33 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



France," and Dulaure's " History of Paris "; which is not unlikely to be 

 Mill's. The Corn Laws is one of his subjects, and on this there is an 

 article of thirty pages in the twelfth number (October, 1826). In the 

 following number (January, 1827), there is a second article, referring 

 to Mr. Canning's measure recently brought forward (1826). The con- 

 cluding article of this number I believe to be Mill's ; it deals with a re- 

 cent article in the " Quarterly," on " Greek Courts of Justice," and is 

 in his happiest vein. It retorts cleverly upon the exaggerations of the 

 " Quarterly," by finding in the English legal practice abuses equal to 

 the worst that the reviewer discovers in the Athenian courts. In the 

 sixteenth number there is a review of Goodwin's " History of the Com- 

 monwealth," which seems to follow up the review of Hume. 



The article on Whately in January, 1828, was the outcome of the 

 discussions in Grote's house the previous year. It is a landmark not 

 merely in the history of his own mind, but in the history of Logic. 

 His discussion of the utility of Logic, at a time when Syllogism was 

 the body and essence of it, hits the strongest part of the case better 

 than the famous chapter on the "Functions of the Syllogism"; I mean 

 the analyzing of an argument, with a view to isolating the attention 

 on the parts. The discussion of the Predicables is an improvement 

 upon Whately. He even praises, although he does not quite agree 

 with, Whately's attempt to identify Induction with Syllogism, and 

 gives him credit for illustrating, but not for solving, the difficulty of our 

 assenting to general propositions without seeing all that they involve. 

 His view of the desiderata of Logic is thus expressed : " A large por- 

 tion of the philosophy of general Terms still remains undiscovered ; 

 the philosophical analysis of Predication, the explanation of what is 

 the immediate object of belief when we assent to a proposition, is yet 

 to be performed ; and, though the important assistance rendered by 

 general language, not only in what are termed the exact sciences, but 

 even in the discovery of physical facts, is known and admitted, the 

 nature of the means by which it performs this service is a problem 

 still to a great extent unsolved." On the whole, it can not be said that 

 he had, as yet, made much progress in Logic, even with the assistance 

 of the debates in Threadneedle Street. The real advances apparently 

 remained to be worked out by his own unassisted strength during the 

 next twelve years. I may remark, in conclusion, that I think he 

 greatly overrates the value of Whately's book : " The masterly sketch 

 which he has given of the whole science in the analytical form, previ- 

 ously to entering upon a more detailed exposition of it in the syntheti- 

 cal order, constitutes one of the greatest merits of the volume, as an 

 elementary work." If, instead of merits, defects were substituted, the 

 sentence would be, in my judgment, very near the truth. The result 

 of the arrangement was singularly confusing to myself, when I first 

 read the book ; and the testimony of all subsequent writers on Logic 

 must be held as against it, for not one, to my knowledge, has ever 



