The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Though logic is of so little practical use, it cannot be denied that it was invented for practical purposes.
It appears to me to have originated in the following way : — As the love of debating developed among the Eleatics, the Megarics, and the Sophists, and by degrees became almost a passion, the confusion in wliich nearly every debate ended must have made them feel the necessity of a method of procedure as a guide ; and for this a scientific dialectic had to be sought.
The first thing which would have to be observed would be that both the disputing parties should always be agreed on some one proposition, to which the disputed points might be referred. The beginning of the methodical procedure consisted in this, that the propositions admitted on both sides were formally stated to be so, and placed at the head of the inquiry. But these propositions were at first concerned only with the material of the inquiry.
It was soon observed that in the process of going back to the truth admitted on both sides, and of deducing their assertions from it, each party followed certain Ibrms and laws about which, without any express agreement, there was no dilference of opinion. And from this it became evident that these must constitute the peculiar and natural procedure of reason itself, the form of investigation.
Although this was not exposed to any doubt or difference of opinion, some pedantically systematic philosopher hit upon the idea that it would look well, and be the completion of the method of dialectic, if this formal part of all discussion, this regular procedure of reason itself, were to be expressed in abstract propositions, just like the substantial propositions admitted on both sides, and placed at the beginning of every investigation, as the fixed canon of debate to which reference and appeal must always be made. In this ^ Cf. Ch. 9 and lo of the Supplement
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way what had formerly been followed only by tacit agreement, and instinctively, would be consciously recognised and formally expressed. By degrees, more or less perfect expressions were found for the fundamental principles of logic, such as the principles of contradiction, sufficient reason, excluded middle, the dictum de omni et nullo, as well as the special rules of the syllogism, as for example, ex vieris particularibus aut negativis nihil sequitur, a rationato ad rationem non valet consequentia, and so on. all this was only brought about slowly, and with great pains, and up till the time of Aristotle remained very incomplete, is evident from the awkward and tedious way in which logical truths are brought out fn many of the Platonic dialogues, and still more from what Sextus Empiricus tells us of the controversies of fhe Megarics, about the easiest and simplest logical rules, and the laborious way in which they were brought into a definite form (Sext. Emp. adv. Math. 1. 8, p. 1 1 2). But Aristotle collected, arranged, and corrected all that had been discovered before his time, and brought it to an incomparably greater state of perfection. If we thus observe how the course of Greek culture had prepared the way for, and led up to the work of Aristotle, we shall be little inclined to believe the assertion of the Persian author, quoted by Sir William Jones with much approval, that Kallisthenes found a complete system of logic among the Indians, and sent it to his uncle Aristotle (Asiatic Kesearches, vol. iv. p. 163). It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words, and that it would be eagerly adopted even in its mutilated Arabian form, and presently established as the centre of all knowledge. Though its authority has since declined, yet up to our own time logic has retained the credit of a self-contained, practical, and highly importantTHE WORLD AS IDEA. «3 science. Indeed, in our own day, the Kantian philosophy, the foundation-stone of which is taken from logic, has excited a new interest in it ; which, in this respect, at any rate, that is, as the means of the knowledge of the nature of reason, it deserves.
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