The Trivium: What is Logic?
EVERYTHING in nature takes place according to laws.
This which is true of material things is also true of the operations of the mind. These follow laws of which we are not always aware. Language for instance follows laws of grammar and these laws in any particular language are the same whatever the subject may be of which we are speaking. The exercise of the understanding in particular is itself governed by laws. Some of these only apply to special kinds of subject matter, as for example, the laws of number in mathematical reasoning. But there are others which hold good in all cases whatever the subject matter of our thoughts or reasonings may be. It is of these laws that Logic treats. Just as the rules of grammar are the same whatever the subject spoken of may be so the rules of Logic are the same whatever the subject thought about or reasoned about.
he distinction involved in this statement is the important one between Form and Matter. Matter is the variable part, Form the invariable. In language for example the lexicon deals with the Matter, grammar deals with the Form.
Logic, then, is the Science of the Form of Thought.
Some writers assign to Logic a much wider sphere than this; they regard it as including the rules of estimation of evidence and of the operations of the understanding subsidiary thereto. The narrower science here treated of may for the sake of precision be called Formal Logic. and the exposition of the rules just referred to may be called Applied Logic.
SOURCE: The Elements of Logic By Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
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