THE great human necessity for correct reasoning has been recognized by the intelligent in every age, and much has been done through various systems of logic to meet this need. The counsels and admonitions of prophet and savant alike have ever been directed to the leading of thought into better habits of reasoning, wherein logic becomes the reliable servant of men; for sound logic causes men to leaven their meditation and conversation with wisdom, and to avoid dwelling upon unsupported theories and dogma as authority. The writer of the book of Job raised the question, "Should a wise man . . . reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?"
A thinker of the sixteenth century, seeing the need for a sound logic rising above the mundane and above limited habits of thought, put it in this quaint fashion:
"If reason's reache transcende the skye
Why should it then to earthe be bounde?
The witte is wronged and leadde awrye
If minde be maried to the grounde."
