BC71 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 30789 LIBR UNIVE CALI PREFACE. THE following work makes no claim to supply any systematic treatment of Logic. I could not pretend to have acquired the necessary knowledge; and in addition I confess that I am not sure where Logic begins or ends. I have adopted the title Principles of Logic, because I thought that my enquiries were mainly logical, and, for logic at least, must be fundamental. I feel that probability is against me. Experience has shown that most books on Logic add little to their subject. There is however one reflection which may weigh in my favour. Both in England and in Germany that subject is in motion. Logic is not where it was, and can not remain where it is. And when one works with the stream a slight effort may bring progress. I have in general not referred to those works to which I have been indebted. Amongst recent writers I owe most to Lotze, and after him to Sigwart. Wundt's book would have been more useful had it come to me earlier; and I may say the same of Bergmann's. I am under obligations to both Steinthal and Lazarus. And amongst English writers I have learned most from the late Professor Jevons. I may mention here that I should have owed certain observations to Mr. Balfour's able work, had I not seen it first when my book was completed. I should be glad to state my debts in detail, and in this way to express the gratitude I feel, but I doubt if it is now possible. I could not everywhere point out the original owners of my borrowed material, and I could not clearly state how much is not borrowed. I lay no claim to originality, except that, using the result of others' labour, I in some. respects have made a sensible advance. 30789 I wished at first to avoid polemics altogether. But, though I have not sought out occasions of difference, it is plain that too much of my book is polemical. My impression is that it will not suffice to teach what seems true. If the truth is not needed the reader will not work for it, nor painfully learn it. And he hardly will need it where he stands possessed of what seems an easy solution. Philosophy now, as always, is confronted with a mass of inherited prejudice. And, if my polemics bring uneasiness to one self-satisfied reader, I may have done some service. I fear that, to avoid worse misunderstandings, I must say something as to what is called "Hegelianism." For Hegel himself, assuredly I think him a great philosopher; but I never could have called myself an Hegelian, partly because I can not say that I have mastered his system, and partly because I could not accept what seems his main principle, or at least part of that principle. I have no wish to conceal how much I owe to his writings; but I will leave it to those who can judge better than myself, to fix the limits within which I have followed him. As for the "Hegelian School" which exists in our reviews, I know no one who has met with it anywhere else. no What interests me is something very different. We want system-making or systems home-grown or imported. This life-breath of persons who write about philosophy is not the atmosphere where philosophy lives. What we want at present is to clear the ground, so that English Philosophy, if it rises, may not be choked by prejudice. The ground can not be cleared without a critical, or, if you prefer it, a sceptical study of first principles. And this study must come short, if we neglect those views which, being foreign, seem most unlike our own, and which are the views of men who, differing from one another, are alike in having given an attention to the subject which we have not given. This, I think, is a rational object and principle, and I am persuaded that a movement which keeps to this line will not be turned back. In conclusion I may be allowed to anticipate two criticisms which will be passed on my work. One reader will lament |