An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

THE GENERAL AIM OF LOGIC. 7
has to do with thought or with language. Whately has
been referred to as holding the latter view. It is true
that when defining Logic he says that it is
"entirely
conversant about language"; but elsewhere he speaks
of the processes of reasoning i.e., processes of thought
as the subject-matter of Logic. No other view can
be seriously taken ; but the stress which is laid on the
verbal expression of these processes
varies in different
works.
We cannot entirely separate the two aspects of the
Aoyos; for, while thought is prior to language, thought
could make no progress without embodying itself in
language. As soon as we have an idea there is an
irresistible impulse to give it bodily shape in a word.
The thought is purely inward and in a sense abstract ;
the word has an external existence as a sound or a
written symbol, and is therefore a thing of sense ; but
the thought would dissolve again were it not stereotyped
in a word. Hamilton (Logic, vol. i. p. 138) has illus
trated this reciprocal dependence as follows. An army
may overrun a country, but the country is only con
quered by the establishment of fortresses; words are
the
And in tunnelling through
"
"
fortresses of thought.
a sandbank it is impossible to proceed until the present
position is made secure by an arch of masonry ; words
are such "arches" for the mind.
Questions connected with the foregoing, and deserving
of the student s attention, are, the extent to which language
and the
may be a hindrance, as well as a help, to thought ;
reason why spoken language has become universal rather
than gesture language. And we may remark, in passing,
that Grammar, dealing with the thought - structure of
language, lays stress on the other side of the \6yo<;, the
outward expression. Hence Grammar has been called a
"
concrete Logic."