A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive — John Stuart Mill
1 of 2) by John Stuart Mill 1 of 2) This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2) Author : John Stuart Mill Release date : August 31, 2008 [eBook #26495] Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26495 *** START OF 1 OF 2) *** 1 of 2) by John Stuart Mill A SYSTEM OF LOGIC, RATIOCINATIVE AND INDUCTIVE, BEING A CONNECTED VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE, AND THE METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. by JOHN STUART MILL. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. Third Edition. London: John Parker, West Strand. M DCCC LI. Contents PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. INTRODUCTION. BOOK I. OF NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. CHAPTER I. OF THE NECESSITY OF COMMENCING WITH AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE. CHAPTER II. OF NAMES. CHAPTER III. OF THE THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. I. Feelings, or States of Consciousness. II. Substances. III. Attributes: and, first, Qualities. IV. Relations. V. Quantity. VI. Attributes Concluded. VII. General Results. CHAPTER IV. OF PROPOSITIONS. CHAPTER V. OF THE IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. CHAPTER VI. OF PROPOSITIONS MERELY VERBAL. CHAPTER VII. OF THE NATURE OF CLASSIFICATION, AND THE FIVE PREDICABLES. CHAPTER VIII. OF DEFINITION. BOOK II. OF REASONING. CHAPTER I. OF INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL. CHAPTER II. OF RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. CHAPTER III. OF THE FUNCTIONS, AND LOGICAL VALUE, OF THE SYLLOGISM. CHAPTER IV. OF TRAINS OF REASONING, AND DEDUCTIVE SCIENCES. CHAPTER V. OF DEMONSTRATION, AND NECESSARY TRUTHS. CHAPTER VI. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. BOOK III. OF INDUCTION. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON INDUCTION IN GENERAL. CHAPTER II. OF INDUCTIONS IMPROPERLY SO CALLED. CHAPTER III. OF THE GROUND OF INDUCTION. CHAPTER IV. OF LAWS OF NATURE. CHAPTER V. OF THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMPOSITION OF CAUSES. CHAPTER VII. OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE FOUR METHODS OF EXPERIMENTAL INQUIRY. CHAPTER IX. MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES OF THE FOUR METHODS. CHAPTER X. OF PLURALITY OF CAUSES; AND OF THE INTERMIXTURE OF EFFECTS. CHAPTER XI. OF THE DEDUCTIVE METHOD. CHAPTER XII. OF THE EXPLANATION OF LAWS OF NATURE. CHAPTER XIII. MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES OF THE EXPLANATION OF LAWS OF NATURE. Footnotes 1 of 2) by John Stuart Mill [pg iii] PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. This book makes no pretence of giving to the world a new theory of the intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it possess any, is grounded on the fact that it is an attempt not to supersede, but to embody and systematize, the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its subject by speculative writers, or conformed to by accurate thinkers in their scientific inquiries. To cement together the detached fragments of a subject, never yet treated as a whole; to harmonize the true portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links of thought necessary to connect them, and by disentangling them from the errors with which they are always more or less interwoven; must necessarily require a considerable amount of original speculation. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effected a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the practice of it. The improvement which remains to be effected in the methods of philosophizing (and the author believes that they have much [pg iv] need of improvement) can only consist in performing, more systematically and accurately, operations with which, at least in their elementary form, the human intellect in some one or other of its employments is already familiar. In the portion of the work which treats of Ratiocination, the author has not deemed it necessary to enter into technical details which may be obtained in so perfect a shape from the existing treatises on what is termed the Logic of the Schools. In the contempt entertained by many modern philosophers for the syllogistic art, it will be seen that he by no means participates; although the scientific theory on which its defence is usually rested appears to him erroneous: and the view which he has suggested of the nature and functions of the Syllogism may, perhaps, afford the means of conciliating the principles of the art with as much as is well grounded in the doctrines and objections of its assailants. The same abstinence from details could not be observed in the First Book, on Names and Propositions; because many useful principles and distinctions which were contained in the old Logic, have been gradually omitted from the writings of its later teachers; and it appeared desirable both to revive these, and to reform and rationalize the philosophical foundation on which they stood. The earlier chapters of this preliminary Book will consequently appear, to some readers, needlessly elementary and scholastic. But those who know in what darkness the nature of our knowledge, and of the processes by which it is [pg v] obtained, is often involved by a confused apprehension of the import of the different classes of Words and Assertions, will not regard these discussions as either frivolous, or irrelevant to the topics considered in the later Books. On the subject of Induction, the task to be performed was that of generalizing the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sciences, bee