MS 428 (1902) - Minute Logic - Chapter II - Section II

aggregate value of all such application will not compare with the treasure of the pure theory itself. For when he has surveyed the whole subject, he will see that the theory of logic, in so far as we attain to it, is the vision and the attainment of that reasonableness for the sake of which the Heavens and the Earth have been created.

Meantime, O Reader, not yet seeing the truth of this, why is it that you have undertaken the study of logic? You may have some excellent reasons which are peculiar to your personal relations to science and to life. But in addition to these, there are certain reasons which you must have, since they attach to the very essence of the study. Presuming that, aside from personal reasons, you desire in singleness of heart to examind the theory of reasoning under the guidance of an older student, I remark that this very fact is evidence that you are already a much better logician than are the mass

of mankind, who are thoroughly persuaded that they reason well enough already. I do not mean to say that they maintain that none of them ever reasons wrong. Far from that, though they trust to common sense as affording all the security that could be desired for reasoning, yet their adhesion is majestically unanimous to the proposition that of all the race there is but one single individual who never falls into fallacy; and their only point of difference is that each is quite sure that he himself is that man. Unfortunately, to be cocksure that one is an infallible rea soner is to furnish conclusive evidence either that one does not reason at all, or that one reasons very badly, since that deluded state of mind prevents the constant self-criticism which is, as we shall see, the very life of reasoning. Congratulations, then, from my heart go out to you, my dear Reader, whom I assume to have a sincere desire to learn, not merely the dicta of common sense, but what good reasoning, scientifically examined, shall prove to be. You are already an unusually good logician.

But now from what I know of you, I am led to think that you entertain certain few opinions on which I should like to