Logical thinking is objective.

Since all thinking has reference to some reality beyond itself, we think clearly when we discern the object that we are thinking about without confusion, and we reason correctly when we see how one relation of a thing involves another. In order to think clearly and reason correctly it is therefore necessary to look outwards continually beyond ourselves and beyond the words used by others towards the things that we or they are thinking about, in order to see these things and all their essential relations as they are. Unless we do this we cannot succeed either in expressing ourselves plainly and accurately or in forming a right estimate of the reasoning of others. Thus the habit of closely examining the reality beyond us and of testing all our thoughts and words with reference to that reality is necessary for all the aims of logic.

Logic is often defined as the science of the laws of thought; but if what we have been saying is correct, it would Scope of be far more appropriate to say that it points out logic. the laws of things which all thought should respect, or that it deals with the mutual implications of the relations of things. The special sciences and metaphysics also study relations of things and the way in which one involves another, but with a somewhat different purpose. Each of the special sciences is concerned with some one group of things and relations, and when it inquires how one relation involves another it is for the sake of gaining more knowledge about the particular things and relations in question. Its aim is thus the attainment of wider or more exact knowledge in some one special field. Metaphysics, on the other hand, inquires into the most fundamental and general relations of all things, and tries to find out what the inmost nature of any thing must be in order that all of these relations should belong to it together. Logic, like metaphysics,

he will find consciousness itself flickering and disappearing.—If simple apprehensions exist, they form no part of our knowledge, of our coherent thought, or of our reasoning. All these involve judgments.

has a very general aim; it too inquires into the most fundamental relations of things and the way in which one involves another. But its inquiry is not so profound as that of metaphysics; it does not ask what the inmost nature of things must be in order that these relations should exist together in them; and the knowledge that it does try to gain about relations and their mutual implications it regards as a means, not as an end. We cannot reason at all in science or anything else unless we have some idea of them, and we cannot reason correctly unless our idea of them is essentially correct; but it may be correct enough to enable us to reason well about most subjects without being nearly so profound as advanced metaphysical inquiries try to make it. Thus in so far as logic tries to make us reason correctly by giving us correct conceptions of things and the way in which their relations involve each other, it is a kind of simple metaphysics studied for a practical end.

There is a sense, however, in which it is perfectly true that logic deals with laws of thought'. A law of thought tells how people actually do think, just as a law of astronomy tells how heavenly bodies actually move, and the real science of the laws of thought is therefore psychology; but inasmuch as there are certain natural ways of.thinking that lead to various kinds of logical blunders, it is necessary to understand them in order to understand why we make the blunders. Thus in so far as logic deals with various kinds of fallacies which we naturally commit and tries to explain their origin, it is touching on the field of psychology and dealing with 'laws of thought'.

Every judgment, true or false, asserts something about some supposed reality beyond itself, and the difference between the true and the false is that the state of Truth impersonal. affairs asserted by the former really exists and that asserted by the latter does not. Whether it does or does not depends altogether upon the nature of things and the presence or absence of the conditions that might naturally

produce it. It does not depend at all upon the judgment about it. Whether the sun is shining or not at a certain place depends altogether upon the time of day and the presence or absence of clouds, fog, and an eclipse. If such conditions as these are all favorable, the sun is certainly shining whether I happen to think so or not; and if I say it is not shining when it really is, my statement is false no matter who I am or how sincere I may be in making it; so likewise if I have nervous prostration or a broken leg, I have it no matter who says that I have or that I have not. Hence it is arrant nonsense to say that something may be true for one person and false for another '. One person

may believe that a statement is true and another may believe that it is not, but the facts are what they are wholly regardless of these conflicting beliefs, and one of the persons must be wrong. If every possible statement could really be true for one person and false for another, then every one would always be right in what he thought no matter what it was, and there would be no such thing as an error or mistake, and therefore no distinction between correct thinking and incorrect. All logic is based on the assumption that there is such a distinction, and therefore from the standpoint of logic no blunder could be more fundamental or destructive than that which is involved in the serious belief that something may be true for one person and false for another'.

The notion that some fact might exist 'for' one person and not 'for' another doubtless arises from the existence of individual differences in matters of taste and a certain confusion about their meaning. If a picture pleases me, I say it is beautiful; and if it displeases you, you say it is ugly; and all that either of us has any right to mean by the statement is that the picture does please him or displease him. Each statement thus tells about the relation between two things, the picture and the beholder; and because of the difference between the two beholders both statements understood in this way may be perfectly true; the picture really is beautiful

for me and really is ugly for you, and there is nothing more to be said-de gustibus nil disputandum. But these words

'beautiful' and 'ugly' and others like them have the same grammatical form as words like 'square' and 'round' which really tell about the thing itself, quite regardless of its relations to the beholder; and this helps to make us ignore the difference between them and assume that somehow or other we can describe the thing itself (as we do with such words as 'round' and ' square'), while at the same time the truth of the description depends (as it does with such words as 'beautiful' and 'ugly') upon who it is that gives it.

Somewhat like the statement that something may be true for one person and false for another is the statement that it may be true in one science and false in another. Towards the end of the middle ages the monkish philosophers found themselves reaching conclusions that were quite contrary to the doctrine of the Church which they were bound to accept. So they said that there was a difference between theology and philosophy, that a doctrine might be true in one though false in the other, and that they accepted all the teachings of the Church as true in theology, though they might reject a part of them as false in philosophy. By this subterfuge they tried to give an excuse for continuing their thinking as freely as possible and yet save their heads by remaining in nominal subservience to the Church. Of course this doctrine of a double truth' was nothing but a subterfuge, and it disappeared when men gained the right to exercise their own individual judgment in matters of belief.

Corollary.

Since the reality with which all thought is concerned is something different from the thought itself, we have no right to assume without evidence that there is any relation between them beyond the bare relation of knower and object known. We have no right to assume that our thoughts are like things-e.g., that our thought of the moon is round like the moon itself—or that they have the same history or are subject to the same laws. We have

no right to assume, for example, that distant events are any more vague than those of the present simply because our ideas of them are more vague, or that things were vague and chaotic before they were definite because our ideas of them

were.

Fact and feeling.

Facts are as independent of our feelings as they are of our ideas. Hence when we are trying to find out what the facts really are we must not ask instead what we should like them to be and assume that we have answered the first question when we have only answered the second. Yet obvious as this is, the tendency to confuse the facts as they are with what we should like them to be is exceedingly strong. Indeed it is so strong that hardly any one can overcome it altogether. To do so to look facts squarely in the face and accept them as they are, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be—is one of the very first conditions of greatness, and it is always a mighty aid to success in any career. Moreover it is something which does not require any unusual mental ability. But it does require intellectual honesty; and because very few of us are willing to be absolutely honest in our thought those who are so often seem heroic. The Appeal to Consequences', on the other hand—the argument which really invites one to accept a certain view merely because the view itself or something else that it involves is more pleasant to believe in than the contrary—is thoroughly contemptible, and yet it is something to which we are so accustomed that it takes a strong man with a great love for truth to show us how contemptible it really is. I quote the following from the account of the discussion of evolution at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860 in the Life of Professor Huxley (vol. i. pp. 197-8): "The Bishop spoke thus for full half an hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and unfairness.' In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been.'" Then "he rhetori