266 Objective Treatment of Logic. [CHAP. XL 



modes of inference, which reason could suggest and which 

 experience could justify. What Mill did was to bring these 

 methods into close relation with such portions of the old 

 scholastic Logic as he felt able to retain, to work them out 

 into much fuller detail, to systematize them by giving them 

 a certain philosophical and psychological foundation, and 

 to entitle the result Logic. 



The practical treatment of a science will seldom corre 

 spond closely to the ideal which its supporters propose to 

 themselves, and still seldomer to that which its antagonists 

 insist upon demanding from the supporters. If we were to 

 take our account of the distinction between the two views of 

 Logic expounded respectively by Hamilton and by Mill, 

 from Mill and Hamilton respectively, we should certainly 

 not find it easy to bring them under one common definition. 

 By such a test, the material Logic would be regarded as 

 nothing more than a somewhat arbitrary selection from the 

 domain of Physical Science in general, and the conceptualist 

 Logic nothing more than a somewhat arbitrary selection from 

 the domain of Psychology. The former would omit all con 

 sideration of the laws of thought and the latter all considera 

 tion of the truth or falsehood of our conclusions. 



Of course, in practice, such extremes as these are soon 

 seen to be avoidable, and in spite of all controversial exagge 

 rations the expounders of the opposite views do contrive to 

 retain a large area of speculation in common. I do not pro 

 pose here to examine in detail the restrictions by which this 

 accommodation is brought about, or the very real and im 

 portant distinctions of method, aim, tests, and limits which 

 in spite of all approach to agreement are still found to subsist. 

 To attempt this would be to open up rather too wide an 

 enquiry to be suitable in a treatise on one subdivision onlv 

 of the general science of Inference. 



