REVIEWS 



Formal Logic: a Scientific and Social Problem. By F. C. S. Schiller, 

 M.A., D.Sc, Fellow and Senior Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 

 [Pp. xviii + 423.] (London : Macmillan & Co., 191 2. Price 10s. net.) 



The ordinary treatise on Formal Logic neither claims, nor in fact has, direct 

 bearing on scientific fact or special interest for men of science. Of recent years 

 there has arisen an extension known as methodology, which has, unfortunately, 

 consisted of verbal and abstract discussion and has had small bearing on scientific 

 work. Attempts to make the science practical and to criticise the methods used 

 by scientific men are refused the recognition due to them because academic 

 philosophers do not understand science, and men of science know little of 

 philosophy and have made no careful and systematic study of scientific method. 

 Therefore the blunders of one generation of scientific men, when some uncomfort- 

 able new series of fact reveals them, are silently glossed over and their successors 

 proceed to repeat them in accentuated forms. Nothing is more needed than an 

 extension of logic having some relation to science. We therefore turn expectantly 

 to one of the prominent exponents of the pragmatist school of thought ; for prag- 

 matism, if it is nothing else, is at least an attempt to bring philosophy closer to 

 practical life. 



Regretfully we are obliged to note that the positive contributions to a logic of 

 science are meagre. The greater part of the volume consists of an attack on 

 formal logic as commonly accepted and taught. The author describes it as an 

 attempt to put the logicians' house in order and to clear the ground for a new 

 logic that has yet to be written. It is, however, hopeless to attempt to deduce 

 from the present book what the new logic would be if the author had time to write 

 it. But such contributions to the advancement of the study of scientific method 

 as are put forward it will be well to note. 



In a vvay, the whole book may be regarded as a defence of science in a sense 

 not very intelligible to any one unacquainted with the Oxford atmosphere. The 

 intellectualist and academic school are disposed to depreciate the study of science, 

 and in so doing they will not omit to mention the obvious fact that the typical 

 inductive proof of scientific principles is not formally valid. The burden of 

 Dr. Schiller's book is that formal validity is of no value or importance. It would 

 perhaps be unwise to underrate the significance of the Oxford atmosphere, and the 

 bearing of Dr. Schiller's attack should be duly noted. 



More specific points will be found in the treatment of induction. Mill put 

 forward five classic methods of inferring from effect to cause, and these methods 

 have been subjected to interminable criticism ever since. Dr. Schiller demurs 

 that the essential point is relevance. " Instead of talking about facts at large, let 

 us say relevant facts " (p. 268). But Dr. Schiller does not think that the validity 

 of the methods is thus saved. He thinks, on the other hand, that the introduction 

 of the idea would make out a case for a " third branch of logic, underlying both 

 deduction and induction, which would determine the relevance of fact and be more 



559 



