An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

VI PREFACE.
A text-book constructed on this plan seems to cor
respond closely to the treatment of the subject required
by the course of instruction for the ordinary Degree in
many of our Universities and Colleges.
The author s plan has certain difficulties which he has
at least endeavoured to avoid. The chief of these is
the danger of leaving an unbridged gap between the
traditional or formal and the philosophical parts of the
book. To some extent the author found that this
difficulty was diminished by keeping as close as possible
to the Aristotelian exposition, which is in itself thor
oughly philosophical. By treating the formal part of
the subject in this way, the gap seemed almost to dis
appear. For the rest, the most practically convenient
course seemed to be to indicate, in the earlier chapters,
by footnotes or otherwise, those points at which more
fundamental questions arise ; and in a concluding chap
ter, to bring these references together and develop them.
The author hopes that he will at least be found to have
avoided a mistake too common in books of this kind :
of making the treatment of the traditional Logic per
functory or even inaccurate ; of expounding it de haut
en bas, so to speak, leaving on the student s mind the
impression that it is not worth his attention a mistake
equally serious from the educational and the philoso
phical point of view. It is hoped also that some fresh
ness will be found in the choice of examples and
illustrations, as well as in other respects. If Logic
seems trivial to the student, the fault is not necessarily
in Logic ; it may be because the student s range of know-