one in the FORM of reasoning, the other in the METHOD of discourse.

Aristotle's invention of the Categories was a surprising effort of human wit. But, in practice, logic is more a trick than a science, formed rather to amuse than to instruct. And, in some sort, we may apply to the art of syllogism what a man of wit * has ob

* Butler.

served of rhetoric, that it only tells us how to name those tools, which nature had before put into our hands, and habit taught the use of. However, all its real virtue consists in the compendious detection of a fallacy. This is all the service it can do for truth. In the service of Chicane, indeed, it is a mere juggler's knot, now fast, now loose; and the schools, where this legerdemain was exercised in great perfection, are full of the stories of its wonders. But its true value is now well known: and there is but little need to put it lower in the general estimation.

However, what logic hath lost of its credit, mathematics have gained. And geometry is now supposed to do wonders as well in the system of man as of matter. It must be owned, the real virtue it hath, it had acquired long since: for, by what is left us of antiquity, we see how elegantly it was then handled, and how sublimely it was pursued. But the truth is, all its use, for the purpose in question, besides what hath been already mentioned, seems to be only habituating the mind to think long and closely and it would be well if this advantage made amends for some inconveniencies, as inseparable from its study. It may seem perhaps too much a paradox to say, that long habit in this science incapacitates the mind for reasoning at large, and especially in the search of moral truth. And yet, I believe, nothing is more certain. The object of geometry is demonstration ; its subject admits of it, and is almost the only subject that doth. In this science, whatever is not demonstration, goes for nothing; or is at least below the sublime inquirer's regard. Probability, through its almost infinite degrees, from simple doubt up to absolute certainty, is the terra incognita of the geometer. And yet here it is that the great business of the

human