168 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Dr. Schiller's book showed ignorance of a number of technical 

 logical points. 



Dr. Schiller replied and maintained his original contention 

 that the fundamental basis of formal logic as commonly taught 

 and understood was unsound. As it might conceivably be 

 presented there was a case lor its continuance, but in its 

 present incoherent state it was worse than useless. He 

 remarked that Dr. Wolf's accusation of ignorance was easily 

 answered by a careful reading of the criticised passages in 

 their context, and that Dr. Wolf's case was not improved by 

 the violence of his language. 



Dr. Bosanquet gave a general support to Dr. Wolf, but 

 did not altogether approve of the argument from the tradition 

 of 2,000 years. His own experience was that the most 

 educative exercise for the student was not so much the 

 working of the formal logic as the putting of arguments into 

 logic. 



Dr. Mercier remarked that none of the speakers in the 

 course of their arguments had made any use whatever of the 

 obverse, or the contrapositive, or the syllogism, or any of 

 the technical machinery of ordinary formal logic. 



Mr. Carveth Read turned the discussion to the scientific 

 side. He remarked that the attempt to teach methodology was 

 not usually very successful. Most of the time of the teacher 

 was taken up in explaining the meaning of the illustrative 

 examples, that is in teaching chemistry, physics, or biology. 

 The students were usually quite incapable of finding other 

 examples for themselves. 



Prof. Brough owned that formal logic, in its present state, 

 was open to many criticisms, but hoped that Dr. Schiller would 

 see that his views were somewhat too extreme. 



Mr. Shelton commented strongly on Dr. Wolfs contention 

 that what is asserted by science should be accepted uncon- 

 ditionally by logic. He said that no man of science would 

 make such a claim. Methodology, as commonly taught, was 

 metaphysics and, on that basis, no special section was required. 

 Unless the methodologist were prepared to make some positive 

 addition to the concepts, methods, and results of science, it 

 would be better to delete the subject of methodology from the 

 university curriculum. 



Dr. Schiller and Dr. Wolf briefly replied. 



