Book Description

Excerpt from A Logic of Facts: Or Everyday Reasoning The Logic of the Schools, however indispensable in its place, fails to meet half the common want in daily life. The Logic of the Schools begins with the management of the premises of an argument; there is, however, a more practical lesson to be learned in beginning with the premises themselves. A thousand errors arise through the assumption of premises for one arising in the misplacement of terms. The Logic of the Schools is an elaborate attack upon the lesser evil. Sir James Mackintosh has remarked that 'Popular reason can alone correct popular sophistry' - and it is in vain that we expect amendment in the reasoning of the multitude, unless we make reasoning intelligible to the multitude. As to my object, could I, like Gridiron-Cobbett, adopt a symbol of it, I would have engraved Æsop's 'Old Man and his Ass,' who, in a vain attempt to please everybody, failed (like his disciples - for even he has disciples) to please anybody. The folly of that superfluously philanthropic old gentleman should teach us proportion of purpose. To be of real service to some is in the compass of individual capacity, and, consequently, the true way of serving, if not of pleasing all. The republic of literature, like society, has its aristocratic, its middle, and its lower classes. No one has combined, in one performance, the refinement applauded in the universities, with the practical purpose, popular among those who toil to live, and live to toil. The populace are my choice - of them I am one, and, like a recent premier, Earl Grey, am disposed 'to stand by my order.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.