ural Dialectic_, just as he has his own _natural
Logic_. But his Dialectic is by no means as safe a guide as his Logic.
It is not so easy for any one to think or draw an inference contrary
to the laws of Logic; false judgments are frequent, false conclusions
very rare. A man cannot easily be deficient in natural Logic, but he
may very easily be deficient in natural Dialectic, which is a gift
apportioned in unequal measure. In so far natural Dialectic resembles
the faculty of judgment, which differs in degree with every man; while
reason, strictly speaking, is the same. For it often happens that in
a matter in which a man is really in the right, he is confounded or
refuted by merely superficial arguments; and if he emerges victorious
from a contest, he owes it very often not so much to the correctness
of his judgment in stating his proposition, as to the cunning and
address with which he defended it.

Here, as in all other cases, the best gifts are born with a man;
nevertheless, much may be done to make him a master of this art by
practice, and also by a consideration of the tactics which may be used
to defeat an opponent, or which he uses himself for a similar purpose.
Therefore, even though Logic may be of no very real, practical use,
Dialectic may certainly be so; and Aristotle, too, seems to me to
have drawn up his Logic proper, or Analytic, as a foundation and
preparation for his Dialectic, and to have made this his chief
business. Logic is concerned with the mere form of propositions;
Dialectic, with their contents or matter--in a word, with their
substance. It was proper, therefore, to consider the general form of
all propositions before proceeding to particulars.

Aristotle does not define the object of Dialectic as exactly as I
have done it here; for while he allows that its principal object
is disputation, he declares at the same time that it is also the
discovery of truth.[1] Again, he says, later on, that if, from the
philosophical point of view, propositions are dealt with according to
their truth, Dialectic regards them according to their plausibility,
or the measure in which they will win the approval and assent of
others.[2] He is aware that the objective truth of a proposition must
be distinguished and separated from the way in which it is pressed
home, and approbation won for it; but he fails to draw a sufficiently
sharp distinction between these two aspects of the matter, so as to
reserve Dialectic f