31 July 1814 + '.5

Logic

Ch. │ │ Aristotle's Præcognita

'.5.II. End. Finis.

7

1

'.5.'II. End of Logic - Finis - according to the Aristotelians.

After the topic of the uses of Logic - the utilitatis,[?] and not before, comes in that list the topic of finis, finis ejus,[?] scilicet Logicæ, i.e. the general end. But of logic as of any thing else what are the uses but so many modifications of the general - the universal end, or so many means tending to the attainment of it? If so, first should have come the end, after that the uses: first the genus, then and not till then the species.

This end of Logic - this end when it does comes - what is

it? Is it the universal the sole universal end - actually as well as fitly and properly the universal end - well-being, i.e. the maximum of pleasures alloyed by the minimum of pains? Not it indeed: no such amplitude does it extend to. It is confined in the first place to mere knowledge. But except in so far as in some shape or other it leads to and is productive of well-being - a balance on the side of happiness - what is all the value of all the knowledge in the world worth? - Just nothing.

In the next place though the whole of knowledge it might be, and still be worth nothing, it is not so much as the whole of knowledge. Persons and things - under one or other of these heads may be comprized the subjects of knowledge: of the two persons, a man would be apt [to] think the most interesting: but to persons - to what belongs to persons - it does not so much as profess to extend: it confines itself and most pointedly to things - Finis vero unicus, Cognitio sciliect rerum.[?]

80