_Attacks upon Aristotle._--It now became the fashion, however, in certain quarters, especially among the mystics in the Catholic communion, to decry Aristotle, and each original genius took this way to show his independence. Ramus is noted among these. Bacon followed in this track, and did little more than repeat the invectives of his predecessors. He attempted to set aside the syllogism, and put in its place induction. Induction, however, in some form, is as old as the syllogism. From Plato and Aristotle downward, a thousand philosophers had availed themselves of this method of reasoning and had also stated and defended it. _The Moderns._--From Bacon and Descartes till our day logic has been in process of decadence. Locke condemns it. Reid and the Scotch school ridicule its pretensions. Kant and Hegel, on the other hand, give it a due place in their systems--the latter especially; while in France, it has admirers in St. Hilaire, Cousin, and others of like genius; and in Edinburgh, the great Hamilton devoted to it the powers of his unrivalled intellect. _Logic of Hamilton._--As no writer, since the days of Aristotle, has done more to complete and perfect the science of reasoning, than Sir William Hamilton, it seems due that even so brief a sketch of the history of logic as the present, should indicate, at least, the more important changes which his system introduces. Whatever may be thought of some of his views and proposed reforms in this ancient science and sanctuary of past learning, it is not too much to say, that no writer on logic can henceforth present a claim to be considered, who has not, at least, thoroughly mastered and carefully weighed these views and proposed changes, even if he do not adopt them. They are, moreover, for the most part, changes so obviously demanded in order to the completeness of the science, and so thorough-going withal, that they are destined, it would seem, to be sooner or later adopted, and if adopted, to work a radical change in the whole structure of this ancient and time-honored science. I shall attempt nothing more, in this connection, than, in the briefest manner, to enumerate some of the more important of these improvements. _Assigns Induction its true Place._--Hamilton is the first, so far as I know, to elevate to its true place the inductive method of reasoning, making it coördinate with the deductive, and assigning its true character and value as a form of syllogism. _Recognizes the analytic Syllogism._--He is the first to bring to notice the claims of the _analytic_ syllogism to a distinctive place and recognition in logic; a form of reasoning, which, however natural and necessary, and in use almost universal, had been strangely overlooked by logicians from Aristotle down.