Logic: Designed as an Introduction to the Study of Reasoning

Logic: Designed As An Introduction To The Study Of Reasoning by John Leechman. This early to mid-19th-century elementary treatise offers a structured introduction to the science and art of reasoning. It defines logic as the science of reasoning and argument, tracing its history from Zeno and the Sophists through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to later endorsers of logic such as Bacon, Locke, Watts, and Archbishop Whately. The work distinguishes logic’s proper province from metaphysics and rhetoric, and presents a unified view of reasoning that remains constant across subjects. It surveys the three fundamental operations of the mind—simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning—and divides logic into three parts: Terms, Propositions, and Arguments. Part I develops distinctions, classifications, divisions, and definitions of terms; Part II treats propositions, their kinds, and the affections of propositions (subalternation, conversion, opposition); Part III covers reasoning, the syllogism, its figures and moods, reduction methods, and irregular forms, including fallacies. The volume culminates with the application of logic, discussion of evidence, and an appendix of exercises, illustrating how logic aids clear thinking and rigorous argument while distinguishing its limits from inductive discovery.