some aid from the few critical and controversial articles that he had already printed, his editors pieced together, with great difficulty, the imperfect view of his improved system of Logic, which appears as a long Appendix to the volume of his Lectures. The manuscripts which they selected and arranged were judiciously printed just as he left them, and with very little editorial comment. The reader must gather from them as best he may, always keeping in view the date attached to each fragment, a connected view of Sir William Hamilton's latest doctrines upon the subject. This posthumous work has at least one odd characteristic, as the body of the work and the Appendix flatly contradict each other, by giving opposite views of the science to which they relate. These are the sources whence I have endeavored to collect the materials for a general survey of the science of Logic in its present state, embracing what is common to all systems, and a review of most of the questions relating to it which are still open to discussion. Among English authors, after Sir William Hamilton, I have been chiefly indebted to Professor Mansel; for without the aid afforded by his Prolegomena Logica, and the notes and supplementary matter appended to his edition of Aldrich, of which Hamilton justly remarks that la sauce vaut mieux que le poisson, this book would have cost me much more labor, and yet would have wanted what are now its best claims to notice. I have also derived much help from the excellent "Outline of the Laws of Thought," by Dr. Thomson, the present Archbishop of York. Among the German writers, besides all whose names have been already mentioned, I have made profitable use of Kiesewetter, Fries, Beneke, Dressler, and Drobisch, besides consulting a host of others. Of the earlier logicians, it seems to me that Burgersdyck, with the annotations of Heereboord, gives the clearest account of the science as it was taught in the schools before the influence of Descartes and Locke began to be felt; and that the Port Royal "Art of Thinking," of which an admirable translation, with Notes and an Appendix, by Mr. Baynes, has recently been published, is far the best of the treatises on the subject which were in use during the eighteenth century. Throughout the work, I have kept constantly in view the wants of learners, much of it having been first suggested while attempting to expound the science in my own classroom. My highest ambition will be satisfied if it should be found to be of use to other teachers. CAMBRIDGE, March, 1864. |