JOHN STUART MILL. 753 



Brown-Sequard, on the causes of cadaveric rigidity, and also used it 

 in my own book. For the deductive method, and the allied subjects 

 of explanation and empirical and derivative law, the examples that we 

 found were abundant. "When, however, I suggested his adopting 

 some from psychology, he steadily, and I believe wisely, resisted ; 

 and, if he took any of these, it was in the deductive department. 



I was so much struck with the view of induction that regarded it 

 as reasoning from particulars to particulars,- that I suggested a further 

 exemplification of it in detail, and he inserted two pages of instances 

 that I gave him. On the last three books I had little to offer. I 

 remember his saying, at a later period, that the fourth book (which I 

 have always regarded as the cmde materials of a logic of definition 

 and classification) was made up of a number of subjects that he did 

 not know where to place. 



The "Logic" has been about the best attacked book of the time ; 

 and the author has in successive editions replied to objections and 

 made extensive amendments. I have had myself full opportunities 

 for expressing both agreements and dissents in regard to all the main 

 points. Yet I could not pretend to say that criticism has been ex- 

 hausted, or that imperfections and even inconsistencies may not even 

 yet be pointed out. It is long since I was struck with the seeming in- 

 compatibility between the definition of logic in the introduction viz., 

 the science of proof, or evidence and the double designation in the 

 title Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investiga- 

 tion. Previous writers laid little stress on proof, and Mill took the 

 other extreme and made proof everything. Bacon, Herschel, and Whe- 

 well seemed to think that, if we could only make discoveries, the proof 

 would be readily forthcoming a very natural supposition with men 

 educated mainly in mathematics and physics. Mill, from his familiar- 

 ity with the moral and political sciences, saw that proof was more im- 

 portant than discovery. But the title, although larger than the defi- 

 nition, is not larger than the work ; he did discuss the methods of in- 

 vestigation, as aids to discovery, as well as means of proof ; only, he 

 never explained the mutual bearings of the two. Any one that tries 

 will find this not an easy matter. 



The sixth book was the outcome of his long study Of politics, both 

 practical and theoretical, to which the finishing stroke was given by 

 the help of Auguste Comte. I will return to this presently. 



In five months he carried the work through the press, and brought 

 it out in March, 1843. We may form some estimate of the united 

 labor of correcting proof-sheets, often one a day, of reconsidering the 

 new examples that have been suggested, of reading Liebig's two books, 

 and Comte's sixth volume (nearly a thousand pages), and of recasting 

 the concluding chapters. From the moment of publication, the omens 

 were auspicious. Parker's trade-sale was beyond his anticipations, 

 and the book was asked for by unexpected persons, and appeared in 



TOL. XV. 43 



