LOGIC: A REJOINDER TO MISS STEBBING 25 



whole nonsensical system away, root and branch ; lock, stock 

 and barrel ; bag and baggage ; and to supersede it by ray own 

 rational system. Miss Stebbing reproaches me with regarding 

 logic merely as an inexhaustible field for the exercise of my 

 own facetiousness. I assure her that is not so. It is true that I 

 cannot help laughing at it : who could ? Who could witness 

 grown men, otherwise fit to be at large, writing reams of stuff 

 on the thesis, " Whatever is, is," and seriously discussing whether 

 the soul is not square, and virtue is not red ? But my 

 laughter is mingled with bitterness of tears to see so much 

 labour, so much industry, so much ingenuity, so much subtlety, 

 so much enthusiasm, wasted on such barren and worthless 

 tasks. A logician always reminds me of a squirrel in a cage. 

 He is for ever climbing and climbing, and he never gets a step 

 higher. What progress has logic made since Aristotle's day? 

 Nay, what department of logic has not deteriorated ? " An 

 excessive sense of humour," says Miss Stebbing, " is apt to 

 destroy one's sense of proportion." I am afraid she means me ; 

 but if so, she could scarcely have gone farther astray from the 

 fact. I don't know that my sense of humour is excessive, but 

 if it is, it has most certainly not destroyed my sense of propor- 

 tion. On the contrary, I have so keen a sense of Proportion, or 

 Analogy, that I have restored it to its proper place, as the third 

 cardinal process of reasoning, after it has been ignored, neg- 

 lected, despised, and confused with other reasoning processes 

 for two thousand years. 



One little grievance I have against Miss Stebbing. She 

 declares my assertion, that logicians exclude signs of quantity 

 other than all, some, and none, is " entirely false." These are 

 strong words, and have given me much distress. I trust they 

 indicate rather Miss Stebbing's indignation with my attack upon 

 her cherished logic than her considered opinion. She gives 

 three exceptions, but what are they among so many ? " Dr. 

 Bosanquet," she says, " would certainly not adhere to the rule." 

 Oho ! then there is a rule ? " De Morgan, too, works out a 

 numerically definite syllogism." True; so he does. But has 

 any other logician treated De Morgan's numerically definite 

 syllogism as anything but a freak ? "And Dr. Keynes admits 

 other signs of quantity." Very liberal of Dr. Keynes ; but does 

 he admit all the other signs? Does he admit more than one 

 other, and does he not admit this but grudgingly, as a half 



