CORRESPONDENCE, 1856-66. 331 



of the word compliment. It looks like a formation from comply, 1865. 

 but I doubt it. I suspect that complement is the original, though 

 the present spelling and usage is as old as the Academy's 

 Dictionary. I suspect that old forms of civility were at last 

 described as complements, fillings up ; and that complim ts , at the 

 end of a letter, meant that all usual forms are to be understood. 

 My theory receives a little support from comply not being a 

 French verb. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



I have as yet read your article for Comte only, for I really 

 wanted to know what he had been at. I must read it again for 

 criticism. 



To J. 8. Mill, Esq. 



91 Adelaide Road, April 27, 1865. 



MY DEAR SIR, I received the Examination to-day, and write 

 my thanks that I may not forget it, as I shall have no consecu- 

 tive reading for a week or two. 



I hold, from observation, that a question is never fairly put 

 before a public meeting until it has been moved, seconded, and 

 opposed. A great many persons are really only half informed 

 by the mover and seconder what it is all about ; but the first 

 person who rises on the other side puts some light into it. It is 

 just the old law knowledge : the points at issue come out of the 

 pleadings on both sides. In like manner with controversies. 

 Hamilton has moved, Mansel has seconded, and now you rise to 

 take objections. And I also observe that the first opponent very 

 often puts his view of things into a much more attainable-in-a- 

 given-time form than if he had been the mover of a counter 

 measure. A dip into several unconnected pages makes me think 

 that may be the case here. 



One of my dips is into ' All oxen ruminate.' I have shown 

 in my fifth paper on logic that Aristotle and all his real followers 

 never collected all the oxen. Their phrase was, * Every ox rumi- 

 nates,' or, any ox ruminates. That the predicate is what I have 

 called in my third paper metaphysical I am satisfied. And I have 

 maintained that the common predicate of the world at large is 

 so. I say, * man is born and educated a mathematician as to the 

 subject of his proposition, and a metaphysician as to the predi- 

 cate.' Ex. gr. * Every man is biped,' i.e., is of biped quality or 



