*The Methods of Science*.--No place has been assigned in the scheme to
what we call logic and Aristotle called _Analytics_, the theory of
scientific method, or of proof and the estimation of evidence. The
reason is that since the fundamental character of proof is the same in
all science, Aristotle looks upon logic as a study of the methods common
to all science. At a later date it became a hotly debated question
whether logic should be regarded in this way as a study of the methods
instrumental to proof in all sciences, or as itself a special
constituent division of philosophy. The Aristotelian view was concisely
indicated by the name which became attached to the collection of
Aristotle’s logical works. They were called the _Organon_, that is, the
"instrument," or the body of rules of method employed by Science. The
thought implied is thus that logic furnishes the _tools_ with which
every science has to work in establishing its results. Our space will
only permit of a brief statement as to the points in which the
Aristotelian formal logic appears to be really original, and the main
peculiarities of Aristotle’s theory of knowledge.
(a) *Formal Logic*.--In compass the Aristotelian logic corresponds
roughly with the contents of modern elementary treatises on the same
subject, with the omission of the sections which deal with the so-called
Conditional Syllogism. The inclusion of arguments of this type in
mediæval and modern expositions of formal logic is principally due to
the Stoics, who preferred to throw their reasoning into these forms and
subjected them to minute scrutiny. In his treatment of the doctrine of
Terms, Aristotle avoids the mistake of treating the isolated name as
though it had significance apart from the enunciations in which it
occurs. He is quite clear on the all-important point that the unit of
thought is the proposition in which something is affirmed or denied, the
one thought-form which can be properly called "true" or "false." Such
an assertion he analyses into two factors, that about which something is
affirmed or denied (the Subject), and that which is affirmed or denied
of it (the Predicate). Consequently his doctrine of the classification
of Terms is based on a classification of Predicates, or of Propositions
according to the special kind of connection between the Subject and
Predicate which they affirm or deny. Two such classifications, which
cannot be made to fit into one another, meet us in Aristotle’s logical
writings, the scheme of the ten "Categories," and that which was
afterwards known in the Middle Ages as the list of "Predicaments" or
"Heads of Predicates," or again as the "Five Words." The list of
"Categories" reveals itself as an attempt to answer the question in how
many different senses the words "is a" or "are" are employed when we
assert that "_x_ is _y_" or "_x_ is a _y_" or "_x_s are _y_s." Such a
statement may tell us (1) what _x_ is, as if I say "_x_ is a lion"; the