ABSTRACT
In this connection it is worth noting the discrepancy between Hobbes's views and those of his contemporaries. In Part Two of his Discourse on Method Descartes writes that 'among the different branches of Philosophy, I had in my younger days to a certain extent studied Logic' But 'I observed in respect to Logic that the syllogisms and the greater part of the other teaching served better in explaining to others those things that one knows . . . than in learning what is new.' Hobbes can agree with this much, for it is in the method of teaching, not in the method of discovery or invention, that he thinks syllogisms and their theory are useful. But Descartes goes on,
And although in reality Logic contains many precepts which are very true and very good, there are at the same time mingled with them so many others which are hurtful or superfluous, that it is almost as difficult to separate the two as to draw a Diana or a Minerva out of a block of marble that is not yet roughly hewn.3
