,
indeed, the whole labor of Socrates was in the cause of the logical
interest. For he sought to demonstrate that belief is not necessarily
knowledge; that belief may or may not be true. In order that it shall be
true, and constitute knowledge, it must be well-grounded, and
accompanied by an understanding of its object. Socrates thus set the
problem of logic, the discovery, namely, of those characters by virtue
of the possession of which belief is knowledge.

[Sidenote: The Affiliations of Logic.]

Sect. 74. Logic deals with the ground of belief, and thus distinguishes
itself from the psychological account of the elements of the believing
state.[182:2] But it is not possible sharply to sunder psychology and
logic. This is due to the fact that the general principles which make
belief true, may be regarded quite independently of this fact. They then
become the _most general truth_, belonging to the absolute, archetypal
realm, or to the mind of God.[182:3] When the general principles of
certainty are so regarded, logic can be distinguished from metaphysics
only by adding to the study of the general principles themselves, the
study of the special conditions (mainly psychological) under which they
may be realized among men. In the history of human thought the name of
logic belongs to the study of this _attainment_ of truth, as the terms
aesthetics and ethics belong to the studies of the attainment of beauty
and goodness.[183:4] It is evident that logic will have a peculiar
importance for the rationalist. For the empiricist, proposing to report
upon things as they are given, will tend on the whole to maintain that
knowledge has no properties save those which are given to it by its
special subject-matter. One cannot, in short, define any absolute
relationship between the normative sciences and the other branches of
philosophy.

[Sidenote: Logic Deals with the Most General Conditions of Truth in
Belief.]

Sect. 75. _Logic is the formulation, as independently as possible of
special subject-matter, of that which conditions truth in belief._ Since
logic is concerned with truth only in so far as it is predicated of
belief, and since belief in so far as true is knowledge, logic can be
defined as the formulation of the most general principles of knowledge.
The principles so formulated would be those virtually used to _justify_
belief or to disprove the imputation of error.

[Sidenote: The Parts of Formal Logic. Definition, Self