Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/196

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CHAP. XL.

The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms,—I mean in man,—for in superior classes of beings, such as angels and spirits,—'tis all done, may it please your worships, as they tell me, by intuition;—and beings inferior, as your worships all know,—syllogize by their noses: though there is an island swiming in the sea, though not altogether at its ease, whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and oft-times to make very well out too:—but that's neither here nor there—

The gift of doing it as it should be, amongst us,—or the great and principalact