Logic: The Right Use of Reason in The Inquiry After Truth
by Isaac Watts
Retail:$28.00 Your Price:$22.50 You Save:
$5.50
(20%)
Description
Thinking clearly is of the utmost importance to learning, including correctly understanding the Bible. This work by the famous hymn-writer of the 1700's is little-known today but was a standard textbook in logic and reason for 200 years. Clear devotion in Watts' hymns came from a clear mind - and to free our children from "fuzzy thinking" and into the liberty and joy of a sound mind should be the aim of all parents. This book will be useful to you in more ways than you might at first think.
"As the first work of the mind is perception, whereby our ideas are framed, and the second is judgment, which joins or disjoins our ideas, and forms a proposition; so the third operation of the mind is reasoning, which joins several propositions together, and makes a syllogism, that is, an argument whereby we are wont to infer some things that are less known, from truths which are more evident" (from page 270).
This is what Isaac Watts teaches us to do in his valuable volume. You may know Watts as the author of numerous marvelous hymns expressing great theological truth; this is due in large part to the fact that his perception was so keen, and he could convey his ideas so clearly.
But be forewarned you: his volume on Logic is not casual bedtime reading, and there will be times when you will have to go back and read that page again. As you read, you will probably be humbled as you are made to wonder how often you have not thought soundly or well! But this business of "forming a true judgment of things" (p. 223) is desperately needed today and Watts demonstrates thoroughly what clear thinking involves.
This work was a standard textbook at Cambridge and Oxford for nearly 200 years. It won't be the easiest book on logic you have ever read, but it is likely to be the most comprehensive and thorough.
