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The Elements of Logic
- GenresLogic
200 pages, Hardcover
Published January 17, 2024
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December 27, 2024
An excellent pre-enlightenment primer on logic. There are useful charts throughout the book that help illustrate proper categories. The book is divided into 6 books or sections: simple notions (e.g. definitions for quantity, substance, etc), place of invention (e.g. genus, species, accident, etc.), enunciation (definition and types of enunciation), syllogism, of the masterpiece of logic called demonstration, and sophisms or fallacies. The chapters are concise and provide simple examples and often theological examples are directly used such as distinguishing between God and creatures. There is a helpful biography in the introduction to provide historical context for Pierre Du Moulin and his translator, Nathaniel De Lawne.
There are several helpful references to classical theism throughout based on scholastic, Thomistic, or Aristotelean categories used by Pierre Du Moulin e.g. using substance to define the simplicity of God, "Created substances are clothed with accident, but God has no accident. For he is simple, and not compounded: his attributes being his own proper essence, which we distinguish in regard to their various effects; but in truth they are but one and the self same thing" (pg. 6).
The eternality of God is similarly defined within this same framework to deny any part of time or succession of time in God, "The continuance of God is not called time, but eternity, which consists in two things. First to have neither beginning nor ending. Secondly, not to pass away, nor to have succession of parts. For the life of God consists in rest, because if the life of God had a flux, or succession of parts, then his life would be partly past, and partly to come" (pg. 10).
Chapter 11 discusses cause & effect using the 4 Aristotelean categories of causation: material, formal, efficient, and final. This is later used in the same chapter to describe motion of creatures and to prove that God is the unmoved mover based on a proper understanding of efficient causes,
"Such as is the efficient cause, such commonly are the effects. As of wicked fathers, come wicked sons; and strong things beget strong things; ad Moors have black sons. This maxim is often false, especially in remote and universal causes. As the sun does not grow, and yet it causes plants to grow, it has no scent, and yet causes flowers to smell sweet, and carrions to stick. And God moves all, but yet is immovable. Also in causes which act by accident. As a whetstone is not sharp, yet causes sharpness" (pg. 58).
There are several helpful references to classical theism throughout based on scholastic, Thomistic, or Aristotelean categories used by Pierre Du Moulin e.g. using substance to define the simplicity of God, "Created substances are clothed with accident, but God has no accident. For he is simple, and not compounded: his attributes being his own proper essence, which we distinguish in regard to their various effects; but in truth they are but one and the self same thing" (pg. 6).
The eternality of God is similarly defined within this same framework to deny any part of time or succession of time in God, "The continuance of God is not called time, but eternity, which consists in two things. First to have neither beginning nor ending. Secondly, not to pass away, nor to have succession of parts. For the life of God consists in rest, because if the life of God had a flux, or succession of parts, then his life would be partly past, and partly to come" (pg. 10).
Chapter 11 discusses cause & effect using the 4 Aristotelean categories of causation: material, formal, efficient, and final. This is later used in the same chapter to describe motion of creatures and to prove that God is the unmoved mover based on a proper understanding of efficient causes,
"Such as is the efficient cause, such commonly are the effects. As of wicked fathers, come wicked sons; and strong things beget strong things; ad Moors have black sons. This maxim is often false, especially in remote and universal causes. As the sun does not grow, and yet it causes plants to grow, it has no scent, and yet causes flowers to smell sweet, and carrions to stick. And God moves all, but yet is immovable. Also in causes which act by accident. As a whetstone is not sharp, yet causes sharpness" (pg. 58).
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