A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive by John Stuart Mill (popular e readers .txt) π
3. Some of the first principles of geometry are axioms, and these are not hypothetical 256
4. --but are experimental truths 258
5. An objection answered 261
6. Dr. Whewell's opinions on axioms examined 264
CHAPTER VI.
The same Subject continued.
Sec. 1. All deductive sciences are inductive 281
2. The propositions of the science of number are not verbal, but generalizations from experience 284
3. In what sense hypothetical 289
4. The characteristic property of demonstrative science is to be hypothetical 290
5. Definition of demonstrative evidence 292
CHAPTER VII.
Examination of some Opinions opposed to the preceding doctrines.
Sec. 1. Doctrine of the Universal Postulate 294
2. The test of inconceivability does not
Read free book Β«A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive by John Stuart Mill (popular e readers .txt) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: John Stuart Mill
- Performer: -
Read book online Β«A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive by John Stuart Mill (popular e readers .txt) πΒ». Author - John Stuart Mill
The Project Gutenberg EBook of A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and
Inductive, by John Stuart Mill
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive
7th Edition, Vol. I
Author: John Stuart Mill
Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35420]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SYSTEM OF LOGIC, VOL I ***
Produced by David Clarke, Stephen H. Sentoff and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
A
SYSTEM OF LOGIC
RATIOCINATIVE AND INDUCTIVE
VOL. I.
ASYSTEM OF LOGIC
RATIOCINATIVE AND INDUCTIVE
PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE
AND THE
METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
VOL. I.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER
MDCCCLXVIII
This book makes no pretence of giving to the world a new theory of the intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it possess any, is grounded on the fact that it is an attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize, the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its subject by speculative writers, or conformed to by accurate thinkers in their scientific inquiries.
To cement together the detached fragments of a subject, never yet treated as a whole; to harmonize the true portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links of thought necessary to connect them, and by disentangling them from the errors with which they are always more or less interwoven; must necessarily require a considerable amount of original speculation. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effected a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the practice of it. The improvement which remains to be effected in the methods of philosophizing (and the author believes that they have much need of improvement) can only consist in performing, more systematically and accurately, operations with which, at least in their elementary form, the human intellect in some one or other of its employments is already familiar.
In the portion of the work which treats of Ratiocination, the author has not deemed it necessary to enter into technical details which may be obtained in so perfect a shape from the existing treatises on what is termed the Logic of the Schools. In the contempt entertained by many modern philosophers for the syllogistic art, it will be seen that he by no means participates; though the scientific theory on which its defence is usually rested appears to him erroneous: and the view which he has suggested of the nature and functions of the Syllogism may, perhaps, afford the means of conciliating the principles of the art with as much as is well grounded in the doctrines and objections of its assailants.
The same abstinence from details could not be observed in the First Book, on Names and Propositions; because many useful principles and distinctions which were contained in the old Logic, have been gradually omitted from the writings of its later teachers; and it appeared desirable both to revive these, and to reform and rationalize the philosophical foundation on which they stood. The earlier chapters of this preliminary Book will consequently appear, to some readers, needlessly elementary and scholastic. But those who know in what darkness the nature of our knowledge, and of the processes by which it is obtained, is often involved by a confused apprehension of the import of the different classes of Words and Assertions, will not regard these discussions as either frivolous, or irrelevant to the topics considered in the later Books.
On the subject of Induction, the task to be performed was that of generalizing the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sciences, been aggregated to the stock of human knowledge. That this is not a task free from difficulty may be presumed from the fact, that even at a very recent period, eminent writers (among whom it is sufficient to name Archbishop Whately, and the author of a celebrated article on Bacon in the Edinburgh Review) have not scrupled to pronounce it impossible.[1] The author has endeavoured to combat their theory in the manner in which Diogenes confuted the sceptical reasonings against the possibility of motion; remembering that Diogenes' argument would have been equally conclusive, though his individual perambulations might not have extended beyond the circuit of his own tub.
Whatever may be the value of what the author has succeeded in effecting on this branch of his subject, it is a duty to acknowledge that for much of it he has been indebted to several important treatises, partly historical and partly philosophical, on the generalities and processes of physical science, which have been published within the last few years. To these treatises, and to their authors, he has endeavoured to do justice in the body of the work. But as with one of these writers, Dr. Whewell, he has occasion frequently to express differences of opinion, it is more particularly incumbent on him in this place to declare, that without the aid derived from the facts and ideas contained in that gentleman's History of the Inductive Sciences, the corresponding portion of this work would probably not have been written.
The concluding Book is an attempt to contribute towards the solution of a question, which the decay of old opinions, and the agitation that disturbs European society to its inmost depths, render as important in the present day to the practical interests of human life, as it must at all times be to the completeness of our speculative knowledge: viz. Whether moral and social phenomena are really exceptions to the general certainty and uniformity of the course of nature; and how far the methods, by which so many of the laws of the physical world have been numbered among truths irrevocably acquired and universally assented to, can be made instrumental to the formation of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and political science.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.Several criticisms, of a more or less controversial character, on this work, have appeared since the publication of the second edition; and Dr. Whewell has lately published a reply to those parts of it in which some of his opinions were controverted.[2]
I have carefully reconsidered all the points on which my conclusions have been assailed. But I have not to announce a change of opinion on any matter of importance. Such minor oversights as have been detected, either by myself or by my critics, I have, in general silently, corrected: but it is not to be inferred that I agree with the objections which have been made to a passage, in every instance in which I have altered or cancelled it. I have often done so, merely that it might not remain a stumbling-block, when the amount of discussion necessary to place the matter in its true light would have exceeded what was suitable to the occasion.
To several of the arguments which have been urged against me, I have thought it useful to reply with some degree of minuteness; not from any taste for controversy, but because the opportunity was favourable for placing my own conclusions, and the grounds of them, more clearly and completely before the reader. Truth, on these subjects, is militant, and can only establish itself by means of conflict. The most opposite opinions can make a plausible show of evidence while each has the statement of its own case; and it is only possible to ascertain which of them is in the right, after hearing and comparing what each can say against the other, and what the other can urge in its defence.
Even the criticisms from which I most dissent have been of great service to me, by showing in what places the exposition most needed to be improved, or the argument strengthened. And I should have been well pleased if the book had undergone a much greater amount of attack; as in that case I should probably have been enabled to improve it still more than I believe I have now done.
In the subsequent editions, the attempt to improve the work by additions and corrections, suggested by criticism or by thought, has been continued. In the present (seventh) edition, a few further corrections have been made, but no material additions.
[1] In the later editions of Archbishop Whately's Logic, he states his meaning to be, not that "rules" for the ascertainment of truths by inductive investigation cannot be laid down, or that they may not be "of eminent service," but that they "must always be comparatively vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular demonstrative theory like that of the Syllogism." (Book IV. ch. iv. Β§ 3.) And he observes, that to devise a system for this purpose, capable of being "brought into a scientific form," would be an achievement which "he must be more sanguine than scientific who expects." (Book IV. ch. ii. Β§ 4.) To effect this, however, being the express object of the portion of the present work which treats of Induction, the words in the text are no overstatement of the difference of opinion between Archbishop Whately and me on the subject.
[2] Now forming a chapter in his volume on The Philosophy of Discovery.
CONTENTSOF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
OF NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
Comments (0)