MS 628-640 (1909) - Meaning

1909 Aug 24 MEANING Preface to the Volume 1

PREFACE

I venture to appear before you, Reader lay these writings before the public in the confidence that the ideas of a man who has devoted his whole being from boyhood to the age of seventy, to with unflagging industry, dev and passionate desire for the very truth, whatever it that might turn out to be, to the study of the nature of reasoning, (to which the subjects of these essays may must be regarded as appertaining from the point of view they adopt), and who, for in the hope of learning more of it, has pursued successively a number of other studies, chemistry, phonetics, several branches of physics, chromatics, astronomy, mathematics, psychology, the history of science, and that of phonetics, -- to a point at which

1909 Aug 24 11:25 am Preface to the Book MEANING 2

he was able could and did make sound and thoroughly original, however petty and small, contributions to most of them, and to attain something like a respectable standing among their devotees, -- would be regarded by you as with so much attention as may be needed to apprehend and weigh them. I reckon a man as pretty near a fool who has reached the age of fifty without having gauged his own powers more accurately than anybody else could gauge them. Relying on my own estimates, then, I can say that my own natural powers of mind were rather below than above mediocrity; and my fondness

1909 Aug 24 0h30m PM Preface to the Book MEANING 3

for logic confirms me in this opinion, for in my extensive readings in that science I have been struck with the low average degree of good sense of the logicians. It would seem as a man's interest in logic were proportionate to the difficulty he finds in reasoning But my three strongest points have been self-criticism, persistence, and logical analysis, and because of the fundamental nature of my chosen study, those talents seeds have brought me a harvest of very high rich value to any man who interests himself in anything beyond his earthy métier, whatever that may be; and whoever has no such further concerns will naturally not read my writings. Thus, I

1909 Aug 24 0145 PM MEANING Preface to the Volume 4

assure myself that my labors will not be in vain, but that, whether they are appreciated by my readers or not (which is not important,) my too books, -- this and a general system of logic which is intended to follow this one, -- will really be of substantial value to every student who takes the trouble to read them understandingly: certainly they will to any who may find, on thorough examination, reason to dissent from some or all my conclusions; and I trust they may find critical readers. No young man can so read them without finding his powers of thought

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