Concept of logic

Everything in nature, both in the lifeless and in the living world, takes place according to rules, although we are not always acquainted with these rules. – Water falls according to laws of gravity, and with animals locomotion also takes place according to rules. The fish in water, the bird in the air, move according to rules. The whole of nature in general is really nothing but a connection of appearances according to rules; and there is no absence of rules anywhere. If we believe we have found such a thing, then in this case we can only say that we are not acquainted with the rules.

The exercise of our powers also takes place according to certain rules that we follow, unconscious of them at first, until we gradually arrive at cognition of them through experiments and lengthy use of our powers, indeed, until we finally become so familiar with them that it costs us much effort to think them in abstracto. Thus universal grammar is the form of a language in general, for example. One speaks even without being acquainted with grammar, however; and he who speaks without being acquainted with it does actually have a grammar and speaks according to rules, but ones of which he is not himself conscious.