Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/570

554 The theory of science, and indeed the whole topic of induction, has not found a place in the German gymnasium, so that it is treated briefly, and some sections (e.g. the discussion of the conceptions cause and effect) are inappropriately forced into the earlier part of the book.

It is hardly possible to give a fresh and modern treatment of logic from the German standpoint, and yet keep so closely to old terms and topics as may seem necessary for a text-book. Dr. Höfler succeeded better in his first part than in his treatment of judgment and the syllogism, in combining these two aims. It is perhaps a defect, that the book hardly succeeds in vindicating a clear and distinct sphere for logic. The main purpose of the writer is to make students think, and, if I mistake not, his clear-cut definitions and wide variety of example will prove a stimulus for more advanced thinkers than those for whom it was intended.

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An elementary text-book of Logic in all respects satisfactory, has long been sought by many teachers of the subject throughout the country. Jevons' Elementary Lessons, perhaps up to this time the book best adapted for beginners, leaves much to be desired in the way of accuracy of treatment and scientific exactitude. While confessedly owing much both in matter and in method of presentation to Jevons, Dr. Hyslop's book is distinctively an advance upon all of the elementary text-books with which I am acquainted. In a subject like formal logic an author must of course in the main follow the traditional lines, but Dr. Hyslop's experience as a teacher is shown both by his treatment of questions over which students are often left without guidance, and by his judicious omissions of irrelevant matter which many treatises on logic still retain.

The author has aimed, he tells us, "to produce a work that can be used both by beginners and for advanced students of the subject, but not for those who care to go into it exhaustively." From a pedagogical standpoint it is perhaps to be regretted that he has attempted to meet the requirements of these two classes of students by one book; or, at least, that the discussions of special theoretical questions have not been separated from the main body of logical doctrine by being thrown into separate chapters. The aim of the work is, however, primarily practical, "to direct the student in practical reasoning and correct thinking in professional vocations." For this purpose there has been