Symbolic Logic

MANY who are interested in the progress of logical science have looked forward to the appearance of this long-expected work as one likely to give them a logical treat. They will not be disappointed. It may be impossible to accept Mr. Venn's opinions as decisive of some points which he discusses, and it would not be difficult to indicate deficiencies; but we have no book which approaches the one before us in the thoroughness with which it opens up the logical questions of the day. With equal industry and ability Mr. Venn has gone over almost the whole literature of logic so far as it contains any germs of the scientific system associated with the name of Boole. Mr. Venn writes professedly as an admirer of Boole, and his work consists to a great extent of the matter of lectures upon Boole's logic, delivered under the inter-collegiate scheme of lecturing, which has now been in operation for about twelve years at Cambridge. Thus the book is substantially an exposition of Boole's Logic, and practically the only one which we have. Boole's own great work, “The Laws of Thought,” appeared more than a quarter of a century ago (1854), and has never reached a second edition. It has been much more talked about than read.Symbolic Logic.By John Venn, Fellow and Lecturer in the Moral Sciences, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Pp. xxxix. 446. (London: Macmillan, 1881.)