3. The Formal Cause of the Logical Order. -- The formal object of logic, or the point of view from which logic regards the acts of the mind, is their adaptability to certain processes of thought which are called either particular sciences or philosophy. These processes imply stages. The mind must grasp the numerous aspects of reality one after another before co-ordinating the fragmentary explications. Judgment is the first step in combining ideas; judgments in their turn become the materials of reasoning; an isolated piece of reasoning does not suffice to produce adequate knowledge of things, but several reasonings become materials of a scientific system. This rational arrangement of ideas constitutes the logical order properly so called: "the order which reason constitutes for its own acts".