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[Transcriber's Note: In this plain-text rendering, .'. means therefore [alpha], [beta], …, [Alpha], [Beta], … for Greek symbols]
One critic, who was kind enough to look at this book in manuscript,recommended me to abandon the design of Publishing it, on the groundthat my logic was too like all other logics; another suggested to meto cut out a considerable amount of new matter. The latter advice Ihave followed; the former has encouraged me to hope that I shall notbe considered guilty of wanton innovation. The few novelties which Ihave ventured to retain will, I trust, be regarded as legitimateextensions of received lines of teaching.
My object has been to produce a work which should be as thoroughlyrepresentative of the present state of the logic of the Oxford Schoolsas any of the text-books of the past. The qualities which I have aimedat before all others have been clearness and consistency. For the taskwhich I have taken upon myself I may claim one qualification—that ofexperience; since more than seventeen years have now elapsed since Itook my first pupil in logic for the Honour School of Moderations, andduring that time I have been pretty continuously engaged in studyingand teaching the subject.
In acknowledging my obligations to previous writers I must begin withArchbishop Whately, whose writings first gave me an interest in thesubject. The works of Mill and Hamilton have of course been freelydrawn upon. I have not followed either of those two great writersexclusively, but have endeavoured to assimilate what seemed best inboth. To Professor Fowler I am under a special debt. I had not theprivilege of personal teaching from him in logic,—as I had in someother subjects; but his book fell into my hands at an early period inmy mental training, and was so thoroughly studied as to have become apermanent part of the furniture of my mind. Much the same may be saidof my relation to the late Professor Jevons's Elementary Lessons inLogic. Two other books, which I feel bound to mention with specialemphasis, are Hansel's edition of Aldrich and McCosh's Laws ofDiscursive Thought. If there be added to the foregoing Watts's Logic,Thomson's Outlines of the Laws of Thought, Bain's Deductive Logic,Jevons's Studies in Deductive Logic and Principles of Science,Bradley's Principles of Logic, Abbott's Elements of Logic, Walker'sedition of Murray, Ray's Text-book of Deductive Logic, andWeatherley's Rudiments of Logic, I think the list will be exhausted ofmodern works from which I am conscious of having borrowed. But, not toforget the sun, while thanking the manufacturers of lamps and candles,I should add that I have studied the works of Aristotle according tothe measure of my time and ability.
This work has had the great advantage of having been revised, whilestill in manuscript, by Mr. Alfred Robinson, Fellow of New College, towhom I cannot sufficiently express my obligation. I have availedmyself to the full of the series of criticisms which he was kindenough to send me. As some additions have been made since then, hecannot be held in anyway responsible for the faults which less kindlycritics may detect.
For the examples at the end I am mainly indebted to others, and to alarge extent to my ingenious friend, the Rev. W. J. Priest of MertonCollege.