general, denotes a branch of any thing, as of a tree, an artery, &c. In the anatomy of plants it means the first or lateral branches, which go off from the petiolum, or middle rib of a leaf. The subdivisions of these are called furculi; and the final divisions into the most minute of all, are by some called capillamenta; but both kinds are generally denominated furculus.

Ramus, Peter, was one of the most famous professors of the 16th century. He was born in Picardy in 1515. A thirst for learning prompted him to go to Paris when very young, and he was admitted a servant in the college of Navarre. Spending the day in waiting on his masters, and the greatest part of the night in study, he made such surprising progress, that, when he took his master of arts degree, he offered to maintain a quite opposite doctrine to that of Aristotle. This raised him many enemies; and the two first books he published, Institutiones Dialecticae, and Aristotelicae Animadversiones, occasioned great disturbances in the university of Paris; and the opposition against him was not a little heightened by his deserting the Romish religion, and professing that of the Reformed. Being thus forced to retire from Paris, he visited the universities of Germany, and received great honours wherever he came. He returned to France in 1571, and lost his life miserably in the horrid massacre of St Bartholomew's day. He was a great orator, a man of universal learning, and endowed with very fine moral qualities. He published many books, which Teissier enumerates. Ramus's merit in his opposition to Aristotle, and his firmness in undermining his authority, is unquestionably great. But it has been doubted, and with much reason, whether he was equally successful in his attempts after a new logical institute. We have the following general outline of his plan in Dr Enfield's History of Philosophy. "Considering dialectics as the art of deducing conclusions from premises, he endeavours to improve this art, by uniting it with that of rhetoric. Of the several branches of rhetoric, he considers invention and disposition as belonging equally to logic. Making Cicero his chief guide, he divides his treatise on dialectics into two parts, the first of which treats of the invention of arguments, the second of judgments. Arguments he derives not only from what the Aristotelians call middle terms, but from any kind of proposition, which, connected with another, may serve to prove any assertion. Of these he enumerates various kinds. Judgments he divides into axioms, or self-evident propositions, diaconia, or deductions by means of a series of arguments. Both these he divides into various classes; and illustrates the whole by examples from the ancient orators and poets.

"In the logic of Ramus, many things are borrowed from Aristotle, and only appear under new names; and many others are derived from other Grecian sources, particularly from the dialogues of Plato, and the logic of the Stoics. The author has the merit of turning the art of reasoning from the futile speculations of the schools to forensic and common use; but his plan is defective in confining the whole dialectic art to the single object of disputation, and in omitting many things, which respect the general culture of the understanding and the investigation of truth. Notwithstanding the defects of his system, we cannot, however, subscribe to the severe cen-