_No stone is a living creature_, _Every man is a living creature_, Therefore, _No man is a stone_, Or, _No stone is a man_, is equivalent to this hypothetical syllogism: _If any thing be a man, the same is a living creature_, _If any thing be a stone, the same is not a living creature_, Therefore, _If any thing be a stone, the same is not a man_, Or, _If any thing be a man, the same is not a stone_. And thus much seems sufficient for the nature of syllogisms; (for the doctrine of moods and figures is clearly delivered by others that have written largely and profitably of the same). Nor are precepts so necessary as practice for the attaining of true ratiocination; and they that study the demonstrations of mathematicians, will sooner learn true logic, than they that spend time in reading the rules of syllogizing which logicians have made; no otherwise than little children learn to go, not by precepts, but by exercising their feet. This, therefore, may serve for the first pace in the way to Philosophy. In the next place I shall speak of the faults and errors into which men that reason unwarily are apt to fall; and of their kinds and causes. ------- CHAPTER V. OF ERRING, FALSITY, AND CAPTIONS. 1. Erring and falsity how they differ. Error of the mind by itself without the use of words, how it happens.—2. A sevenfold incoherency of names, every one of which makes always a false proposition.—3. Examples of the first manner of incoherency.—4. Of the second.—5. Of the third.—6. Of the fourth.—7. Of the fifth.—8. Of the sixth.—9. Of the seventh.—10. Falsity of propositions detected by resolving the terms with definitions continued till they come to simple names, or names that are the most general of their kind.—11. Of the fault of a syllogism consisting in the implication of the terms with the copula.—12. Of the fault which consists in equivocation.—13. Sophistical captions are oftener faulty in the matter than in the form of syllogisms. [Sidenote: Erring & falsity how they differ. Error of the mind by itself, without the use of words, how it happens.]