Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/136

 124 F. H. BEADLE Y'S PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC. descriptive and explanatory, substitutive, co-ordinative, sub sump - tive, &c., the number of which seems practically indefinite, and to be determined merely by the extent to which current modes of speech have been taken into consideration by the writer. The limits of the subject as a whole are equally indeterminate. In- quiries rejected by some are admitted and treated as funda- mental by others ; the ground of rejection or inclusion appearing really to be whether or not the writer has handled elsewhere or proposes to handle elsewhere these problems. Chaotic as are the phenomena on which an opinion with respect to Logic has to be based, the general character of that opinion can hardly be matter of doubt. This turmoil of con- flicting views is a most hopeful sign. For it indicates that we are beginning to form a logic which shall in some way represent the laws and methods of our thought, and that the stage of pre- paration, the attainment of some more precise conception of what is truly the function of thought, has been reached. We have, one would trust for ever, given up the conception of thought as a mere formal activity, dissevered from the body of that which makes up our knowledge, indifferent to content, and obeying only the law of one and two, of Identity and Difference. Probably no theory of thought has ever been so empty and so destructive of genuine thinking as the Formal Logic, miscalled Kantian, which endeavoured to proceed upon that basis. Eeally, that logic, taken strictly, must resolve its whole contents into one simple, practical maxim : ' Let thinking be consistent with itself '. What- soever else it contains must come from without, in the shape of psychological propositions regarding the elements of thinking or metaphysical assumptions regarding the conditions of what is thought. But, though we are perhaps able to see how futile is the purely formal logic of thought, there is sufficient evidence supplied by our current logical works that we have not yet suc- ceeded in marking off logical discussions proper from general psychology or grammar or merely popular thinking. Even where the view is taken that Logic is a real theory of knowledge, an attempt to unfold completely the processes and laws by which knowledge is formed and systematised, there is an almost con- stant confusion between the psychological and the logical analysis of knowledge. Knowledge being confessedly a subjective affair, a matter of mind, it is instantly assumed that the same predi- cates which apply to facts of mind regarded as such are to be found and are operative as logical peculiarities. The doctrine of notions, e.g., tends to become a mere receptacle for psychological discussions regarding the modes of forming ideas, their kinds, and the properties of each class subjects no doubt of psycho- logical interest, but not truly involved in the logical inquiry. The doctrine of judgment is confused by having imported into it a whole mass of disputable matter regarding the nature of belief, or conviction of reality, and theories of the judgment, which are