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A VARIETY OF RULES TO GUARD AGAINST ERROR
IN THE AFFAIRS OF RELIGION AND
HUMAN LIFE, AS WELL AS

IN THE SCIENCES.

BY ISAAC WATTS, D. D.

A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED.

London:

PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.

1802.

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TO

SIR JOHN HARTOPP, BARY.

SIR,

IT

T is fit the public fhould receive through your hands what was written originally for the afliftance of your younger ftudies, and was then prefented to you.

It was by the repeated importunities of our learned friend Mr John Eames, that I was perfuaded to revise thefe Rudiments of Logic; and when I had once suffered myself to begin the work, I was drawn ftill onward far beyond my first design, even to the neglect, or too long delay of other preffing and important demands that were upon me.

It has been my endeavour to form every part of this treatife both for the inftruction of students, to open their way into the fciences, and for the more extensive and general service of mankind, that the Gentleman and the Chriftian might find their account in the perufal as well as the Scholar. I have therefore collected and propofed the chief principles and rules of right judgment in matters of common and facred importance, and pointed out our most frequent mistakes and prejudices in the concerns of life and religion, that we might better guard against the springs of error, guilt and forrow, which furround us in every ftate of mortality.

You know, SIR, the great design of this noble science is to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy flavery and darknefs; and thus with all due fubmiflion and deference it offers a humble affistance to divine revelation. Its chief bufinefs is to relieve the natural: weakneffes of the mind by fome better efforts of na

ture; it is to diffuse a light over the underftanding in our inquiries after truth, and not to furnish the tongue with debate and controverfy. True Logic is not that noify thing that deals all in difpute and wrangling, to which former ages had debafed and confined it; yet its difciples muft acknowledge alfo, that they are taught to vindicate and defend the truth, as well as to fearch it out. True Logic doth not require a long detail of hard words to amufe mankind, and to puff up the mind with empty founds, and a pride of falfe learning; yet fome diftinctions and terms of art are necessary to range every idea in its proper clafs, and to keep our thoughts from confufion. The world is now grown fo wife as not to fuffer this valuable art to be engroffed by the Schools. In fo polite and knowng an age, every Man of Reafon will covet fome acquaintance with Logic, fince it renders its daily fervice to wifdom and virtue, and to the affairs of common life as well as to the sciences.

I will not prefume, SIR, that this little book is improved fince its first composure, in proportion to the improvements of your manly age. But when you fhall pleafe to review it in your retired hours, perhaps you may refresh your own memory in fome of the early parts of Learning and if you find all the additional remarks and rules made fo familiar to you already by your own obfervation, that there is nothing new among them, it will be no unpleafing reflection that you have fo far anticipated the prefent zeal and labour of,

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