Article November 28, 1901 Issue

Lincoln's Logic

Exchange

A man who heard Abraham Lincoln speak in Norwich, Conn., some time before he was nominated for President, was greatly impressed by the closely knit logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train he asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such acuteness in analysis.

Lincoln replied: "It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man, I went into an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to prove things. I said to myself, 'Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' That was a poser. What constitutes proof? Not evidence; that was not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, 'Ah, Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought, what use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?

"So I gave it up and went back home. Soon after I returned to the old log cabin I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion of what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I therefore began at the beginning, and before spring I had gone through the old Euclid's geometry and could demonstrate every proposition in the book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, 'Ah, do you know when a thing is proved?' and I answered, 'Yes, sir; I do. Then you may go back to the law shop;' and I went."

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