Logic; or, The Right Use of Reason, in the Inquiry After Truth

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Isaac Watts was an English Christian hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymn writer, his work was part of evangelization. He was recognized as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns. Many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages.

Watts wrote a text book on logic which was particularly popular; its full title was, Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as well as in the Sciences. This was first published in 1724, and it was printed in twenty editions. Isaac Watts' Logic became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, being used at Oxford for well over 100 years. C.S. Peirce, the great nineteenth-century logician, wrote favorably of Watts' Logic. When preparing his own text book, entitled A Critick of Arguments: How to Reason , Peirce wrote, 'I shall suppose the reader to be acquainted with what is contained in Dr Watts' Logick, a book... far superior to the treatises now used in colleges, being the production of a man distinguished for good sense.'
CONTENTS.
Introduction, and General Scheme
FIRST PART.
OF PERCEPTION AND IDEAS.
CHAPTER I.
Of the Nature of Ideas
CHAP. II.
Of the Objects of Perception
Sect. 1. Of being in general
2. Of substances and their various kinds
3. Of modes, and their various kinds; and, first, of essential and accidental modes
4. The farther divisions of mode
5. Of the ten categories. Of substances modified
6. Of not-being
CHAP. III.
Of the several sorts of Perceptions or Ideas
Sect. 1. Of sensible, spiritual, and abstracted ideas
2. Of simple and complex, compound and collective ideas
3. Of universal and particular ideas, real and imaginary
4. The division of ideas, with regard to their qualities
CHAP. IV.
of Words, and their several Divisions, together with the Advantage and Danger of them
Sect. 1. Of words in general, and their use
2. Of negative and positive terms
3. Of simple and complex terms
4. Of words common and proper
5. Of concrete and abstract terms
6. Of univocal and equivocal words
7. Various kinds of equivocal words
8. The origin or causes of equivocal words
CHAP. V.
General Directions relating to our Ideas
Direct. 1. Of acquiring a treasure of ideas
2. Of retaining ideas in the memory
3. Of selecting useful ideas
4. Of the government of our thoughts
CHAP. VI.
Special Rules to direct our Conception of Things
Sect. 1. Of gaining clear and distinct ideas
2. Of the definition of words and names
3. Directions concerning the definitions of names
4. Of the definition of things
5. Rules of the definition of things
6. Observations concerning the definition of things
7. Of a complete conception of things
8. Of definition, and the rules of it
9. Of a comprehensive conception of things, and of abstraction
10. Of the extensive conception of things, and of distribution
11. Of an orderly conception of things
12. The five rules of conception exemplified
13. An illustration of these five rules by similitudes
SECOND PART.
OF JUDGMENT AND PROPOSITION.
CHAP. I.
of the Nature of a Proposition, and its several Parts
CHAP. II.
Of the various Kinds of Propositions
1.