Charles Sanders Peirce's MS L75

HomePagePapersbyPeircePeirceRelatedPapersIntrotoL75 L75Version2
Charles S. Peirce
Logic, Considered as Semeiotic

An Overview of Charles Peirce's Philosophical Logic,
Constructed from Manuscript L75
Version 1
Analytical reconstruction by
Joseph Ransdell
Department of Philosophy
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409 USA
joseph.ransdell@yahoo.com
Version1ofMSL75isaspecialeditorialconstructiondesigned
tobereadbydefaultasasinglelinearsequentialtext.Itisnota
hypertextdocumentproperbutuseshypertextonlyasatoolfor
managementofthetextforthepurposesofonscreen
presentation.
FortechnicalreasonstheMSistoolargetopresentasawholeon
asingleweb"page"(i.e.asasinglecontinuousdocumentunit),
andsoitispresentedhereintenconsecutiveparts.Itshouldbe
understood,though,thatthesepartshavenosignificanceas
regardsitsorganizationandmerelyreflecttheneedtobreakit
intosmallerunitsfortechnicalreasonsonly.
Thedocumentisorganizedbysuccessivelynumberedmemoirs
andsections.Theupanddownarrowheads
atthetopofeachmemoirorsectionmoveyou,respectively,to
thebeginningofthepreviousandthefollowingmemoirsor
sections,sothatyoucanjumpthroughthedocumentina
sequentialorder,forwardorback,inthatwayifyouwish.
Thetitle,"Logic,ConsideredasSemeiotic,"iseditorially
suppliedbutechoesPeircehimselfinrelatedcontexts.Peirce
sometimesusedthespelling"semiotic"instead,andeither
spellingisjustified,givenhisvariableusage.SofarasIknow,
Peirceneverspelleditas"semiotics".
PleasereadtheEditorialIntroductionifyouarenotalready
familiarwiththisspecialreconstructionofthetextandits
rationale.
ReadtheScholarlyNotesifyouhaveascholar'sinterestinthe
purposes,compromises,andqualificationsinvolvedin
transcribingthismaterialfromitsmanuscriptformand
arrangingitforpresentationhere.
GototheseparateTableofContentspageifyouwanttojump
directlytosomeparticularsectionormemoir.
BEGINNINGOFTHERECONSTRUCTEDTEXT
FinalVersionMSL75.345
Milford,Pa.,1902,July15
To the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Institution,
Gentlemen:
I have the honor respectfully to submit to you herein an
application for aid from the Carnegie Institution in accomplishing
certain scientific work. The contents of the letter are as follows:
1. Explanation of what work is proposed.
Appendix containing a fuller statement.
EDITORIAL NOTE: By the "Appendix" Peirce means the entire

list of 36 proposed "Memoirs," including his accompanying
descriptions of their contents: thus he is referring by this to
what we are treating here as the body of the present work,
which we have supplemented extensively from the draft
material.
2. Considerations as to its Utility.

3. Estimate of the Labor it will involve.
4. Estimate of Other Expense involved.
5. Statement as to the Need of aid from the Carnegie Institution.
6. Suggestion of a Plan by which aid might be extended.
7. Estimate of the Probability of Completion of the work, etc.
8. Remarks as to the Probable Net Cost to the Carnegie
Institution, in money and in efficiency.
9. Statement of my apprehension of the Basis of my claim for
aid.
Final Version MS L75.346349
SECTION 1
EXPLANATION OF WHAT THE PROPOSED WORK IS
Some personal narrative is here necessary. I imbibed from my
boyhood the spirit of positive science, and especially of exact
science; and early became intensely curious concerning the theory
of the methods of science; so that, shortly after my graduation from
college in 1859, I determined to devote my life to that study;
although indeed it was less a resolve than an overmastering passion
which I had been for some years unable to hold in check. It has
never abated. In 1866, and more in 1867, I ventured upon my first
original contributions to the science of logic, and have continued my
studies of this science ever since, with rare interruptions of a few
months only each. Owing to my treating logic as a science, like the
physical sciences in which I had been trained, and making my
studies special, minute, exact, and checked by experience, and
owing to the fact that logic had seldom before been so studied,
discoveries poured in upon me in such a flood as to be embarrassing.
This has been one reason why I have hitherto published but a few
fragments of outlying parts of |347| my work, or slight sketches of
more important parts. For logic differs from the natural sciences
and, in some measure, even from mathematics, in being more
essentially systematic. Consequently, if new discoveries were made
in the course of writing a paper, they would be apt to call for a
remodelling of it, a work for mature reconsideration. Still, as far as I
remember, no definitive conclusion of importance to which I have
ever been led has required retraction, such were the advantages of
the scientific methods of study. Modification in details and changes
(very sparse) of the relative importance of principles are the
greatest alterations I have ever been led to make. Even those have
been due, not to the fault of the scientific method, but chiefly to my
adherence to early teachings. But what has, more than that cause,
prevented my publishing has been, first, that my desire to teach has
not been so strong as my desire to learn, and secondly, that far from
there having been any demand for papers by me, I have always
found no little difficulty in getting what I wrote printed; and |348|
when the favor was accorded, it was usually represented to me that
funds were sacrificed in doing so. My first papers, which have since
been pronounced good work, were sent to almost every logician in
the world, accompanied in many cases with letters; but for ten
years thereafter I never could learn that a single individual had
looked into them. Since then, I have had little ardor about printing
anything. Now, however, being upon the threshold of old age, I
could not feel that I had done my best to do that which I was put
into the world to do, if I did not spend all my available forces in
putting upon record as many of my logical results as I could.
Therefore, what I hereby solicit the aid of the Carnegie
Institution to enable me to do is to draw up some three dozen
memoirs, each complete in itself, yet the whole forming a unitary
system of logic in all its parts, which memoirs shall present in a
form quite convincing to a candid mind the results to which I have
found that the scientific |349| method unequivocally leads, adding
in each case, rational explanations of how opposing opinions have
come about; the whole putting logic, as far as my studies of it have
gone, upon the undeniable footing of a science.
COMMENT to L75.349 by Ransdell (Rev. 7398)

From the beginning to the end of his career Peirce had as
his goal the establishment of logic as a science, and
"establish" should be understood here in two senses: first, in
the sense of showing or demonstrating some things about it
which would make it rationally plausible to regard it in that
way, and second, in the sense of persuading others to this
effect such that it actually came to be publicly identified as
such, institutionalized appropriately in universities, and so
forth.
As regards the first aim, what needed to be shown was
both that its subjectmatter is essentially public, which is
the primarythough not the onlysense of the dictum "all
thought is in signs" that runs like a leitmotiv throughout
Peirce's work, and that it can be understood methodically, in
the manner of science generally. "Methodically" does not
mean "algorithmically": Peirce did not think of scientific
method in terms of a mechanistic procedure of generating or

validating truths, but rather in terms of the exercise of
judgment in following complex cyclical and selfcorrective
procedures involving hypothesis, deduction, and induction,
the lastmentioned of which he regarded in terms of testing
rather than generating general propositions.
To understand Peirce's logic and philosophy of science,
though, it is of the first importance to take due account of a
second sense of "establish" which he, as a working scientist
himself, knew to be at least as important as considerations of
the sort just mentioned above. For he also understood that
the establishing of a science is not a matter of an ingenious
tour de force of demonstration by an individual in a book or
article, as philosophers are usually inclined to conceive it, but
means rather the actual establishing of a shared practice of
inquiry by a community of inquirers with common and
overlapping concerns. This second sense of "establishment" is
especially relevant here; for Peirce regarded this application
to the Carnegie Institution as presenting the real possibility of
establishing logic, in a broad sense which includes what we
now call "philosophy of science", as an institutionally
recognized scientific field on par with the hard sciences by
appealing to his own scientific peers in the hard sciences to
recognize it as such by supporting him in gathering and
presenting it systematically as foundational work in the field.
Contrary to a continuing misconception, Peirce was not an
unknown figure in his time as regards academicians in general
and scientists in particular, and had quite an impressive
backing for his application by way of letters of
recommendation from important academicians, of whom a
good many were in or connected in one way or another with
the sciences, and the board of referees to whom he was
appealing was a similarly prestigious board composed largely
of people in the sciences. (Transcriptions of these letters are
currently being prepared and will be made available here at
the Arisbe website in the near future.) The attempt, though
unsuccessful, was not quixotic: indeed, there is reason to
think it would have been successful had it not been for
extensive clandestine activity aimed chiefly at discrediting
Peirce's character rather than his plan. This is discussed in a
little more detail in the Editorial Introduction.
FromDraftAMSL75.2129
What I desire aid in doing is in bringing before the world the
result of my researches into logic.

I began the study of logic in 1856, and it has been my principal
occupation ever since. Twice, I have made determined efforts to
dismiss the subject from my thoughts; but the bent of my mind is
such that I did not succeed in doing so for more than a few months
each time. It was, however, not until 1861 that I ventured upon any
serious original research; so that, subtracting distractions, forty
years' work is about what my results have cost me.
These results have never been published. It is true that
fragmentary papers mostly upon relatively unimportant topics have
appeared; but the whole forms a unitary system to such a degree
that no part which seems to have any importance can be set forth
separately in a manner to do it justice, either in respect to its
meaning or in respect to the evidences of it. I will explain how this
came to be the case. In May 1867 I presented |22| to the Academy
in Boston a paper of ten pages, or about 4000 words, upon a New
List of Categories. It was the result of full two years' intense and
incessant application. It surprises me today that in so short a time I
could produce a statement of that sort so nearly accurate, especially
when I look back at my notebooks and find by what an unnecessarily
difficult route I reached my goal. For this list of categories differs
from the lists of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel in attempting much more
than they. They merely took conceptions which they found at hand,
already worked out. Their labor was limited to selecting the
conceptions, slightly developing some of them, arranging them, and
in Hegel's case, separating one or two that had been confused with
others. But what I undertook to do was to go back to experience, in
the sense of whatever we find to have been forced upon our minds,
and by examining it to form clear conceptions of its radically
different classes of |23| elements, without relying upon any
previous philosophizing, at all. This was the most difficult task I ever
ventured to undertake. This list is fortunately very short.
Corresponding to Aristotle's Substance, there are two conceptions
which I call Being and Substance, but corresponding to his nine
Accidents I find only three, Quality, Reaction, Mediation. Having
obtained this list of three kinds of elements of experience, (for
Being and Substance are of a different nature,) the business before
me was the mixed one of making my apprehension of three ideas
which had never been accurately grasped as clear and plain as
possible, and of tracing out all their modes of combination. This last,
at least, seemed to be a problem which could be worked out by
straightforward patience. Such was the teaching of all the logic I
knew, that of Aristotle, of the Greek commentators, of |24| the
11th century thinkers, of the great scholastic doctors, of the
modern French, English, and German logicians. Long after, when I
had developed the only effective methods of doing the one thing
and the other, that is, of rendering my apprehension clear and of
finding the forms of combination of the categories, I ascertained
that the latter was from the nature of things, not to be compassed
by mere hard thinking, that it was necessary to wait for the

compounds to make their appearance, and patiently to analyze
them, until the list down to a certain point was complete. But, not
then knowing this, after years of fruitless effort (I will not say they
were wasted, since they gave me great training,) I said to myself,
this list of categories, specious as it is, must be a delusion of which I
must disabuse myself. Thereupon, I spent five years in diligently,
yes, passionately, seeking facts which should refute my list. Never in
my life have I been more thoroughly in earnest |25| than I was in
that long struggle. It was in vain. Everything that promised to refute
the list, when carefully examined only confirmed it. The evidence
became irresistible. Then that in which I had failed must be feasible.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Peirce apparently means that he failed in

finding the forms of combinations of the categories. His point
seems to be that these cannot be ascertained a priori. Thus
in a draft version of his comments on Memoir 5 he says:
"These three categories are compounded in a multitude of
ways which can only be apprehended through experience.
They cannot be built up by an act of pure thought. Some of
these forms of composition have to be carefully examined in
order to obtain distinct conceptions with which to build a
theory of logic."
But it never proved so; and at length I learned why it could not
prove so. To this solution I was guided by the very categories
themselves. Then began the long work of collecting the compounds
and analyzing them into the categories. This work is of its nature
absolutely interminable. It involves a logical doctrine which can
never be completed. But it was now worked up to the point at which
the general method of research could be made evident to every
mind.
But by that time, I had reached a mode of thought so remote
from that of the ordinary man, that I was unable to communicate
with him. Another great labor was required in breaking a path by
which to lead him |26| from his position to my own. I had become
entirely unaccustomed to the use of ordinary language to express
my own logical ideas to myself. I was obliged to make a regular study
of ordinary ideas and language, in order to convey any hint of my
real meaning. I found that I had a difficult art to acquire. The clear
expression of my thoughts is still most difficult to me. How awkward
I am at it, this very statement will in some measure show.
All this will explainnot distinctly, that would be impossible
without going into details, yet in some vague way,how impossible
it was that any fragment of the truth that it has been granted to me
to perceive should be adequately represented by itself. Hence, it is
that I have been quite grotesquely misrepresented. I have been
called a hedonist, I who from the beginning of my career to this day,

have not written one single piece of a general nature which did not
sufficiently show that I regard pleasure, not as most do, as a small
satisfaction, but as quite no rational satisfaction at all. One History
of Philosophy sets me down as a typical sceptic, though Kant's
criticism was, so to say, my mother's |27| milk in philosophy. I have
been called a modern Hume, because Hume denied causality
altogether, and I, after calling attention to the fact that all men set
some limits to causality, endeavored to define these limits. Because
I pointed out the insufficiency of existing logical algebra, and have
used algebra as an aid in explaining the logic of relations, it has
been assumed that I regarded logical algebra as the whole, or chief,
part of logic; although, in fact, I have protested earnestly against
the exaggerated importance attached by many to this instrument of
logic. At almost the same moment, one eminent philosopher was
referring to me as a sort of Bchner, while another was calling me a
pure Schellingian. I am supposed to be opposed to Hegel at all
points. Indeed, I do think that Hegel's processes, if regarded as
proofs, are quite the most absurd reasonings that ever were or could
be. But as to his main doctrines, which were reached by him before
he ever lit up his dialectical procedure, I think there is a good deal
of truth in them. |28| I think that metaphysics, as it has been
hitherto, has mainly consisted of pretty wellgrounded truths
enormously exaggerated, till they become monstrous falsities; and
Hegel's opinion that they are all onesided amounts to the same
thing. My main objection to Hegel is that of all exaggerators he is
the most errant; and that he carries onesidedness to its last
extreme. In my view, there are seven conceivable types of
philosophy. Three greatly exaggerate the importance of some one of
my three categories and more or less underrate the others. Three
more somewhat overrate two and almost utterly neglect the third.
The seventh type does nearly equal justice to all three. Hegelianism
is one of the first three. But the category which it exaggerates is the
one most commonly overlooked; and for that reason there is a
relative wholesomeness in it. Vera used to say that while
Hegelianism was rejected, it had more or less filtered into and
permeated all thought. Very well; dilute |29| Hegelianism by
diminishing the importance it places upon mediation and by
recognizing the due significance of the others, and you have
something like the truth.
From Draft B MS L75.39
That which I desire aid in doing is to bring before the world the
results of my researches into logic.
I began this study in 1856; and it has been my principal
occupation ever since. I cannot lay claim to the slightest merit for
the constancy with which I have pursued it, since it has been an
uncontrollable impulse. On the contrary, it has been necessary for
me at all times to exercise all my control over myself, for fear that
my mind might be affected by such unceasing application to a
particular subject. When I have found myself in a solitary situation,
and there was not a daily round of duties to occupy me, I have had
desperate struggles with my logic. It has kept me poor; but my
experience is that there is only a small proportion of mankind who
are able to make the earning or gaining of money their leading
motive. At any rate, I am sure that I am not one of that class. I have
experienced |4| extremely little encouragement. It was more than
ten years after I published my first papers that I became aware in
any way that anybody but myself and the printer had ever looked
into them. I have thus had every reason except one for abandoning
the pursuit. Twice I have made determined efforts to do so; but my
bent was too strong.
Though I began the study as far back as 1856 and spent almost
all my time reading at that time the German philosophers and
Aristotle, it was not until 1861 that I ventured upon any serious
original research, and not until 1866 that I was far enough advanced
to offer anything for publication. It is therefore the results of about
thirtyfive years work which I desire to present.
Merely fragments of the work have been published, and
relatively unimportant parts, which moreover cannot be properly
understood when standing alone. A striking |5| example of how I am
misunderstood is that while one of the histories of philosophy sets
me down as a sceptic, a sort of Modern Hume, as I have been called,
I note that one of the greatest living philosophers ranks me as a pure
Schellingian. Both [of] those classifications cannot be true; yet they
both come from most competent and careful critics.
I shall be asked why I have published so little and in [so]
fragmentary a way. I answer,
1st, that I have had extreme difficulty in getting what I wrote on
logic printed. My boxes are full of unprinted MSS on the subject as
carefully written as anything I ever wrote. Only those things could
be printed which could pass as relating to some other subject, and
then only if they were made so brief as to be almost unintelligible,
or else worked up so as to answer the purposes of popular
magazines.|6|
2nd, that even so, I have not been able to learn that as many as
half a dozen persons have ever read any paper of mine, no matter
how I had dressed it up.
3rd, that during all these years the vast volume of my results has
been such that it has not been easy for me, with my aptitude for the
subject, my personal interest in the discoveries, and my incessant
study of them, to hold them all in my head at once in an orderly
manner; and the difficulty of the task of arranging them in a lucid
and convincing manner is such that several years of exclusive
devotion to that task would be requisite for its accomplishment.

4th, that up to within a few years [ago], new results were
continually coming in in such profusion as to leave me no leisure to
set forth old ones.
5th, that I have no natural gift of making myself understood, and
my thoughts appear to me in a garb so |7| foreign from the ordinary
ways of thinking that it would be a difficult matter to translate them
into the language used by readers.
6th, the chief reason remains unmentioned. In May 1867, as the
result of two years of unceasing application, I published a paper of
ten pages which was either entirely mistaken or was one of the most
important of philosophical generalizations. Several years next
following were largely occupied in tracing the matter out into its
developments. But here such difficulties were encountered that
were so great that, although my original result still seemed evident,
I began to think that some undiscovered error must lurk in it and
that I was the victim of a selfdelusion. Almost persuaded that this
must be so, for a considerable series of years I was continually
scheming to discover some downright refutation of my theory. But
every inquiry I made which promised |8| to lead to such refutation,
turned out in the end to afford only new evidence of its truth.
Finally, I discovered that the real reason of my difficulties lay not in
my generalization, but in a view which had been accepted by all
logicians without serious question. I now returned with energy to my
original position which I adopted, with the utmost advantage as a
sort of skeleton of my whole logical doctrine. It brought great unity
into the whole subject, but at the same time kept it far remote from
the ordinary highway of men's thoughts. Since that development, it
has been absolutely impossible to present my views on almost any
part of logic separated from the whole.
7th, notwithstanding all I have said, without referring to earlier
essays, I have twice within my later years written a whole book
upon logic. The first was offered to a publisher; but notwithstanding
the recommendations of his readers, he declined it; and I have been
very glad he did. |9| The other was a very large work, done with
much care. However, when it was done, I found it to be written too
much from its own standpoint. It did not examine opposed opinions
with sufficient sympathy and understanding; there was an offensive
tone throughout; it was unconvincing, and utterly unworthy of the
theory which it had the honor to defend. I have since thought much
and experimented much upon how the book should be written. I can
now write a treatise which shall restrain every assertion in it within
the limits in which it shall be absolutely convincing, which shall
notice everything of importance that has been said on each topic,
and shall meet every issue squarely and fairly.
From Draft C MS L75.6064
What are the researches of which I speak?

They are the work of my life, that which I seem to have been
put into the world to do. I was born in 1839, and brought up in a
scientific circle. I began to be initiated into the methods of physical
science before I was ten years old; and it has always been methods
which have chiefly interested me. By 1856, I was already
systematically studying logic, in its broad sense, beginning with the
Critic of the Pure Reason. I continued my reading diligently, passing
to Hegel, Herbart, Aristotle, the scholastics, Berkeley, Hume,
Leibniz, etc. I first began serious original research, parallel to my
reading, about 1861, and began to publish in 1866. From 1856 until
this day my passion for the study of logic has been so intense that no
other motives could prevail, although the amount of encouragement
that I have received has been so |61| small that I have mostly been
in a desperate depression. Several people have at one time and
another given me aid in pursuing my studies. I can never forget
them. In each case, there have been solid results, as I shall show, in
the proper place. I have, however, published very little, because
there was no sort of encouragement to do so. During the greater
part of my life, the chairs of logic at the universities have been
occupied by men bred in theological seminaries, devoid of any ideal
of progressive science, penetrated with formalisms, examining
nothing with real exactitude. This fact naturally brought along an
entire situation sufficient to discourage me from troubling a printer
to set up what no man would read. What little I could print had to be
brief and fragmentary. I must select subjects concerning which what
I had to say would be intelligible without previous studies.|62|
But my studies were continued almost without interruption.
Whatever distractions from my solitary position I might seek, a
certain amount of work upon my logic was a daily need. My
perseverance was no merit, any more than my perseverance in
breathing. The result has been that by this time I have built up such
an elaborate system, that the task of undertaking to explain it is one
of the utmost difficulty.
It is, however, now a good many years that I have had this task
under systematic study. Twice I have actually written treatises on
logic. The first was rejected by the publisher, I am very happy to
say. The second, a more ambitious performance, I myself
condemned. Finally, last year some friends offered to buy of me the
copyright of a few sections of such a work; and I wrote several,
amounting to about 200,000 words in all, which if the funds had not
|63| given out, would have grown into the convincing book which I
should recognize as somewhat worthy of the great theory it would
attempt to expound.
What I desire is to divide my researches into a number of heads,
say from a score to two dozen in all, and to set forth my
investigations of each together with an exhaustive critical

examination of everything of importance that has been said or could
be said against my results. Each such paper would be complete in
itself, except that it would suppose an acquaintance with those
which had gone before. The different memoirs would range from
20,000 to 100,000 words each. Probably it would require, on the
average, some ten weeks to prepare each. During the last year I
have worked faster, it is true; but I hurried more than I ought to
have done. If I lived to complete the plan, as there is every reason
to expect that I |64| should under the enormous stimulus which
assured aid would give my vitality, the whole when completed would
make a large treatise on logic, somewhat the largest ever given to
the world. It might be something like a million words. When I speak
of the number of words, I mean that it would when properly printed
occupy as much space as that number of words of ordinary matter
set up solidly. A good deal of it would contain formulae, diagrams,
etc.
From Draft A MS L75.2933
But what would be the contents of my three ponderous volumes

of logic? I answer, in the first place, in reference to the expectations
which would be roused in uninstructed minds by the word "logic,"
that it would contain a theory of scientific reasoning and also a
theory of the reasoning of practical men about every day affairs.
These two would be shown to be governed by somewhat different
principles, inasmuch as the practical reasoning is forced to reach
some definite conclusion promptly, while science can wait a century
or five centuries, if need be, before coming to any conclusion at all.
Another cause which acts still more strongly to differentiate the
methodeutic of theoretical and practical reasoning is that the latter
can be regulated by instinct |30| acting in its natural way, while
[the] theory of how one should reason depends upon one's ultimate
purpose and is modified with every modification of ethics. Theory is
thus at a special disadvantage here; but instinct within its proper
domain is generally far keener, and surer, and above all swifter,
than any deduction from theory can be. Besides, logical instinct has,
at all events, to be employed in applying the theory. On the other
hand, the ultimate purpose of pure science, as such, is perfectly
definite and simple; the theory of purely scientific reasoning can be
worked out with mathematical certainty; and the application of the
theory does not require the logical instinct to be strained beyond its
natural function. On the other hand, if we attempt to apply natural
logical instinct to purely scientific questions of any difficulty, it not
only becomes uncertain, but if it is heeded, the voice of instinct
itself is that objective considerations should be the decisive
ones.|31|
The methodeutic utility of logic is still further limited by the fact
that the reasonings of pure mathematics are perfectly evident and
have no need of any separate theory of logic to reinforce them.

Mathematics is its own logic.
Furthermore, the three normative sciences, esthetics, ethics,
and logic itself, although they do not come under that branch of
science called practical, that is, the arts, are nevertheless so far
practical that instinct in its natural operation, is perfectly adapted
to their reasonings after the subtle analyses of which these sciences
themselves take cognizance have prepared the premisses.
It follows that the only reasonings for which a science of logic is
methodeutically useful are those of metaphysics, and the special
theoretical sciences, of the physical and the psychical wing. Physical
science has hitherto done well enough without any appeal |32| to a
science of logic. But at this moment questions of a logical nature
have arisen which nothing but a scientific logic are likely to settle.
Witness the controversy between those who are about Poincare and
those who are about Boltzmann. Witness the still more difficult
question of the constitution of matter. To my prevision physics
seems to be entering a period when such questions will be
multiplied.
How much the psychical sciences have suffered from the lack of
an exact logic can be understood from my memoir on the methods of
research into history by means of documents.
In metaphysics the dependence is much stronger yet, but it is in
great part masked by the circumstance that metaphysics is utterly
dependent upon logic in a different way which the categories of
Kant and even those of Aristotle illustrate. Namely, metaphysics
regards the universe as thinking, as representing, and all the logical
relations are repeated as meta|33|physical relations. Metaphysics is
hardly more than a corollary from logic. Now metaphysics affects
physics and the physical sciences most intimately, even more than it
does the psychical sciences.
Thus the methodeutic utility of the science of logic, although it
is beyond price, is pretty narrowly limited.
End of PART 1 of 10 of MS L75
Queries, comments, and suggestions to

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy
Texas Tech University, Lubbock Texas 79409
http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/Ver1/L75v101.htm
Page last modified jULY 6, 1998
HomePagePeircePapersIntrotoL75 L75Version2
MEMOIR 1
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF
THE THEORETIC SCIENCES OF RESEARCH
This will be a natural classification, not of possible sciences, but
of sciences as they exist today; not of sciences in the sense of
"systematized knowledge," but of branches of endeavor to ascertain
truth. I shall not undertake to prove that there is no other natural
classification of the sciences than that which I give; and this, being
merely an introductory memoir, cannot have the same convincing
character as the others. Every unitary classification has a leading
idea or purpose, and is a natural classification in so far as that same
purpose is determinative in the production of the objects classified.
The purpose of this classification is nearly the same as that of
Comte, namely, so to arrange a catalogue of the sciences as to
exhibit the most important of |351| the relations of logical
dependence among them. In fact, my classification is simply an
attempt to improve upon that of Comte; first, by looking less at
what has been the course of scientific history, and more at what it
would have been if the theoretically best methods had been
pursued; second, by supplying the shocking omissions which Comte's
rage against nonsense led him to commit; and third, by carrying
down the subdivision as far as my knowledge enables me to do. It
was necessary for me to determine what I should call one science.
For this purpose I have united under one science studies such as the
same man, in the present state of science, might very well pursue. I
have been guided in determining this by noting how scientists
associate themselves into societies, and what contributions are
commonly admitted into one journal, being on my guard against the
survival of traditions from bygone states of science. A study to which
men devote their lives, but not, in the present stage of development
of science, so numerously as to justify exclusive societies and
journals for it, I call a variety of science. That which forms the
subject of the narrowest societies and journals, so that any student
of any part of it ought to be pretty thoroughly informed about every
part, I call a species of science. That branch of which the student of
any part is well qualified to take up any other part, except that he
may not be sufficiently acquainted with the facts in detail, I call a
genus of science. If the only new training necessary to pass from one
part to another is a mere matter of skill, the general conceptions
remaining the same, I call the department a family of science. If
different sorts of conceptions are dealt with in the different families
of a depart|353|ment, but the general type of inquiry is the same, I
call it an order of science. If the types of inquiry of the different
orders of a department are different, yet these orders are
connected together so that students feel that they are studying the
same great subject, I call the department a class of science. If there
are different classes, so that different students seem to live in
different worlds, but yet there is one general animating motive, I
call the department a branch of science. Of course, there will be
subbranches, subclasses, etc., down to subvarieties; and even
sometimes subsubdivisions. To illustrate, I call pure science and
applied science different branches, and call mathematics and the
special sciences different classes; I say that general physics, biology,
and geology belong to different orders of science. Astronomy and
geognosy are different families. Thermotics and electrics are
different families. Optics and electrics |354| are now different
genera. Entomology and ichthyology are different species of one
genus. The study of Kant and the study of Spinoza are different
varieties of one species.
Of course, the execution of this useful but ambitious design can,
in the first instance, notwithstanding all the labor on my part that
seemed economically recommended, be but a sketch. It will have
fully attained all I hope for if it is respectable enough to merit
serious picking to pieces in its smaller and in its larger divisions.
Indeed, I may say of all these memoirs that what I most desire is that
their errors should be exposed, so long as they lead to further
scientific study of the subjects to which they relate. The relation of
this present memoir to those which follow it in the series is that it
gives, from a general survey of science, an idea of the place of logic
among the sciences. I will here set down the larger divisions of the
scheme as well as I remember it (not having the notes in my
possession). But it will be the discussion which will form the chief
value of the memoir, not the |355| scheme itself. Nearly a hundred
schemes given hitherto will be criticized.
A. Theoretical Science
I. Science of Research
i. Mathematics
ii. Philosophy, or Cenoscopy
1. Categorics [= phenomenology or phaneroscopy]
2. Normative Science
a. Esthetics
b. Ethics
c. Logic [= semiotic]
[philosophical grammar]
[critical logic]
[philosophical rhetoric]
3. Metaphysics
iii. Idioscopy, or Special Science
1. Psychognosy
a. Nomological or General Psychology
b. Classificatory
. Linguistics
. Critics
. Ethnology |356|
c. Descriptive
. Biography
. History
. Archeology
2. Physiognosy
a. Nomological or General Physics
. Dynamics
1. Of particles
2. Of aggregations
. Elaterics and Thermotics
. Optics and Electrics
b. Classificatory
. Crystallography
. Chemistry
. Biology
c. Descriptive
. Astronomy
. Geognosy |357|
II. Science of Review, or Synthetic Philosophy
(Humboldt's Cosmos; Comte's Philosophie Positive)
B. Practical Science, or the Arts
EDITORIAL NOTE: Bracketed material in the above scheme is

editorially supplied as a clarification. Josiah (Lee) Auspitz has
objected, though, that the simple identification of logic in the
broad sense with semeiotic (also spelled "semiotic" by Peirce)
is not correct. His reasons for this are not clear to me and I
believe the currently prevailing opinion is in agreement with
my own view that they are supposed to be identical; but Lee
Auspitz is a careful and talented scholar and his dissent is
worth taking special note of. Perhaps he can be persuaded to
write up a critical note to that effect which we can add to the
present presentation by including it through a hypertext link.
This invitation applies to anyone else as well who wants to
take exception to any of my editorial interpretation here or
simply wants to add something to it by way of commentary for
further elucidation: write it up as a criticism or commentary

and we will put a hypertext linkbutton for that note in the
text itself, thus making it an addendum to the present
account.
FromDraftEMSL75.206207
This [classification] would be restricted to sciences as they

actually exist, with some little provision of what is sure to be
brought about soon. It would consider sciences, not as "systematized
knowledge," but as organizations of research, as they live today. My
classification of the applied sciences, or arts, not having been very
successful, I should probably not attempt to go into that subject.
Moreover, such studies as Humboldt's Cosmos, and Comte's
Philosophie Positive, although they are really studies of science,
would not fall within the scope of my classification, which would
thus be limited to the theoretical sciences. My classification is quite
minute; but its leading divisions are: mathematics; philosophy or, as
Bentham calls it, cenoscopic (i.e. based on universal experience);
and idioscopic, or special science. The last falls into two parts,
psychognosy (embracing psychology, linguistics, ethnology, history,
etc.) and physiognosy |207| (embracing physics, chemistry, biology,
astronomy, geognosy). I divide philosophy into three parts, the
categories, normative science (esthetics, ethics, and logic,) and
metaphysics. Geometry and the science of time form a connecting
link between metaphysics and idioscopy.
In constructing my classification, I have carefully studied the
reasons alleged for nearly a hundred other systems; so that the
critical part of this memoir would be extremely laborious. Yet as my
purpose is not to advance anything for which I cannot produce
convincing proof, such criticism must be carefully and respectfully
performed throughout all the memoirs.
MEMOIR 2
ON THE SIMPLEST MATHEMATICS
This is that mathematics which distinguishes only two different
values, and is of great importance for logic.
From Draft E MS L75.207
This is the system which has a scale of values of only two

degrees. Since these may be identified (in an application of this
pure mathematical system) as the true and the false, this system
calls for somewhat elaborate study as a propaedeutic to logic.
MEMOIR 3
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF MATHEMATICS
Such are number, multitude, limit, infinity, infinitesimals,
continuity, dimension, imaginaries, multiple algebra, measurement,
etc. My former contributions, though very fragmentary, have
attracted attention in Europe, although in respect to priority justice
has not been done them. I bring the whole together into one system,
defend the method of infinitesimals conclusively, and give many
new truths established by a new and striking method.
My work in this direction is already somewhat known, although

very imperfectly. One of the learned academies of Europe has
crowned a demonstration that my definition of a finite multitude
agrees with Dedekind's definition of an infinite multitude. It appears
to me that the one is hardly more than a verbal modification of the
other. I am usually represented as having put forth my definition as
a substitute for Dedekind's. In point of fact, mine was published six
years before his; and my paper contains in very brief and crabbed
form all the essentials of his beautiful exposition (still more perfect
as modified by Schrder). Many animadversions have been made by
eminent men upon my remark, in the Century Dictionary, that the
method of infinitesimals is more consonant with then (in 1883)
recent studies of mathematical logic. In this memoir, I should show
precisely how the calculus may be, to the advantage of simplicity,
based upon the doctrine of infinitesimals. Many futile attempts have
been made to define continuity. In the sense in |209| the calculus,
no difficulty remains. But the whole of topical geometry remains in
an exceedingly backward state and destitute of any method of proof

simply because true continuity has not been mathematically
defined. By a careful analysis of the conception of a collection, of
which no mathematical definition has been yet published, I have
succeeded in giving a demonstration of an important proposition
which Cantor had missed, from which the required definition of a
continuum results; and a foundation is afforded for topical
geometry, which branch of geometry really embraces the whole of
geometry. I have made several other advances in defining the
conceptions of mathematics which illuminate the subject.
MEMOIR 4
ANALYSIS OF THE METHODS OF MATHEMATICAL DEMONSTRATION
I shall be glad to place early in the series so unquestionable an
illustration of the great value of minute analysis as this memoir will
afford. The subjects of corollarial and theorematic reasoning, of the
method of abstraction, of substantive possibility, |358| and of the
method of topical geometry, of which I have hitherto published
mere hints, will here be fully elaborated.
[This memoir] will examine the nature of mathematical

reasoning. Logic can pass no judgment upon such reasoning, because
it is evident, and as such, beyond all criticism. But logic is interested
in studying how mathematical reasoning proceeds. Mathematical
reasoning will be analyzed and important properties of it brought
out which mathematicians themselves are not aware of.
I have hitherto only published some slight hints of my

discoveries in regard to the logical processes used in mathematics. I
find that two different kinds of reasoning are used, which I |210|
distinguish as the corollarial and the theorematic. This is a matter
of extreme importance for the theory of cognition. It remains
unpublished. I also find that the most effective kind of theorematic

demonstration always involves the long despised operation of
abstraction, which has been a common topic of ridicule. This is the
operation by which we transform the proposition that "Opium puts
people to sleep" into the proposition that "Opium has a soporific
virtue". Like every other logical transformation, it can be applied in
a futile manner. But I show that, without it, the mathematician
would be shut off from operations upon lines, surfaces, differentials,
functions, operationsand even from the consideration of cardinal
numbers. I go on to define precisely what it is that this operation
effects. I endeavor in this paper to enumerate, classify, and define
the precise mode of effectiveness of every method employed in
mathematics.
No science of logic is needed for mathematics beyond that which

mathematics can itself supply, unless possibly it be in regard to
mathematical heuretic. But the examination of the methods of
mathematical demonstration shed |91| extraordinary light upon
logic, such as I, for my part, never dreamed of in advance, although
I ought to have guessed that there must be unexpected treasures
hidden in this quite unexplored ground. That the logic of
mathematics belonged to the logic of relatives, and to the logic of
triadic, not of dyadic relations, was indeed obvious in advance; but
beyond that I had no idea of its nature. The first things I found out
were that all mathematical reasoning is diagrammatic and that all
necessary reasoning is mathematical reasoning, no matter how
simple it may be. By diagrammatic reasoning, I mean reasoning
which constructs a diagram according to a precept expressed in
general terms, performs experiments upon this diagram, notes their
results, assures itself that similar experiments performed upon any
diagram constructed according to the same precept would have
|92| the same results, and expresses this in general terms. This was
a discovery of no little importance, showing, as it does, that all
knowledge without exception comes from observation.
At this point, I intend to insert a mention of my theory of grades
of reality. The general notion is old, but in modern times it has been
forgotten. I undertake to prove its truth, resting on the principle
that a theory which is adapted to the prediction of observational
facts, and which does not lead to disappointment, is ipso facto true.
This principle is proved in No. 1. Then my proof of grades of reality
is inductive, and consists in often turning aside in the course of this
series of memoirs to show how this theory is adapted to the
expression of facts. This might be mistaken for repetitiousness; but
in fact it is logically defensible, and it also has the advantage of
leading the reader, step by step, to the compre|93|hension of an
idea which he would not be able to grasp at once, and to the
appreciation of an argument which he could not digest at one time. I
will not here undertake to explain what the theory is in detail.

Suffice it to say that since reality consists in this, that a real thing
has whatever characters it has in its being and its having them does
not consist in its being represented to have them, not even in its
representing itself to have them, not even if the character consists
in the thing's representing itself to represent itself; since, I say, that
is the nature of reality, as all schools of philosophy now admit, there
is no reason in the nature of reality why it should not have
gradations of several kinds; and in point of fact, we find convincing
evidences of such gradations. It is easy to see that according to this
definition the square root of minus 1 possesses a certain grade of
|94| reality, since all its characters except only that of being the
square root of minus one are what they are whether you or I think
so or not. So when Charles Dickens was halfthrough one of his
novels, he could no longer make his characters do anything that
some whim of a reader might suggest without feeling that it was
false; and in point of fact the reader sometimes feels that the
concluding parts of this or that novel of Dickens is false. Even here,
then, there is an extremely low grade of reality. Everybody would
admit that the word might be applied in such cases by an apt
metaphor; but I undertake to show that there is a certain degree of
sober truth in it, and that it is important for logic to recognize that
the reality of the Great Pyramid, or of the Atlantic Ocean, or of the
Sun itself, is nothing but a higher grade of the same thing.
But to say that the reasoning of mathematics is |95|
diagrammatic is not to penetrate in the least degree into the logical
peculiarities of its procedure, because all necessary reasoning is
diagrammatic.
My first real discovery about mathematical procedure was that
there are two kinds of necessary reasoning, which I call the
corollarial and the theorematic, because the corollaries affixed to
the propositions of Euclid are usually arguments of one kind, while
the more important theorems are of the other. The peculiarity of
theorematic reasoning is that it considers something not implied at
all in the conceptions so far gained, which neither the definition of
the object of research nor anything yet known about could of
themselves suggest, although they give room for it. Euclid, for
example, will add lines to |96| his diagram which are not at all
required or suggested by any previous proposition, and which the
conclusion that he reaches by this means says nothing about. I show
that no considerable advance can be made in thought of any kind
without theorematic reasoning. When we come to consider the
heuretic part of mathematical procedure, the question how such
suggestions are obtained will be the central point of the discussion.
Passing over smaller discoveries, the principal result of my
closer studies of it has been the very great part which an operation
plays in it which throughout modern times has been taken for
nothing better than a proper butt of ridicule. It is the operation of
abstraction, in the proper sense of the term, which, for example,
converts the |97| proposition "Opium puts people to sleep" into

"Opium has a dormitive virtue". This turns out to be so essential to
the greater strides of mathematical demonstration that it is proper
to divide all theorematic reasoning into the nonabstractional and
the abstractional. I am able to prove that the most practically
important results of mathematics could not in any way be attained
without this operation of abstraction. It is therefore necessary for
logic to distinguish sharply between good abstraction and bad
abstraction.
It was not until I had been giving a large part of my time for
several years to tracing out the ways in which mathematical
demonstration makes use of abstraction that I came across a fact
which a mind which had not been scrutinizing the facts so closely
|98| might have seen long before, namely, that all collections are of
the nature of abstractions. When we pass from saying, "Almost any
American can speak English", to saying "The American nation is
composed of individuals of whom the greater part speak English", we
perform a special kind of abstraction. This can, I know, signify little
to the person who is not acquainted with the properties of
abstraction. It may, however, suggest to him that the popular
contempt for "abstractions" does not aim very accurately at its mark.
When I published a paper about number in 1882, I was already
largely anticipated by Cantor, although I did not know it. I however
anticipated Dedekind by about six years. Dedekind's work, although
its form is admirable, has not influenced me. But ideas which I have
derived from Cantor are so mixed up with ideas of my own that I
could not safely undertake to say exactly where the line should be
|99| drawn between what is Cantor's and what my own. From my
point of view, it is not of much consequence. Like Cantor and unlike
Dedekind, I begin with multitude, or as Cantor erroneously calls it,
cardinal number. But it would be equally correct, perhaps
preferable, to begin with ordinal number, as Dedekind does. But I
pursue the method of considering multitude to the very end, while
Cantor switches off to ordinal number. For that reason, it is difficult
to make sure that my higher multitudes are the same as his. But I
have little doubt that they are. I prove that there is an infinite
series of infinite multitudes, apparently the same as Cantor's alephs.
I call the first the denumerable multitude, the others the
abnumerable multitudes, the first and least of which is the
multitude of all the irrational numbers of analysis. There is nothing
greater than these but true continua, which are not multitudes. I
cannot see that Cantor has ever got the conception of a true
continuum, such that in any |100| lapse of time there is room for
any multitude of instants however great.
I show that every multitude is distinguished from all greater
multitudes by there being a way of reasoning about collections of
that multitude which does not hold good for greater multitudes.
Consequently, there is an infinite series of forms of reasoning
concerning the calculus which deals only with a collection of
numbers of the first abnumerable multitude which are not

applicable to true continua. This, it would seem, was a sufficient
explanation of the circumstance that mathematicians have never
discovered any method of reasoning about topical geometry, which
deals with true continua. They have not really proved a single
proposition in that branch of mathematics.
Cayley, while I was still a boy, proved that metrical geometry,
the geometry of the elements, is nothing but a special |101|
problem to projective geometry, or perspective. It is easy to see
that projective geometry is nothing but a special problem of topical
geometry. On the other hand, since every relation can be reduced
to a relation of serial order, something similar to a scale of values
may be applied to every kind of mathematics. Probably, if the
appropriate scale were found, it would afford the best general
method for the treatment of any branch. We see, for example, the
power of the barycentric calculus in projective geometry. It is
essentially the method of modern analytic geometry. Yet it is
evident that it is not altogether an appropriate scale. I can already
see some of the characters of an appropriate scale of values for
topical geometry.
My logical studies have already enabled me to prove some
propositions which had arrested mathematicians of power. Yet I
distinctly disclaim, for the present, all pretension to having been
remarkably successful in dealing with the heuretic |102|
department of mathematics. My attention has been concentrated
upon the study of its procedure in demonstration, not upon its
procedure in discovering demonstrations. This must come later; and
it may very well be that I am not so near to a thorough
understanding of it as I may hope.
I am quite sure that the value of what I have ascertained will be
acknowledged by mathematicians. I shall make one more effort to
increase it, before writing this second memoir.
I now pass to a rough statement of my results in regard to the

heuretic branch of mathematical thought. At the outset, I set up for
myself a sort of landmark by which to discern whether I was making
any real progress or not. Cayley had shown, while I was, as a boy,
just beginning to understand such things, that metric geometry, the
geometry of the Elements, is nothing but a special problem in
projective geometry, or perspective, and it is easy to see that
projective geometry is nothing but a special problem in topical geom
MEMOIR 5
ON THE QUALITIES OF THE
THREE CATEGORIES OF EXPERIENCE
An analysis and description of three irreducibly different kinds
of elements found in experience and even in the abstract world of
pure mathematics. This memoir rests upon observation of the
experience of every day and hour, this observation being
systematized by thought. It is proved, beyond doubt, that there are
no more than the three categories. The list was first published by
me in May 1867, but has since been repeatedly subjected to the
severest criticism I could bring to bear upon it, with the result of
making it far more evidently correct. The categories were originally
called "quality", "relation", and "representation". The question of
names and other terminology for them still somewhat perplexes me.
I am inclined to call them "flavor", "reaction", and "mediation".
[This memoir] will show that all that is before the mind as
perceived, imagined, supposed, rejected, etc, has three kinds of
elements and no more. These are the qualities of feeling, reaction,
and mediation. [EDITORIAL NOTE: Notice that elements of the first
kind are qualities of feeling and not simply feelings.] Great pains will
be taken to make these three conceptions perfectly clear and vivid.
My aim in this paper, upon which I have bestowed more labor

than upon any other, beginning two years before my first
publication on the subject in May 1867, is far more ambitious than
that of Kant, or even that of Aristotle, or even the more extended
work of Hegel. All those philosophers contented themselves mainly
with arranging conceptions which were already current. I, on the
contrary, undertake to look directly |103| upon the universal
phenomenon, that is, upon all that in any way appears, whether as
fact or as fiction; to pick out the different kinds of elements which I
detect in it, aided by a special art developed for the purpose; and to
form clear conceptions of those kinds, of which I find that there are
only three, aided by another special art developed for that
purpose.*
Editorial Note (by Ransdell):

Does anyone know what Peirce is referring to as
regards these special arts? If you have any ideas on
this let us know and we will post it here as an
annotation. You need not have the "definitive"
answer to this to post your comment here: the idea
is just to get some cooperative work done on this
and on other such questions as might arise,
proceeding at a leisurely pace and in the manner of
a scholarly dialogue.
Let me know at ransdell@cspeirce.com and I'll
post your response here:
COMMENTS & RESPONSES:
(1) Bo Larsson: August 15, 1998
(2) Jeffrey Downard: June 19, 2007
In my present limited space, I cannot make myself clear, still

less convincing. Yet I will give such hint as I can of the three kinds of
elements. I might name them "qualities", "occurrences", and
"meanings". In order to get an idea of what I mean by a "quality",
imagine a being whose consciousness should be nothing but the
perfume of a damask rose, without any sense of change, of duration,
of self or anything else. Put yourself in that being's shoes, and what
of the universal phenomenon remains is what I call a "quality". It
may be defined as that whose mode of |104| being consists simply
in its being what it is. It is selfessence. Suppose next that the
consciousness we have imagined should undergo the simplest
possible experience; that, for example, the roseodor should
suddenly change to violetodor. If it is to remain the same
consciousness, there must be a moment in which it is conscious of
both odors. It cannot in this moment be conscious of the flow of
time; but the former roseodor will appear as its ego, as its
consciousness, while the new violetodor will at that moment be its
nonego, the object of its consciousness. We have this sort of
consciousness whenever we experience an event. The old, which

has just come to an end, appears as an ego, with the new, which is
just about to begin, over against it as a nonego instantly passing
into the ego. The sense of actuality, of present fact, is thus
essentially a consciousness of duplicity, of opposition. When we
have thus got the idea of an inner and an outer, we can |105|
review our experience and place ourselves back to a moment when
both the former and the latter states were nonegos, and thus we
get the idea of a force acting between outward objects. I do not
mean to say that historically we actually do so reflect; probably not.
But I mean that that would be a logical reflection. Thus we might
logically derive the notion of a thing, as something whose mode of
being consists in a reaction against something else. This is my
second category. The occurrence is essentially present. When it is
not present its peculiar mode of being is gone. There is no time
constituent in it; for the flow of time involves a very different
element. There is always a certain resistance to the unexpected. It
is usually broken down so instantly that it can only be detected in
cases in which peculiar circumstances cause its continuance. But
that the new experience always has to overcome a resistance on the
part of the old is proved by the |106| fact that we feel it to be
irresistible. We feel its force. Now, there can be no force where
there is no resistance. The two are but reverse aspects of the same
phenomenon. This resistance is a counterforce. Hence the sense of
actual fact is a sense of reacting efforts.
So far, we have left out of account the staple element of the
universal phenomenon. Since we have been considering things as
temporal, we may as well continue to take the same point of view.
The future grows into accomplished fact by a gradual unrolling; the
new becomes gradually old. Its effects remain, but they dwindle in
importance toward utter oblivion. According to legitimate physical
presumption, the evidence certainly now is (although we may not
think it likely that it is quite true) that all physical forces are at
bottom conservative. Now conservative forces necessarily produce
cyclical effects. It is true, that if two particles are attracted
precisely inversely as the cube of their |107| distance, or by any
law equivalent to that, the one will move in a spiral nearer to the
other forever. This is an interesting point; and I have never seen it
stated with precision. Formulae given on p. 878 of my father's
Analytic Mechanics show that if P is the rate of description of area
of the Boscovichian point moving round a fixed attracting center,
then if we use a system of rectangular coordinates in which x shall
be equal to the square of the reciprocal of the radius vector, and y
equal to the square of the velocity, then the straight line whose
equation is y = 4P2x will determine the condition of the moving
particle reaching an apse; that is, a maximum or minimum distance.
Another curve, dependent on the law of the variation of the
attraction with the distance, will determine how u2 will vary with 1/
2. If the attraction varies less rapidly than the inverse cube of the
distance, this second curve will be |108| concave downwards; if
more rapidly, concave upwards. But if it

ever crosses the straight line y = 4P2x the
body will have at that distance been at a
maximum or minimum distance. If it is
tangent to that straight line, it may
describe the circle at that distance. When
it is below the straight line its velocity will
be insufficient and the distance will
diminish; so that x will increase.
Although I cannot in my present limited space make myself

clear, still less convincing, I will name the three elements which I
find and give some rough notion of the significations of the names.
They are called "qualities", "things", and "meanings". By a "quality" is
meant a selfessence, or something which is what it is by and in
itself alone. Such, for example, is any simple quality of sensation.
Mind, I am not speaking of the occurrence of that sensation. What I
mean can be understood by imagining a being whose consciousness
should consist, we will say, in the sense of the perfume |135| of a
damask rose, without any change, without any sense of time,
without attributing the smell to any object, without any self
consciousness. I do not say that one can realize that in the
imagination; but one can perceive that such a state of consciousness
there might be. One can even suppose, however groundlessly, that
the attar of roses has a consciousness which is just that. Now take
away the consciousness in which there is an element of fact, of
action, and in which there is an element of representation, and the
very quality itself, which consists in its own peculiar selfbeing, and
you have what I mean by the elements of quality in the universal
phenomena. The element that I call a "thing" is more familiar; but
the logical analysis of it which is given in the books is inaccurate,
because it is colored by the peculiar ways of thinking of the Indo
European languages. It is true that there are proper |136| names in
all languages; but common substantives, such as ours are, definitely
not verbs, are certainly not necessary in a language, and in my
opinion they do not fully exist in the majority of languages. In the
Shemitic languages, for example, every common noun is regarded as
a formation from a verb. Even if no such verb exists, it would seem
that the Shemites cannot think of a noun except as a part of a verb;
for they give it a form as if it were of that nature. Indeed, there are
IndoEuropean languages in which the idea of the common noun is
not completely hardened. For it is plain that with nouns, full nouns
alone, one could not frame a sentence which should satisfy the mind
as completely expressed. Now the majority of languages are
destitute of any substantive verb "is". In ancient Egyptian, a pronoun
"that" usually takes its place. In Greek there is little or no feeling
that a sentence without a verb is elliptical. |137| It is, therefore,
impossible that in those languages the common noun should be

thought as a mere name, as we think it. In Ancient Egyptian, it
seems that the pictorial way of thinking, so prominent in the
hieroglyphics, was more influential in their thought than it is with
us. The word "man" would then be replaced by what we can nearest
express as "something is a man", the word "animal" by "something is
an animal". Hence to express the idea that "man is an animal", the
pronoun "that" would naturally be more appropriate than "is". They
would think "Something is a man that something is an animal". It is
our idea of a common noun as a name which has caused the
logicians to regard a thing as something selfsubsistent. There is no
room for doubt that that is the way the idea arose. A proper name is
always the name of something more or less familiar to both the
utterer of the sentence in which it occurs |138| and the person
whom he addresses. For otherwise the sentence would have no
meaning. If I inform you that the first king of England was Arthur,
and you had never before heard of Arthur, still my description of
him as the first king of England gives you some acquaintance with
him before I use the word "Arthur". If I say "Arthur was the first king
of England" I am using a faulty inversion. But a common noun does
not suppose any such familiarity. The sentence "Flyingfishes are
common in the gulf stream" is sufficiently intelligible to a person
who never heard of a flyingfish. That the idea of a thing or, as the
logicians say, a substantia, not only does not consist in self
subsistence, which really describes a quality, but is downright
repugnant to it, is seen by trying to imagine a universe in which
nothing should exist but a single atom. It has been shown above that
it is quite possible to conceive of a universe in which there |139|
should be absolutely nothing but a roseodor, without time, space,
or anything else. But to suppose that nothing existed but a single
atom would be absurd. Suppose it should exist and not exist every
other day: what difference would there be between the odd and
even days? The difference between an actually existing magnet and
a phantasm of a magnet is that one actually pulls and the other does
not. Actuality, or existence, consists in reaction. When I call a
phenomenon a thing, I mean that it is an object, a something acting
ob, or over against me.
I will name these elements here, although I cannot stop to

explain what the names mean. They are simple qualities, subjects
of force, and mind. Mind, in particular, is a very different
conception from that which is current. It is nearly the Hegelian
Begriff. There are three points of view from which these elements
have to be studied before they can be clearly apprehended. These
are the points of view of qualities, of subjects, and of minds. From
the point of view of quality, they appear respectively as quality,
|141| reaction, and mediation. From the point of view of subjects
they appear as quales, relates, and representations. This is [the]
point of view most familiar to ordinary thought, and will appear the
clearest to a beginner in the subject. Remembering that by "the
universal phenomenon" I mean everything which has got into the
mind in any way whatever, including every fiction and false notion,
anyone can without difficulty see that there is an idea of a thing as
it is in itself with certain qualities, however occult, which do not
consist in its actual relation to anything else. In the next place,
things are related to one another in pairs. That is, they are at
distances from one another, attract or repel one another, etc. In the
third place, finally, there are things which represent other things to
some purposing mind; that is, they act as substitutes for those other
things for some purpose; that is, again, they render the object
represented available for the |142| purpose. Thus, to take an
example where, at first sight, one does not perceive any element of
representation, A gives B a present, C. As a consequence of that act,
B comes into direct relation with C, and A has no more to do with
the matter. But as long as A's act of gift is in process of
performance, this act consists in giving B a consciousness of having a
power over C. It is a particular kind of representation to B of the
object C. In [the] third place, from the point of view of mind, the
three categories appear as feeling or immediate consciousness, as
the sense of fact, and as conception or mind strictly.
These three categories are compounded in a multitude of ways
which can only be apprehended through experience. They cannot be
built up by an act of pure thought. Some of these forms of
composition have to be carefully examined in order to obtain
distinct conceptions with which to build a theory of logic.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Here is a tabulation of the nomenclature for

the three categories which Peirce uses in the different versions
of this memoir above:
quality
relation
representation
flavor
reaction
mediation
qualities of feeling
reaction
mediation
qualities
occurrences
meanings
qualities
things
meanings
simple qualities
subjects of
force
mind
quality
reaction
mediation
quales
relates
representation
feeling or immediate
consciousness
sense of
fact
conception or mind
strictly
MEMOIR 6
ON THE CATEGORIES IN THEIR REACTIONAL ASPECTS
[Peirce said nothing under this heading in any extant version of MS
L75.]
MEMOIR 7
OF THE CATEGORIES IN THEIR MEDIATE ASPECTS
These two memoirs [i.e. Memoirs 6 and 7] develop and render
clear a considerable number of conceptions of which I shall make
constant use in the remaining memoirs, and which are of constant
use in all parts of philosophy and even in mathematics.
MEMOIR 8
EXAMINATIONS OF HISTORICAL LISTS OF CATEGORIES
My list differs from those of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel in that
they never really went back to examining the phenomenon to see
what was to be observed there; and I do not except Hegel's
Phnomenologie from this criticism. They simply took current
conceptions and arranged them. Mine has been a more fundamental
and more laborious undertaking since I have worked up from the
percepts to the highest notions. I examine those systems as well as
some others.
MEMOIR 9
ON THE BEARING OF ESTHETICS AND ETHICS UPON LOGIC
I begin by explaining the nature of the normative sciences. They
have often been mistaken for practical |360| sciences, or arts. I
show that they are at the opposite pole of the sphere of science,
and are so closely allied to mathematics that it would be a much
smaller error to say that, like mathematics, they were simply
occupied in deducing the consequences of initial hypotheses. Their
peculiar dualism, which appears in the distinctions of the beautiful
and the ugly, right and wrong, truth and falsity, and which is one
cause of their being mistaken for arts, is really due to their being on
the border between mathematics and positive science; and to this,
together with their great abstractness, is due their applicability to
so many subjects, which also helps to cause their being taken for
arts. Having analyzed the nature of the precise problems of the
three, and given some considerations generally overlooked, I show
that ethics depends essentially upon esthetics and logic upon ethics.
The latter dependence I had shown less fully in 1869. (Journal of
Speculative Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 297 et seq.) But the methods of
reasoning by which the truths of logic are established must be
mathematical, such reasoning alone |361| being evident
independently of any logical doctrine.
[This memoir] will explain the nature of a normative science and

show that, so far from such science approximating to practical
science, or art, it is, on the contrary, its extreme abstractness,
closely approaching the nature of pure mathematics, surpassing in
abstractness all other positive science, or science of fact (which
pure mathematics is not), which imparts to it its peculiar dualism
(fine and ugly, good and bad, true and false), and at the same time
makes it more nearly applicable to every subject than any other
such science except mathematics and categorics. The precise
problems of the three normative sciences are made clear in four
stages or degrees of clearness. In what manner the truths of
esthetics are to be discovered [is its] main proposition. Ethics
depends upon esthetics; we cannot know how we are deliberately
prepared to aim to behave until we know what we deliberately
admire. The two leading doctrines of ethics. Logic in its turn
essentially depends upon ethics (as I showed, in a general and
vaguer way in 1869, |162| Journal of Speculative Philosophy, II,
207208), but its methods of reasoning must be mathematical, such
reasoning being evident and therefore not requiring the support of
any logical doctrine. Preliminary sketch of the three great doctrines
of logic.
From Draft D MS L75.231233
I here show the peculiar character of a normative science;

namely, that while it is a purely theoretical science, and not
essentially practical, it nevertheless pronounces some things to be
good and others bad. Esthetics does so within the realm of the
category of feeling, ethics in the realm of action, and logic in the
realm of thought. As far back as 1869, I proved clearly that it is
impossible for a man to be logical unless he adopts certain high
moral aims. The argument is extremely |232| simple: All positive
reasoning depends upon probability. All probability depends upon
the supposition that there is a "long run." But a long run is an
endless course of experience. Now even if there be a future life,
every man's course of experience with which his reasoning has to do
comes to a speedy end. Therefore, if his purposes are purely selfish
he cannot be logical. That argument is open to some apparent
objection; but the subsequent careful analysis of it has only shown
that the argument has even more force than was supposed. Other
considerations have also appeared which make the dependence of
what we ought to think upon what we aim at still more close. Logic
is, therefore, more or less dependent upon ethics. Ethics, in its
turn, or the question what we are deliberately prepared to aim at,
depends in a similar way upon esthetics, or what it is that we would
deliberately pronounce to be kalon k'agathon. Indirectly, therefore,
logic even depends upon esthetics. For |233|this reason, with the
help of the categories, I commence with an attempt at outline
analyses of the problems of esthetics and of ethics.
EDITORIAL NOTE: The Greek phrase "kalon k'agathon", the

conventional but uninformative translation of which is
"beautiful and good", combines the idea of that which excites
or calls forth admiration and fascination and that toward
which something is directed in its movement or change.

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy
Scholarly quotation from or reference to
the content of this website will mention
the URL of the webpage where the content occurs.
The URL of the present page, which is part of the Arisbe website, is
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/L75/Ver1/L75v103.htm
Page last modified June 17, 1998
MEMOIR 10
ON THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF LOGIC
I here show that much that is generally set down as presupposed
in logic is neither needed nor warranted. The true presuppositions
of logic are merely hopes and as such, when we consider their
consequences collectively, we cannot condemn scepticism as to how
far they may be borne out by facts. But when we come down to
specific cases, these hopes are so completely justified that the
smallest conflict with them suffices to condemn the doctrine that
involves that conflict. This is one of the places where logic comes in
contact with ethics. I examine the matter of these hopes, showing
that they are, among other things which I enumerate, that any given
question is susceptible of a true answer, and that this answer is
discoverable, that being and being represented are different, that
there is a reality, and that the real world is governed by ideas.
Doubt and everyday belief are analyzed; and the difference
between the latter and scientific acceptance is shown. Other
doctrines are examined.
[This discussion concerns] what it is that the sincere student of

logic must certainly already believe beyond all doubt. He must
believe, or at least hope, that there is such a thing as The Truth, at
least with reference to some questions. He must therefore think
that there is some reality which is independently of its being
represented to be. He must therefore think that there is an external
world, however intimately it may be connected with himself, or he
with it. He must agree that things happen, and that there is some
such thing as compulsion, or at least as force. He must agree that
there is such a thing as the influence of abstract ideas, such as The
Truth, upon hard facts. That it is really true, and no mere
metaphor, that The Truth is a great power. All these things it will be
shown that the student of logic, if he is sincerely such, does believe.
Most logicians, if not all, hold that there are certain

"presuppositions," or postulates, which logic must assume to be
true; but they differ much as to what these presuppositions are, and
even as to their forming a definite list or code. I find that most
logicians have outrageously exaggerated these presuppositions, but
that there nevertheless are certain beliefs which a man must hold
firmly or at least hope are true; otherwise there would be no sense
in his studying logic. These I endeavor to catalogue and define. It is
obvious that precision in this matter is quite indispensable. My
position here seems to be secured by the fact that all the
differences between me and other logicians consist in my holding
propositions not to be presupposed which they hold are so. Now if
they say that these things are presupposed by everybody, I oppose
to that the fact that I do not presuppose them. If they say they
ought to be presupposed, in the first place, they cannot say
definitely how, and in the second place, I offer a proof which, if not
demonstrative, is very strong, that there can be no argument
establishing such an ought.
Logicians generally, and especially the Germans, hold that the

mere fact of reasoning, or endeavoring to reason, commits us to the
categorical assertion of a considerable body of doctrine. But I
undertake to show that in this instance, as in innumerable others,
those philosophical minds who have had no training in a progressive
and living science exaggerate enormously, if not infinitely, the
conclusions which they are really entitled to draw. In this number, I
propose to examine with care, first, in what sense anything is
"presupposed" in merely entering upon an inquiry, and just what it
is; and secondly, whether there is anything additional which a
person is committed to by the act of inquiring into logic, and if so,
what it is, and how he is committed to it.
I undertake to show beyond the possibility of any attentive
reader's doubt, that the bulk of the propositions which the logicians
say we are bound to affirm, we are really, at most, only bound in
consistency to hope for or expect, and that instead of our being
bound to assert universal propositions, we merely hope that certain
quite narrowly personal propositions may be true. At the same time,
among the propositions that are said to be "presupposed," there are
some which, though the reasoner may not be bound to adhere to
them, it is quite clear that he does hold them to be evident or

undoubted facts. I further undertake to show that operations of
which we are unconscious are beyond our direct control, and that it
is idle to ask whether an operation over which we have no control
has been properly performed or not. For example, I open my eyes
and look; and I thereupon say "There seems to be a bay horse". This
is a proposition. A percept is not a proposition. But the proposition
is supposed truly to represent the seeming of the percept. It is, as I
hold, quite idle to inquire whether this is correct or not. It is
conceivable that it should not be correct; but the operation of
forming that perceptual judgment from the percept being utterly
beyond our control, at present, it must go unquestioned. It is out of
our power to doubt it. It appears evidently. Propositions which we
cannot doubt have to be accepted without criticism. Genuine
criticism of them is impossible. It is true that we believe that among
the propositions which seem evident to us there are some that are
false and that we shall ultimately discover to be false. That is a good
reason for not hastily pronouncing that a proposition is indubitable
by us today. Still, until we can contrive to doubt a proposition no
real inquiry into its truth can take place.
Having put these principles into a clear light, and examined all
other possible objections to them, it will behoove me to admit that
they are not free from the defect common to almost all propositions
in philosophy, that of being more or less vague and open to
unwarrantable exaggeration. To be able to doubt a proposition, if it
means to doubt it this instant, can include only actual doubt. If the
time be extended changes of mind may take place. Doubt may also
be so slight that it is not decidedly recognizable. It is easy to find
propositions of which we cannot positively say whether they can be
doubted or not. Nevertheless, I undertake to show that the
principles are sufficiently definite for the purposes of logic.
I next undertake something like an enumeration of the
indubitable propositions. I shall not affirm that my enumeration is
complete, but shall only mention those which must be taken account
of in logic. Nor shall I name all the individual propositions; for they
will be different for different persons and even for the same person
at different times. But I shall enumerate categories of them. These
will be enumerated in the form of propositions which are not
themselves indubitable in advance of the proofs of them which I
shall adduce. Nor can these proofs be apodictic. They will leave
room for hypothetical doubts; but I do not think they will leave any
really possible doubt in the reader's mind.
I have not decided upon the order of my enumeration; nor will I
be positive that upon reconsideration I may not slightly alter my
present statement. But the propositions which I shall show to be
beyond criticism will be pretty nearly as follows.
I will first mention judgments descriptive of one's own state of
thought. These will include perceptual judgments, that is,

judgments as to the character of present percepts, such as "The sky
is blue". They will also include judgments as to the meanings which
the person making the judgment himself attaches to words and
other signs. Thus, if I say to myself "There seems to be a horse",
then, that being true in the sense I attach to the word "horse", I am
quite sure that there is an animal. For I am quite sure that by a
horse I mean a kind of animal. It is true that I am sometimes in
doubt exactly what I do mean. Precisely where shall I draw the line
between "many persons" and "not many persons"? Moreover, I may
blunder about my meaning. I may declare that in saying the sky is
blue I therein imply that it is not orangecolored, although, in fact,
when I said the sky was blue I was not referring at all to the
possibility of its being orange colored. But I shall show that
nevertheless all judgments concerning one's own thought are in the
only reasonable sense of the words beyond criticism.
The proposition here laid down, that all judgments concerning
the contents of our own thought are beyond criticism, is not itself
beyond criticism. It is a matter to be argued out; and some logicians
virtually deny it. Their doctrine is that it is only the first impressions
of sense or other immediate consciousness that are to be accepted
without criticism. But I deny both branches of this opinion, and hold
that the first impressions of sense and all immediate consciousness
are of the most dubious character, while certain propositions whose
psychological genesis may be traced are nevertheless quite
indubitable. I will undertake to put this beyond all real doubt.
Another class of propositions beyond criticism results from the
application of one indubitable judgment to another. For example, if
I say that a judgment is false, I am referring to something out of
thought. For what I mean is that the proposition refers to a subject
and misrepresents it, which it could not do if it referred only to the
contents of thought. Consequently, the following proposition is not
confined to the thought of the person who judges it: "There is such a
thing as a false proposition." Now two things are indubitable; first,
that to say that that proposition, if it were enunciated, would be
false would imply that that proposition was not enunciated, and
second, the perceptual judgment that one hears that proposition
enunciated. Consequently, the proposition is beyond criticism; and
this is an important result. It will be observed that I do not deny that
its being beyond criticism is itself a proposition requiring careful
examination. Various objections might be made to it. For example,
it may be said that Hegel does not admit it, so that it cannot be so
incapable of doubt. I reply that it might be doubted if we overlooked
what we actually perceive, as Hegel does. But if he would open his
eyes to the fact that his own opinion is denied, it would at once
become impossible for him to retain that opinion.
Another class of judgments exempt from criticism refers to
objects of the mind's own creations.
{65} German logicians generally maintain that the mere

incipiescence of reasoning commits the reasoner to the categorical
assertion of a highly important body of doctrine concerning all
things. I show that in this instance, as in innumerable others,
philosophical minds untrained in the life of any progressive science
fall into enormous, not to say infinite, exaggeration. For "assertion",
read "hope", and "concerning all things", read "concerning the
matter in hand", and [the logicians'] doctrine becomes true.
Logic, however, does make positive assertions of a very general
nature. What do they rest upon? I undertake to show that certain
kinds of judgments are indubitable, that they appear evident and
are beyond all criticism, and that accepting these as certain, it
becomes evident that certain methods of procedure must in the long
run lead science to the truth, supposing that |66| they lead to any
results at all, and supposing that there is any such thing as the truth;
and that this remains true no matter how the universe is
constituted, and whether we instinctively approve of the reasoning
or not. I thus oppose both the English logicians, who hold that the
validity of empirical reasoning depends upon the universe having a
special constitution, and the German logicians, who hold that the
validity of all reasoning ultimately consists in a feeling of rationality.
But it will be observed that I limit my position, for the present, to
the reasoning of science, leaving the practical reasonings of the
individual for further consideration. Of this programme of my logic
(a very partial view of it) I limit myself in this memoir to satisfying
every attentive reader of the truth of the first part; namely that
some judgments are exempt |67| from criticism and that certain
specified kinds of judgments belong to that class. I do not in this
number profess to lay open the whole theory of such judgments nor
to render their indubitable character perfectly clear and
comprehensible; because to do that would require certain
conceptions which it is not necessary here to develop in order to
show that the fact is as I say, however it may come about.
The paper, in order to be convincing, as I mean that it shall be,
will necessarily be largely occupied with matters really irrelevant,
although to nearly every reader they will appear to be most
pertinent. For the ground here fairly bristles with sophistical
objections which, at this stage of the investigation, I shall have
developed no logical method for dispatching. I shall not in this
prospectus of the paper allude to them further.
My general principle, which I easily prove, is that |68| so far as
operations are beyond our ken, we cannot control them; and so far
as we cannot control them it is idle to inquire whether they are

performed well or performed ill; and so far as this inquiry is idle,
"ought" and "ought not" have no meaning, and criticism, in the
philosophical sense, is out of the question.
There is one of those irrelevant apparent difficulties that
perhaps I had better just touch upon. Namely, to say that a
judgment is beyond criticism is to say that it not only ought to be
[but] forcibly must be treated as infallible. But, of course, no
judgment really is literally infallible. Although such judgments are
not subject to external criticism, they may be drawn with so much
deliberation as greatly to diminish the chance of a judgment not of
that class being mistaken for one of that class. This is a specimen of
the kind of objection which will require elucidation.
|69| I shall go on to apply my principle to show the following
classes of judgments are exempt from logical criticism:
First, judgments to the effect that the content of our
consciousness includes certain elements, or in other words analyses
of consciousness in the form of judgments. In particular, there are
two important varieties of such judgments. One of these consists of
perceptual judgments. For example, when I say "The sky is blue", I
am not speaking of any external reality but mean only that when I
look up I have a sensation of blueness. It is conceivable that this
judgment, being an entirely different sort of mental product from a
sensation, should misrepresent the sensation. But if we cannot help
making that judgment, and up to date there is not the slightest
ground for a suspicion that we ever can make it otherwise than we
do, it is utter nonsense to inquire whether it is made right or wrong.
Whether we can judge |70| otherwise or not of the percept before
us is, no doubt, a question to be carefully considered. But as soon as
it is settled that we cannot, criticism is silenced. Should it be proved
that we cannot help judging as we do within the next three months,
then until that time had elapsed we should have to treat the
judgment as infallible. The other variety of this class of judgments
which merits mention consists of judgments concerning our own
meaning. Suppose, for example, I have convinced myself that I am
looking at a horse, and that I explicitly make this judgment. Then, I
conclude that I am looking at a perissid ungulate. For what I mean
by a horse is a perissid ungulate. In other words, I analyze the
meaning of the word horse, in the sense in which I use it. It is
certain that blunders are frequently committed in such analyses. Yet
if I am persuaded that no amount of deliberation could cause me to
judge |71| otherwise than that what I now mean be a horse is
necessarily a perissid ungulate, then that powerlessness to judge
otherwise must cut off all dispute. The following dialogue might be
imagined:
"How do you know that A is A?"
"Because that is involved in what I mean by 'is'."
"How do you know it is involved?"
"Because, torture my imagination as I will, I cannot

think of anything that I could call A and not judge that
A is A."
"Perhaps that is because you have not hit on the right

kind of a subject to substitute for A."
"Possibly. But as long as I cannot help thinking that

that is what I mean by 'is', it is nonsense to question
it."
A second class of judgments that are beyond criticism consist of

those which would answer the question, what would you do under
such and such circumstances, supposing you were to act so as to be
deliberately satisfied with what you were doing? A man might reply,
If I were to undergo such an experience, in the light |72| of it I
might change my mind; but supposing I remained as I now am, and
acted deliberately, I cannot help thinking that I should do so and so.
Intentions are sunk deep in the dark lake of consciousness. A man
may not descry his own, accurately. Figures on the surface of
consciousness may interfere with his insight into himself. Still, if he
really cannot otherwise judge his present deliberate intent, there is
nothing for it but to accept his judgment of that present intention.
Such judgments of how one would behave under circumstances of a
general description occur every time a man reasons. For in all
reasoning, there is an accompanying judgment that from analogous
premisses one would, if he considered the matter sufficiently, draw
an analogous conclusion. Whether the facts would bear him out or
not is, of course, another question.
A third class of judgments not open to criticism are judgments
concerning objects created by one's |73| own imagination. Imagine,
for example, an endless succession of objects. Then there will be
there two distinct endless sequences; namely that of the objects in
the oddly numbered places, and that of the objects in the evenly
numbered places. That this is so is not to be discovered by merely
analyzing what one had in mind. The judgment is the result of a
psychical process of experimentation, considerably like an
induction. But it differs from any kind of reasoning in not being
subject to control. It is true that after one has once lit up the idea
that there are two endless series whose members so alternate, the
analysis of that idea does show that it will be applicable to any
endless series; and this analysis can be thrown into the form of a
proof that it will be so. Yet this proof will rest on some proposition
which is simply self evident. But as long as one only has the idea of
the simple endless series, one may think forever, and not discover
the theorem, until something suggests that other idea to the mind.
What I call the theorematic reasoning |74| of mathematics consists
in so introducing a foreign idea, using it, and finally deducing a
conclusion from which it is eliminated. Every such proof rests,
however, upon judgments in which the foreign idea is first
introduced, and which are simply self evident. As such, they are
exempt from criticism. Judgments of this kind are the very
foundation of logic except insofar as it is an experiential science. If
a proposition appears to us, after the most deliberate review, to be
quite selfevident, and leave no room for doubt, it certainly cannot
be rendered more evident; for its evidence is perfect already.
Neither can it be rendered less evident, until some loophole for
doubt is discovered. It is, therefore, exempt from all criticism. True,
the whole thing may be a mistake. The sixteenth proposition of the
first book of Euclid affords an example. The second postulate was
that every terminated right line can be continuously prolonged. Kai
peperasmenn eutheian kata to suneches ep' eutheias ekballein.
This |75| is by no means saying that it can be prolonged to an
indefinitely great length. He, however, virtually has proved (in prop.
2) that from the extremity of a straight line can be drawn
continuously with that line a line of any given length. He imagines,
then,a triangle
.
He prolongs the side

a little beyond to a point ; and he then
proposes to prove that the angle
is greater than the angle
. For that purpose, he bisects
in , draws
and prolongs it,
through to , making
. He then joins to by a straight
line, and argues that the angle
is greater than the angle
because the whole is greater than its part. He is thinking of Fig. 1;
but he has not proved that cannot fall as in Fig. 2; so that the
whole demonstration falls to the ground. He |76| ought to have
appealed to the third postulate to show that would be the center
of a circle passing through and , and therefore by definition IS
within the circle (why else then for such purposes should the
center's being within have been so emphatically insisted on?), to

prove that Fig. 2 was inadmissible. It is curious that there is not one
downright fallacy in the first Book of the Elements (the only part of
the work drawn up with supreme circumspection) into which Euclid
is not drawn by that axiom that the whole is greater than its part;
nor is this axiom ever appealed to without resulting in a fallacy. We
know now, as Euclid himself halfknew, that the axiom is false. Yet
it is not its falsity which causes Euclid's fallacies. It is always as here
because it tempts him to draw a figure and judge by the looks of it
what is part and what whole. Though this first book of Euclid has
been for twenty centuries under a fire of criticism in comparison
with which the strictures of professed logicians are blank cartridges
pointed by babes, yet to this day its real faults have escaped
detection, as |77| its real merits, which are phenomenal. It simply
shows how rare a thing correct reasoning is among men.
If Euclid had not been able to save his sixteenth proposition by
means of the third postulate about the circle, he could not have
saved it at all. For his first postulate is not that only one right line
can join two points as its terminals, but merely that there is a right
line from one point to the other. itsth apo pantos smeiou epi
pan smeion eutheian grammn agagein. He does not postulate that
only one straight line can be drawn through two points, but only
that all right angles are equal. That postulate would have enabled
him to prove that only one unlimited straight line cannot be drawn
between two points (a proposition he does not give because he deals
only with what is limited), but not that there were not two limited
straight lines having those points as terminals. Had he omitted from
his definition of the circle the clause represented in our language by
the single word 'within' (tn entos |78| tou schmatos keimenn),
as some moderns would have had him do, he would have had no
logical way of proving that the sum of the angles of a plane triangle
do not exceed two right angles. Still, as long as he continued to
overlook the possibility of Fig.2, his proof would have appeared
convincing, and there would have been no criticism to make upon it.
In all these cases, of whatever class, it is only the act of judging that
is exempt from criticism in the strict sense of an inquiry whether an
operation has been performed rightly or wrongly. There is nothing
to prevent the resulting proposition from being confronted with
objections showing that there is something wrong somewhere. For
example, though the act of judging that the sky looks blue is itself
exempt from criticism, yet one can imagine a person to be so
thoroughly persuaded of the falsity of Goethe's theory of colors that,
not seeing any other way of accounting |79| for the sky's seeming
blue, that he might suspect that it does not seem blue. Again if a
man analyzing his idea of matter deliberately judges that he means
by 'matter' something which in its nature is not a representation of
anything, his judgment would, as an act, not be open to any
criticism; but still, that would not prevent a Berkeley from raising
the difficulty that since we can have no experience or imagination
of anything but representations, there does not seem to be any
possible way in which a man ever could attach such a meaning to a

word consistently. So again, certain saints have declared that they
would go voluntarily and deliberately to Hell, if such were the will
and good pleasure of the Lord; but a Hobbes would not be prevented
from suspecting that they had deceived themselves, since Hell
means a state of utter dissatisfaction, and it is absurd to say that a
person could find any |80| satisfaction in complete dissatisfaction.
So in the present case, had Euclid omitted the word 'within' or
rather the corresponding Greek phrase, from his definition of the
circle, it might have occurred to him that he was provided with no
postulates about straight lines in a plane that were not equally true
of great circles on a sphere, and therefore, since a spherical triangle
may have the sum of its angles anything up to six right angles, or
even ten, if you please, there must be something wrong with the
proof that this is impossible in a plane.
This third class of judgments exempt from criticism coincides
with that of evident judgments or judgments of evident
propositions. For 'evident' means manifest to any mind who clearly
apprehends the proposition, no matter how lacking in experience he
may be. The truth of a perceptual judgment, analysis of meaning,
|81| or declaration of intention, is manifest only to the one person
whose experience it concerns. It is only when we judge concerning
creatures of the imagination that all minds are on a par, however
devoid of experience some of them may be.
When a mathematical demonstration is clearly apprehended, we
are forced to admit the conclusion. It is evident; and we cannot
think otherwise. It is, therefore, beyond all logical criticism; and the
forms of syllogism cannot lend it any support. Pure mathematics,
therefore, stands in no need of a science of logic. Methodeutically,
mathematics is its own logic; and the notion that a calculus of logic
can be of any help to mathematics, unless merely as another
mathematical method supplying a speedier process of demonstration
(which is just what a logical calculus rather opposes), is futile.
Mathematics, however, is of great aid to logic. The reasoning of
mathe|82|matics is also an instructive subject for logical analysis,
teaching us many things about the nature of reasoning. But although
a mathematical demonstration, once completely apprehended, is
evident, indubitable, beyond control, and beyond criticism, yet the
process of arriving at it is certainly a matter of skill and art, subject
to criticism, and controlled by anticipated criticism. This control
implies that different ways of proceeding are considered
hesitatingly; and until the demonstration is found there is doubt of
the conclusion. The theorem is not selfevident or it could not really
be proved. But over what elements of the process is the control
exercised? Over two: the invention of the proof, and the acceptance
of the proof. But the process of invention of the proof is not of the
nature of that demonstrative reasoning which we call mathematical.
There is nothing evident about it except that, as it turns out, it
evidently answers the purpose. |83| It is, in fact, a piece of
probable reasoning in regard to which a good logical methodeutic

may be a great aid. As to the acceptance of the proof, after it is
framed all the artifices which may be employed to assist it are of the
nature of checks. That is to say, they are merely equivalent to a
careful review of the proof itself in which some minor details may
be varied in order to diminish the chances of error. In short, this is
an operation by which the proof is brought fully and clearly before
the mind. That the proof is absolute is evident and beyond criticism.
The theorem which was not evident before the proof was
apprehended, now becomes itself entirely evident, in view of the
proof. Such reasoning forms the principal stage of logic. It is not
itself amenable to logic for any justification; and although logic may
aid in the discovery of the proof, yet its result is tested in another
way. This disposes of the German objection that to use reasoning in
order to deter|84|mine what methods of probable reasoning will
lead to the truth begs the whole question, so that the only way is to
admit that the validity of reasoning consists in a feeling of
reasonableness.
A fourth kind of judgment which must be regarded as beyond
criticism, although they are reached by a sort of process of
reasoning, are those in which a proposition is presented to
perception, the meaning of which proposition either supports or
conflicts with what is presented to sense. I will give a couple of
examples to show what I mean, because such propositions throw
much light upon logic. Take the proposition, "Some actually
enunciated proposition is false". The meaning of this proposition is
such that the falsity of that meaning, that is, the nonenunciation of
any false proposition, would conflict with this proposition's
enunciating what we perceive that it does enunciate. Therefore, the
proposition must be true, |85| that a false proposition is actually
enunciated. Yet it is quite possible to imagine a paradisiacal world in
which no false proposition should ever have been suggested. We
cannot, therefore, say that there necessarily must be a false
proposition, but only that the existence of this proposition
constitutes the certainly that a false proposition is enunciated,
although the assertion of this proposition itself is perfectly true.
This forces us to recognize the correct and extremely important
logical doctrine, namely, that every proposition asserts two things,
first whatever it is meant to assert, and secondly, its own truth.
Unless both these are true, the proposition is false. Although,
therefore, the meaning or matter of this proposition is true, the
proposition itself may be false; and it will be so in case there is no
other false proposition than itself.
Suppose however we find a piece of paper quite blank except
for these two [sic: read "three"] sentences:
|86| Something that the second sentence on this
paper says of the third is false.
Something that the third sentence on this paper says

of the first is false.
Something that the first sentence on this paper says

of the second is false.
Now, disregarding the implication by the first sentence of its own
truth, is whatever it says of the second true? If so, it is false that
something that the third sentence on this paper says of the first is
false. Then whatever the third sentence says of the first is true.
Then something that the first says of the second is false, contrary to
the hypothesis. Then we are driven to assume that something that
the second sentence says of the third is true. Then, something that
the third says of the first is false. Hence, whatever the first
sentence says of the second is true, again contrary to the
hypothesis. I prove by an elaborate necessary argument that the
only admissible solution is that every proposition, even if not
asserted, necessarily and essentially involves as part of its meaning
that the reality, or truth of things, or the real universe, is truly
repre|88|sented by what it says, and that the three sentences are
true in other respects, but false in their inseparable implication that
they represent any truth of being, or the real universe in any
respect. This they fail to do because, though each refers to the
others, yet together they do not represent any real being
independent of being represented.
This brings me to the examination of the matter of the hope
which we entertain concerning the matter in hand when we start
any inquiry. I find it convenient to use the term proposition to
denote that meaning of a sentence which not only remains the same
in whatever language it is expressed, but is also the same whether it
be believed or doubted, asserted (by somebody's making himself
responsible for it), or commanded (by somebody's expressing that he
holds another responsible for it), or put as a question (when
somebody expresses an attempt to induce another to make himself
responsible for it). Now I prove in a man|89|ner which will
command veritable assent, that every proposition whether it be
believed, doubted, asserted, commanded, or put interrogatively,
supposed, etc. essentially represents itself to represent an absolute
reality, the very same for all propositions, which is definite (that is,
subject to the principle of contradiction) and individual (that is,
subject to the principle of excluded middle). This reality is not in
any respect constituted by being represented as so constituted in
any definite proposition or representation. That there is such an
absolute reality we hope; and in every inquiry we hope that the
proposition which is put in the interrogative mood represents that
reality. If a proposition represents that reality and represents it
rightly in whatever respect it represents it, the proposition is true.
If the proposition does not represent the absolute reality or in any
respect represents it wrongly, it is false.
|90| I further show that we hope that any inquiry which we

undertake will result in a complete settlement of opinion. We never
need abandon that hope. The representation of the reality in such
destined opinion is the reality.
It follows that the methodeutic task of logic is to find such
methods as must hasten the progress of opinion toward its ultimate
bourn.
It is plain that I cannot outline the contents of all my proposed
[memoirs] as I have done this since such an outline would fill five
hundred pages of manuscript. I can only say that this first memoir is
not one of those which is most completely in shape.
There is one point which I have so far passed over without

notice which is of great importance for the solidity of the foundation
of my method of ascertaining whether a reasoning is good or bad. My
position, in opposition to almost all the German logicians and those
who blindly worship them in this country, is that in the science of
the logic of science it will not do to rely upon our instinctive
judgments of logicality merely; it is necessary to prove that, from
the nature of things, the given method of reasoning will conduce to
the truth in the sense in which it professes to do so. But here two
questions arise: First, Have you not, after all, to rely upon the
veracity of the logical instinct in judging of the validity of this proof?
and Secondly, Where do you get the premisses from which this proof
proceeds; and how do you know they are true? Have you not to rely
upon instinct again, here? These questions are pressed by the
German and other subjectivist logicians; and their pressing them
with confidence in their unanswerable difficulty is a good example
of a characteristic of those writers; namely, that they look at
everything through the spyglass of logical forms and metaphysical
theories, and often overlook plain facts before their faces. In order
to answer those questions, it is necessary to recognize certain very
plain and easy distinctions which the German logicians habitually
overlook. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish between a
proposition and the assertion of it. To confound those two things is
like confounding the writing of one's name idly upon a scrap of
paper, perhaps for practice in chirography, with the attachment of
one's signature to a binding legal deed. A proposition may be stated
without being asserted. I may state it to myself and worry as to
whether I shall embrace it or reject it, being dissatisfied with the
idea of doing either. In that case, I doubt the proposition. I may
state the proposition to you and endeavor to stimulate you to advise
me whether to accept or reject it, in which case I put it
interrogatively. I may state it to myself, and be deliberately satisfied

to base my action on it whenever occasion may arise, in which case I
judge it. I may state it to you, and assume a responsibility for it, in
which case I assert it. I may impose the responsibility of its agreeing
with the truth upon you, in which case I command it. All of these
are different moods in which that same proposition may be stated.
The German word Urtheil confounds the proposition itself with the
psychological act of assenting to it. This confusion is a part of the
general refusal of idealism, which still considerably affects almost all
German thought, to acknowledge that it is one thing to be and quite
another to be represented. I use the word belief to express any kind
of holding for true or acceptance of a representation. Belief, in this
sense, is a composite thing. Its principal element is not an affair of
consciousness at all; but is a habit established in the believer's
nature, in consequence of which he would act, should occasion
present itself in certain ways. However, not every habit is a belief.
A belief is a habit with which the believer is deliberately satisfied.
This implies that he is aware of it, and being aware of it does not
struggle against it. A third important characteristic of belief is that
while other habits are contracted by repeatedly performing the act
under the conditions, belief may be, and commonly if not invariably
is contracted, by merely imagining the situation and imagining what
would be our experience and what our conduct in such a situation;
and this mere imagination at once establishes such a habit that if
the imagined case were realized we should really behave in that
way. Take, for example, the way in which ninetynine ordinary men,
not sharps, out of every hundred would form the belief that the sum
of the angles of a triangle is two right angles. Any one of them would
probably imagine himself to be in a field facing the north. He would
imagine himself to march some distance in that direction, turn
through an angle, march again, turn again so as to face his original
position and then turn again so as to face as he did in the first place.
Then he would say, I should, in effect, have turned through four
right angles; for if I had stood at one point or hardly moved I should
have had to make a complete rotation before the North Star would
again be in front of me; and therefore the sum of my three turnings
would have been four right angles (there would be his fallacy).
Therefore the sum of the exterior angles of a triangle is four right
angles. But the sum of exterior and interior angles at each angle is
two right angles; and since there are three angles, the sum of the
sums of exterior and interior angles is six right angles. Subtracting
from these six the four right angles equal to the sum of the exterior
angles, I find two right angles left as the sum of the interior angles
of a triangle. Thereupon, a habit would have been formed so that he
would thereafter always act on the theory that the sum of the
interior angles of a triangle is two right angles. This habit would
have been the consequence of what he imagines would be forced
upon his experience in that situation; and this imagination being due
to another habit which, like every belief, affects imagination, unless
there is a special inhibition, just as it does real conduct. If anybody
says that in this description of belief I make too much of conduct, I
admit it frankly. It will not be so in the book itself; but in the

present statement I do so in order to counteract the effect of the
neglect of a certain point the statement of which would be too long.
Such, then, roughly, is what a belief, or holding for true is. A doubt
is of a very different nature. A belief is chiefly an affair of the soul,
not of the consciousness; a doubt, on the contrary, is chiefly an
affair of consciousness. It is an uneasy feeling, a special condition of
irritation, in which the idea of two incompatible modes of conduct
are before the doubter's imagination, and nothing determines him,
indeed he feels himself forbidden, to adopt either and reject the
other. Of course it is not necessary that the degrees of
dissatisfaction with the opposite alternatives should be equal. Like
irritations generally, doubt sets up a reaction which does not cease
until the irritation is removed. If we accept this account of the
matter, doubt is not the direct negation or contrary of belief; for
the two mainly affect different parts of the man. Speaking
physiologically, belief is a state of the connections between
different parts of the brain, doubt an excitation of braincells. Doubt
acts quite promptly to destroy belief. Its first effect is to destroy the
state of satisfaction. Yet the beliefhabit may still subsist. But
imagination so readily affects this habit, that the former believer
will soon begin to act in a halfhearted manner, and before long the
habit will be destroyed. The most important character of doubt is
that no sooner does a believer learn that another man equally well
informed and equally competent doubts what he has believed, than
he begins by doubting it himself. Probably the first symptom of this
state of irritation will be anger at the other man. Such anger is a
virtual acknowledgment of one's own doubt; that is to say, not a
genuine doubt, or feeling of uneasiness, but a sense that it is
possible we may come to doubt it. Such doubt, at first of a purely
external nature, sets up as reaction an effort to enter into the doubt
and to comprehend it. Indeed, it is not necessary that one should
actually meet with a man who doubts; for such is the influence of
imagination in such matters that as soon as a believer can imagine
that a man, equally wellinformed and equally competent with
himself, should doubt, doubt actually begins to set in, in his own
state of feeling. From this follows the important corollary that if a
man does not himself really doubt a given proposition he cannot
imagine how it can be doubted, and therefore cannot produce any
argument tending to allay such doubt. It thus appears that it is one
thing to question a proposition and quite another to doubt it. We
can throw any proposition into the interrogative mood at will; but
we can no more call up doubt than we can call up the feeling of
hunger at will. What one does not doubt one cannot doubt, and it is
only accidentally that attention can be drawn to it in a manner
which suggests the idea that there might be a doubt. Thence comes
a critical attitude, and finally, perhaps, a genuine doubt may arise.
It is this critical attitude that must be examined. I regret very much
the necessity of entering into such details; but the two questions I
am preparing to answer are of such fundamental importance in
regard to the value of the methodeutical part of my book that the
briefest account of what is to be characterized must necessarily

dwell upon these matters. The word criticism carries a meaning in
philosophy which has so little resemblance to the criticism of
literature that the latter meaning throws no light on the former.
Philosophical criticism is applied to an idea which we have already
adopted, but which we remark that we have not deliberately
adopted. The mere fact that it has been adopted, as if hastily, that
is, without deliberation, though it does not necessarily create a
doubt, suggests the idea that perhaps a doubt might arise. The
critical attitude consists in reviewing the matter to see in what
manner corrections shall be made. This is what one does when one
reads over a letter one has written to see whether some unintended
meaning is suggested. The criticism is always of a process, the
process which led to the acceptance of the ideas. It supposes that
this process is subject to the control of the will; for its whole
purpose is correction, and one cannot correct what one cannot
control. Reasoning, in the proper sense of the word, is always
deliberate and, therefore, is always subject to control.

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy
MEMOIR 11
ON THE LOGICAL CONCEPTION OF MIND
(This memoir is here placed, or perhaps better before No. 9, for the
sake of perspicuity of exposition. The matter of it will have to be
somewhat transformed at a later stage.)
If the logician is to talk of the operations of the mind at all, as it
is desirable that he should do, though it is not scientifically
indispensable, then he must mean by "mind" something quite
different from the object of study of the psychologist; and this
logical conception of mind is developed in this memoir and rendered
clear.
(My order of arrangement of the first eleven memoirs is subject
to reconsideration. The categories are applicable to the logical
analysis of mathematics. It is even a question whether this fact does
not derange my classification, although I have carefully considered
it, and have provisionally concluded that it does not. It further
seems to me better to let the categories first emerge in the
mathematical memoirs before explicitly considering them. This is a
question of methodeutic, which is not so exact in its conclusions as
is critical logic. I think the arrangement I here propose is favorable
to the reception of the categories. But if I were to decide to
postpone the mathematical memoirs until after the categories, they
might better be placed last among the first eleven memoirs. In that
case, also, and indeed in any case, it might be well to place the
memoir on the logical conception of mind before that upon esthetics
and ethics. The present arrangement has been pretty carefully
considered; and the last transposition is the only one that I think
there is much likelihood of my deciding upon. After No. 12, the only
changes possible are shifts of boundaries in order to equalize the
lengths of memoirs.)
If the logician is to talk of mind and its operations at all, it must

be in a different sense from that in which modern psychologists
study the mind. This conception of mind, which is needed in our
studies, will be developed in its four successive grades of clearness.
It is almost universally held that logic is a science of thought (so

far as it is a science at all), that thought is a modification of
consciousness, and that consciousness is the object of the science of
psychology. The effect of this, were it perceived, is to make logic
logically dependent upon the very one of all the special sciences
which most stands in logical need of a science of logic. Accordingly,
we find that some logicians deny that logic is a science, while others
maintain that it is a mere description of our feelings. Each of these
views has had disastrous effects upon several branches of science. It
has occurred to me that perhaps logic relates to mind in one sense
of the word "mind", and that the psychologists inquire into the
phenomena of mind in another sense of "mind". It is beyond my
province to say what the psychologists aim to study; but it is
perfectly proper for me to determine by analysis what mind is in the
sense in which logic is concerned with it. I have performed this
analysis; and I believe that it will be found convincing, somewhat
novel, highly interesting, and decidedly elevating. Indeed, I promise
myself that if ever this memoir receives the attention that it ought,
it will do something appreciable to aid the movement now beginning
to extricate science from the slough of materialism. I undertake to
show that when a man performs the simplest voluntary act, the
nature of his efficiency upon matter is precisely the same as that
which we attribute to truth when we say "Truth, crushed to earth,
shall rise again," in which most scientific men have more or less
faith. I will further make it mathematically evident that to say that
while matter can act immediately only upon matter and mind can
immediately act only upon mind, and yet each can act upon the
other without the intervention of a tertium quid, does not involve
the selfcontradiction which it appears at first blush to express. At
the same time, I show that there is nothing which it properly
belongs to the logician to say about mind, in his sense, which cannot
be established on the basis of universal experience, without
appealing to any special science whatever.
MEMOIR 12
ON THE DEFINITION OF LOGIC
Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a
sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does
the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part
by part, during a lapse of time. Namely, a sign is something, A,
which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or
created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something,
C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C. It is from this
definition, together with a definition of "formal", that I deduce
mathematically the principles of logic. I also make a historical
review of all the definitions and conceptions of logic and show not
merely that my definition is no novelty, but that my non
psychological conception of logic has virtually been quite generally
held, though not generally recognized.
I define logic very broadly as the study of the formal laws of

signs, or formal semiotic. I define a sign as something, A, which
brings something, B, its interpretant, into the same sort of
correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself
stands to C. In this definition I make no more reference to anything
like the human mind than I do when I define a line as the place
within which a particle lies during a lapse of time. At the same time,
a sign, by virtue of this definition, has some sort of meaning. That is
implied in correspondence. Now meaning is mind in the logical
sense. But many will object that the only signs we can study are
signs interpreted in human thought. I reply that by the definition
thoughts are themselves signs, and that if it happens to be a fact
that all other signs are ultimately interpreted in thoughtsigns, then
that fact is irrelevant to logic. The proof that it is irrelevant is that
all the principles of logic are deducible from my definition without
taking any account of the alleged fact, much more clearly than if
any attempt is made to introduce this allegation as a premiss.
Therefore, unless this allegation be regarded as itself a truth of
logic, which it is not, since it is not of a formal nature, it is perfectly
irrelevant to logic. I also define very carefully what I mean by a
"formal" law. I say nothing in the definition about normative
principles, because not all the principles of logic are normative.
Indeed, it is only the connection of logic with esthetics through
ethics which causes it to be a normative science at all.
The above argument is hard to escape but not convincing. In
order to render it so, I am obliged to review about fifty attempts to
define logic and to show that the consideration of them only leads
back to that one.
We cannot safely employ in logic any kind of reasoning which is

subject to doubts which a science of logic is needed to remove. We
are, therefore, restricted to mathematical reasoning. Now
mathematical reasoning requires a diagrammatic or pure
constructive notion of the thing reasoned about. But the ordinary
logicians talk of acts of the mind, concepts, judgments, acts of
concluding, which are mixed ideas into which enter all sorts of
elements in a manner which prevents any strict mathematical
reasoning about them. All these ideas of the mind are, however,
representations, or signs. We must begin by getting diagrammatic
notions of signs from which we strip away, at first, all reference to
the mind; and after we have made those ideas just as distinct as our
notion of a prime number or of an oval line, we may then consider,
if need be, what are the peculiar characteristics of a mental sign,
and in fact may give a mathematical definition of a mind in the same
sense in which we can give a mathematical definition of a straight
line. We cannot by any purely mathematical definition build up the
peculiar idea of straightness, since that is nothing but a feeling. We
can only define a straight line as one of a continuous family of lines
having certain relations to one another. But there might be just such
a family composed of lines none of which would appear straight to
us. In like manner, we can define the formal character of mind in a
manner perfectly adequate to all the purposes of logic. But there is
nothing to compel the object of such a formal definition to have the
peculiar feeling of consciousness. That peculiar feeling has nothing
to do with the logicality of reasoning, however; and it is far better
to leave it out of account.
In this paper, then, I shall precisely analyze and define the
various kinds of signs and their characteristics. Of course, I cannot
trace out the development here. But I may say that I begin by
dividing all signs into icons, indices, and symbols. An icon is a sign
which is such by virtue of a character which it might equally possess
if the object it represents had no being (although of course it could
not then be a sign) and which it might equally possess if it never
were interpreted in another sign. Thus a chalk mark on a blackboard
may serve as the icon of a geometrical line. This is because it is long
and slender. But it would be long and slender just the same even if
the geometrical line had no kind of being. An icon is therefore a sign
by virtue of its own quality and is a sign of whatever else partakes of
that quality. An index, on the other hand, is a sign which is such
because it is in reaction or real relation with its object, and would
be so, just the same, though it never were interpreted as a sign. So
a weathercock is a sign of the direction of the wind. A symbol is a
sign which is such, not by the mere virtue of a quality which agrees
with that of its object, nor by virtue of any mechanical connection
with its object, but simply because it is interpreted as a sign in
another sign. We have a somewhat imperfect example in the small

hand of an alarm clock which is set to cause the bell to ring when
the time according to the clock is a given hour. This little hand is a
sign of the clock's having gone to the hour, not because it follows
the large hand, or because it will at that hour be parallel to the
large hand (which may or may not be the case), but because the bell
will ring when the clock has run to the hour which the little hand
indicates. The bell is the interpreting sign. So when a person reads
aloud from a book, the print is a sign simply by virtue of the fact
that the voice will so interpret it; or if the book is read silently, the
succession of images in the mind will so interpret it. It may be
objected that no kind of sign operates as a sign unless it is
interpreted. This is quite true; but in the cases of the icon and
index, it is possible to leave that circumstance out of account, as in
fact we commonly do, and still have a perfectly correct idea of the
relation of the sign to its object. But in the case of the symbol, if the
fact of its being interpreted is left out of account, its peculiar
relation to its object will be left out of account. A chalk mark is like
a line though nobody uses it as a sign; a weathercock turns with the
wind, whether anybody notices it or not. But the word "man" has no
particular relation to men unless it be recognized as being so
related. That is not only what constitutes it a sign, but what gives it
the peculiar relation to its object which makes it significant of that
particular object.
MEMOIR 13
ON THE DIVISION OF LOGIC
By an application of categoric, I show that the primary division
of logic should be into stechiology, critic, and methodeutic. There is
a crossdivision into the doctrines of terms, propositions, and
arguments, to which three kinds of signs, however, stechiology,
critic, and methodeutic are quite differently related. The various
historical divisions of logic are considered.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Other Peircean terms for "stechiology" (or

"stechiologic") are e.g. "universal grammar", "speculative
grammar", and "philosophical grammar". "Critic" is usually
referred to as "critical logic" or simply as "logic" (in what he
calls "the narrow sense," in distinction from the broad sense

in which it is equivalent to "semiotic"). "Methodeutic" is also
"universal rhetoric", "speculative rhetoric", and "philosophical
rhetoric".
From draft E MS L75.164165
Logic is primarily divided into stechiologic, critic, and

methodeutic, which are defined in terms of the categories. Logic
relates to terms, propositions, and arguments. Stechiologic treats of
every variety. Critic has no direct bearing upon terms, upon
analytic, or explicatory, propositions, nor upon necessary reasoning
as such. It does, however, treat of meaningless and absurd terms, of
irrelevant definitions, of fallacious demonstrations and of probable
deductions. Methodeutic has no direct bearing upon any terms or
propositions or upon any kind of reasoning except that which starts
hypotheses. After critical logic has pronounced a hypothesis to be
justifiable (being a verifiable hypothesis which explains the
surprising fact), it remains to submit the hypothesis to methodeutic
in order to determine whether it should be the first among the
justifiable hypotheses to be considered. No such supplementary
inquiry is called for in the case of a deductive or an inductive
conclusion. Indirectly, however, methodeutic treats of all kinds of
signs.
The history of divisions of logic is examined; and it is shown that
my division has been virtually quite generally approved, except so
far as it has been deranged by other divisions I make.
By virtue of the categories, anything whatever may be

considered under three aspects; first, in its peculiar flavor; second,
as reacting with an object; and third, as represented. The peculiar
flavor which belongs to a sign, as such, is its imputed flavor, or
meaning. The object upon which a sign as such reacts is the object
to which it corresponds, or denotes. The representamen which
belongs to a sign as such is its interpretant. Consequently, formal
semiotic falls into three departments, the study of those laws to
which a sign must conform in order to mean what it is to mean, the
study of the laws to which a sign must conform in order really to
correspond to the object to which it is intended to conform, that is,
to be true, and those laws to which a sign must conform in order to
determine the interpretant to which it is intended to appeal, that is,
to advance knowledge. These three departments have been called
stechiologic, critic, and methodeutic. I regard this division as
primary, because it depends upon a principle which is applicable to
anything whatsoever.
The categories show that signs are themselves of three kinds.
For a sign may have as its signflavor, or significant character,
merely the flavor, or quality, which belongs to it just as anything has
a flavor or quality; and in this case it will stand for whatever its
thingflavor adapts it to standing for. Such is an icon, or image,
which represents any object just so far as it resembles that object.
Or, secondly, a sign may have as its significant character the fact
that it stands in real relation to its object. It will then serve as a sign
of that object to any interpretant that represents it as so reacting
with that object. This is an index. Or, finally, a sign may have as its
significant character its being represented to be a sign. That is a
symbol. All merely conventional signs are symbols; and so are all
signs which become such because they are naturally taken to be
such, as ideas. Logic might, perhaps, properly be restricted to
symbols. I have not paid sufficient attention, perhaps, to the formal
laws of indices and icons to see that the study of them ought to be
separated from that of symbols. My not very decided opinion is that
they should all be studied together.
But another division of signs, especially of symbols, is shown by
the categories. For a sign may be such that it shall denote whatever
object it may be fitted to denote and appeal to whatever
interpretant may be fitted to interpret it. Such is a name. Every
pure icon is necessarily of this description. Secondly, a sign may
separately indicate the object which it is intended to denote, but
may appeal to whatever interpretant can interpret it. Such is a
proposition. Thirdly, a sign may definitely signify what interpretant
sign it is intended to determine. If it does this, it must also indicate
what object it is intended to denote; because, if it separately
signifies what interpretant is to be determined, whatever is the
object of the sign is thereby separately indicated as the object of
the interpretant. Such a sign definitely signifying what interpretant
it is intended to determine is an argument, of which the conclusion
is the intended interpretant. Symbols alone can be arguments,
which accounts for the small importance of icons and indices in
logic. We thus have a division of signs into terms, propositions, and
arguments; and consequently there is a cross division of logic into
the doctrine of terms, the doctrine of propositions, and the doctrine
of arguments.
Making the former division the primary one, stechiology will
have direct concern with terms, propositions, and arguments. Critic,
however, whose business it is to consider whether signs are really
related to their objects, that is, are true, can have no direct
concern with terms, since a term simply denotes whatever object it
is fit to denote. Methodeutic, for a similar reason, can have no
direct and primary concern with anything but arguments,
notwithstanding the great part that definition and division have
always played in this branch of logic. Moreover, critic cannot
directly deal with all kinds of propositions, since there can be no

question as to the truth of a definition. Nor can it directly deal with
all kinds of arguments. For there can be no general theory proving
the general validity of necessary reasoning. For such reasoning
makes its conclusion evident; and so long as it is evident, there is
[no] doubt about it to be removed. I know that this will be
contested; but I shall show in another memoir that the objections
are due to confusion of thought. In like manner, the direct concern
of methodeutic is restricted still more narrowly to a single class of
arguments. But it will be shown that, notwithstanding these
considerations, the indirect relation of critic and methodeutic to
those signs which do not directly concern them is important.
I shall then proceed to the critical examination of the different
modes of dividing logic, and shall show that the above divisions have
been generally recognized, and that others are not, properly,
divisions of logic itself, or are mere subdivisions of little importance.
MEMOIR 14
ON THE METHODS OF DISCOVERING
AND ESTABLISHING THE TRUTHS OF LOGIC
I shall here show that no less than thirteen different methods of
establishing logical truth are in current use today, and mostly
without any principle of choice and in a deplorably uncritical
manner.
I shall show that the majority of these methods are quite
inadmissible, and that of the remainder all but one should be
restricted to one department of logic. The one universally valid
method is that of mathematical demonstration; and this is the only
one which is commonly avoided by logicians as fallacious. I shall
show in the clearest manner that this notion is due to a confusion of
thought, which I shall endeavor to trace through all its
metamorphoses. I hope to give this its quietus.
The methods of discovering logical truth can naturally not be
numerous when discovery is pretty nearly at a standstill. I explain
my own method.
It need not be said that a science whose methods are all at sixes
and sevens is in poor case. I shall show that there are at present
actually in use six plus seven, or thirteen methods in use for
establishing logical truth, without counting the method of authority
which is really operative, although unavowed. While there are some
logicians who are more or less scrupulous in their choice of
methods, most of them resort indifferently to any one of twelve, the
only one they scrupulously avoid being the only one that is generally
valid. For I shall prove conclusively that the majority of the methods
are absolutely worthless, and that of the others only one is properly
applicable in all parts of logic. That one method consists in
proceeding from universally observed facts, formulated abstractly,
and deducing their consequences by mathematical reasoning. We
are here with certain objections which weigh with almost all
logicians but which I shall undertake to show are merely due to a
feeble grasp of the conceptions of logic. This first of these
objections, which lies behind them all, is that, logic being the
science which establishes the validity of reasoning, it begs the
question to employ reasoning to establish the principles of logic. To
this I reply that as long as all doubt is removed by a method, nothing
better can be demanded. But owing to the confused state of mind of
logicians, they make various attempts to answer this, such as that
doubt is not removed if we question the validity of the reasoning.
The rejoinder is obvious enough. Of course, it follows that pure
mathematics does not stand in need of any science of logic to
determine whether a reasoning is good or not; and by a review of
the different disputes which have arisen between mathematicians, I
show that this is the case; and I contrast this with a number of
instances in the history of other sciences, where logical doctrines
were sadly needed.
In regard to methods of discovering logical truth, there are few
logicians who show any vestige of any definite method except that
of reading what others have written. There are, however, a few
methods which have been employed, which I consider. I show that
the most successful of these really consist in an unconscious and ill
defined application of one method which I describe.
No less than thirteen different ways are employed by different

logicians for ascertaining what is good reasoning and what is bad
reasoning. Only one of these thirteen methods is generally employed
by me, although there are one or two of the others which I apply to
a very limited extent as confirmatory only in settling minute details.
The great mass of the twelve methods I regard as altogether
unscientific and worthless in scientific logic, though there are
certain unscientific and inexact parts of logic, where reasoning is

mainly regulated by the logical instinct, where there is no particular
objection to their use. In particular, I hold the ordinary subjective
method of the German logicianswhich bases logic upon the feeling
of logicality to such an extent that good reasoning is defined as such
reasoning as we deliberately approve as satisfying that feelingto be
simply disastrous to science, to be much worse than leaving the
whole question to the direct decision of instinct, and to be
responsible for grave errors of procedure in the German psychical
science, as for example in linguistics, in the historical criticism of
documents, etc.
I undertake to show that every reasoning professes to proceed
according to a method that is calculated to lead to the truth; and a
good reasoning is a reasoning which in fact fulfills its profession in
this respect.
[I] will give some preliminary idea of the present state of logical
inquiry. It will be shown that thirteen different ways of determining
whether reasoning is good or bad are now in use, to my knowledge.
Most of these will be shown to be worthless. A few may be sparingly
employed in special cases to which they are adapted. But one sole
method is generally valid. Namely, it must be shown that whatever
be the constitution of the universe, the method of reasoning
adopted, if it leads to any conclusion, and if there is any such thing
as the Truth to be reached, must in the long run reach a true
conclusion. The doctrine to which this is prominently opposed is
that the only way of judging of the validity of a reasoning is by
means of our instinctive feeling of rationality. My position against
this subjective logic is this. The instinct of rationality is not a simple
feeling. It is a faculty which produces distinct judgments; and the
matter of any such judgment is that a given method of reasoning is
good or bad, that is, will or will not answer its purpose as certainly
and completely as any that can be found. The instinctive judgment
of rationality, therefore, makes its pronouncement relative to the
reasoner's purpose. For that reason, it is necessary to consider
separately theoretical reasonings, the reasonings of pure science,
and practical reasonings, the reasonings of a person about the
affairs of life. The latter proposes to act speedily upon his
conclusion; so that the question must be settled with some degree
of promptitude. Science, on the other hand, may be a century, or
five centuries, engaged upon an investigation. Indeed, there is no
definite period within which science must reach its final conclusion.
Therefore, if it is quite evident that a method of reasoning is such
that it must reach the truth in the long run of probabilities, while it
may not be so good a method as some other where the
approximation is more rapid, yet it cannot be pronounced absolutely
bad for scientific purposes. The voice of instinct itself, when closely
crossquestioned, assents to this. For if we consider two methods of

reasoning which the instinctive sense of rationality in the first
instance pronounces to be upon a par, and if we show, as we can,
that one of these will evidently lead to the truth in the long run, if it
leads to any conclusion and if there is any truth, while as to the
other, it is evident that there is no such necessity, instinct will
change its mind and prefer the method which the objective criterion
prefers. Indeed, instinct confesses its own inadequacy to decide
upon reasonings which may be continued through many ages. But in
the case of a person's practical reasonings the case is different. For
an individual whose purse is finite, there really is no such thing as
the "long run" of probabilities. The objective theory is not strictly
applicable. Besides, here instinct is within its own proper domain;
and instinct, within its proper domain is far keener and surer than
any human theory whatever. Practical reasonings, therefore, ought
not to be guided by scientific logic, but by instinct; and the only
logic which is applicable to t
MEMOIR 15
ON THE NATURE OF STECHIOLOGIC
This will contain especially a discussion of Erkenntnisslehre,
what it must be, if it is an indispensable preparatory doctrine to
critical logic.
Conceiving of stechiologic, not as above defined, but as

whatever doctrine is requisite as a preparation for critical logic, we
are met with the fact that some of the best German logicians
maintain that it should be what is known as a theory of cognition, or
Erkenntnisslehre. This doctrine is supposed to be built, in part, upon
truths discovered by the psychologists, such as the association of
ideas. In this memoir, I show by careful analysis that psychological
truths are not relevant to the theory of cognition, but on the
contrary that the establishment of those truths depends upon
special points of the doctrine of logic. I undertake to show what a
theory of cognition becomes when it is stripped of everything
irrelevant and inadmissable, and that it then becomes a sort of
grammatica speculativa. I then examine universal grammar as it is
generally conceived, and show that most of its propositions are
merely matters of certain special languages, some of the indo
european languages, with such others as happen to resemble them. I
then show that there is a way, and but one way, of reaching a sort
of grammatica speculativa, and that this is simply stechiology as I
have defined it.
MEMOIR 16
A GENERAL OUTLINE OF STECHIOLOGIC
EDITORIAL NOTE: Peirce had no comment on this in any

version. The term "stechiologic"sometimes "stechiology"is
used here for what he more typically refers to as "speculative
grammar" (or "grammatica speculativa"), which means literally
"theoretical grammar" but is perhaps most aptly referred to
by the term "philosophical grammar" or as Peirce himself
indicate,"universal grammar". I prefer the term "philosophical
grammar" myself because one of the collections of
Wittgenstein's notes has been given that title, and this helps
to situate Peirce in the proper context.
MEMOIR17
ONTERMS
ThismemoirwillbebasedonmypaperofNovember1867.*
* EDITORIAL NOTE: "Upon Logical Comprehension and

Extension," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences 7, 1867 (reprinted in Vol. 2 of the Collected Papers,
Vol. 2 of the Chronological Edition, and in Vol. 1 of Houser
and Kloesel's The Essential Peirce. If you think of Frege as
the discoverer of the sense/reference or Sinn/Bedeutung
distinction, you will find Peirce's depth/breadth or
comprehension/extension distinction, and his tracing of this
back to Aristotle, unusually interesting. Peirce also provides a
formal definition of "information" in terms of this distinction.
Practice has shown that that paper needs extension in several

directions. Besides, account has to be taken of important classes of
terms there barely mentioned. The historical part, too, needs great
amplification. My very conception of what a term is has been much

improved by studies subsequent to that paper, and altogether
original. The study of "agglutinative" languages has been an aid to
me.
[This memoir will develop] the doctrine of logical depth and

breadth, in a much more thorough working out of my paper of
November 1867, and taking into consideration all kinds of terms.
MEMOIR 18
ON PROPOSITIONS
The question of the nature of the judgment is today more
actively debated than any other. It is here that the German logicians
are best worthy of attention; and I propose to take occasion to give
here an account of modern German logic. Although this seems
rather the subject for a book than for a single paper, yet I think, by
stretching this memoir, I can bring into it all that is necessary to say
about these treatises, which belong to near a dozen distinct schools.
I shall then show how my own theory follows from attention to
the three categories; and shall pass to an elaborate analysis,
classification, symbolization, and doctrine of the relations of
propositions. This will probably be the longest of all the memoirs,
and will balance No. 16, which will be short. I think I shall treat No.
16 as a supplement to No. 15 and divide No. 21 into two parts to be
handed in separately.
No question of logic has of late years received more attention

than that of the nature of the judgment. I here propose to show that
my method satisfies all conditions. The doctrine is that the
proposition, that is, the meaning of the matter of a judgment, is a
sign (regarded as identical with any full interpretation of it) which
separately designates its object. Thus a portrait with the name of

the person portrayed under it expresses a proposition. This
proposition need not be asserted. Assertion is a separate act by
which a person makes himself responsible for the truth of the
proposition. Interrogation, command, etc., equally involve easily
defined acts. The question then arises whether a proposition does
not involve a peculiar and indefinable element. I show that it does
so. But although this element is indefinable, it is easily identified
with my second category, and the precise manner in which reaction
enters into it is also clear.
I then examine the principal discussions of the nature of the
judgment, and show exactly wherein they are right and wherein
wrong.
I further give a classification of propositions.
It is necessary to distinguish between a proposition and the

assertion of it. To confound those two things is like confounding the
writing of one's name idly upon a scrap of paper, perhaps for
practice in chirography, with the attachment of one's signature to a
binding legal deed. A proposition may be stated without being
asserted. I may state it to myself and worry as to whether I shall
embrace it or reject it, being dissatisfied with the idea of doing
either. In that case, I doubt the proposition. I may state the
proposition to you and endeavor to stimulate you to advise me
whether to accept or reject it, in which [case] I put it
interrogatively. I may state it to myself and be deliberately satisfied
to base my action on it whenever occasion may arise, in which case I
judge it. I may state it to you and assume a responsibility for it, in
which case I assert it. I may impose the responsibility of its agreeing
with the truth upon you, in which case I command it. All of these
are different moods in which that same proposition may be stated.
The German word Urtheil confounds the proposition itself with the
psychological act of assenting to it. This confusion is a part of the
general refusal of idealism, which still considerably affects almost all
German thought, to acknowledge that it is one thing to be and quite
another to be represented.
An assertion is an act which represents that an icon represents

the object of an index. Thus, in the assertion, "Mary is red
headed","redheaded" is not an icon itself, it is true, but a symbol.
But its interpretant is an icon, a sort of composite photograph of all
the redheaded persons one has seen. "Mary" in like manner, is
interpreted by a sort of composite memory of all the occasions

which forced my attention upon that girl. The putting of these
together makes another index which has a force tending to make
the icon an index of Mary. This act of force belongs to the second
category, and as such, has a degree of intensity. Not that degree in
itself belongs to the second category: on the contrary, it belongs to
the third. Degree is not a reaction, or effort, but a thought. But
degree attaches to every reaction. Consequently, every assertion
has a degree of energy.
MEMOIR 19
ON ARGUMENTS
I first examine the essential nature of an argument, showing that
it is a sign which separately signifies its interpretant. It will be
scrutinized under all aspects.
I shall then come to the important question of the classification
of arguments. My paper of April 1867 on this subject divides
arguments into deductions, inductions, abductions (my present
name, which will be defended), and mixed arguments. I consider
this to be the key of logic. In the following month, May 1867, I
correctly defined the three kinds of simple arguments in terms of
the categories. But in my paper on probable inference in the Johns
Hopkins Studies in Logic, owing to the excessive weight I at that
time placed on formalistic considerations, I fell into the error of
attaching a name, the synonym I then used for abduction, to a
probable inference which I correctly described, forgetting that
according to my own earlier and correct account of it, abduction is
not of the number of probable inferences. It is singular that I should
have done that, when in the very same paper I mention the
existence of the mode of inference which is true abduction. Thus,
the only error that paper contains is the designation as abduction of
a mode of induction somewhat resembling abduction, which may
properly be called "abductive induction". It was this resemblance
which deceived me, and subsequently led me into a further error
contrary to my own previous correct statement, namely, to
confound abduction and abductive induction. In subsequent
reflections upon the rationale of abduction, I was led to see that this
rationale was not that which I had in my Johns Hopkins paper given
of induction; and in a statement I published in the Monist, I was led

to give the correct rationale of abduction as applying to abductive
induction and so, in fact, to all induction. All the difficulties with
which I labored are now completely disposed of by recognizing that
abductive induction is quite a different thing from abduction. It is a
very instructive illustration both of the dangers and of the strength
of my heuretic method. Similar errors may remain in my system. I
shall be very thankful to whomever can detect them. But if its
errors are confined to that class, the general fabric of the doctrine
is true. I at first saw that there must be three kinds of arguments
severally related to the three categories; and I correctly described
them. Subsequently studying one of these kinds, I found that besides
the typical form, there was another, distinguished from the typical
form by being related to that category relation to which
distinguishes abduction. I hastily identified it with abduction, not
being clearheaded enough to see that, while related to that
category, it is not related to it in the precise way in which one of
the primary divisions of arguments ought to be, according to the
theory of the categories. This is the form of error to which my
method of discovery is peculiarly liable. One sees that a form has a
relation to a certain category, and one is unable for the time being
to attain sufficient clearness of thought to make quite sure that the
relation is of the precise nature required. If only one point were
obscure, it would soon be cleared up; but the difficulty is at first
that one is sailing in a dense fog, through an unknown sea, without a
single landmark. I can only say that if others, after me, can find
some way of making as important discoveries in logic as I have done
while falling into less error, nobody will be more intensely delighted
than I shall be. My gratitude to the man who will show me where I
am wrong in logic will have no bounds. Thus far, I have had to find
out for myself as well as I could. Meantime, be it observed that the
kind of error which I have been considering can never amount to
anything worse than a faulty classification. All that I asserted about
probable inference in my Johns Hopkins paper and in my Monist
paper was perfectly true.
In this paper, besides very important improvements in the
subdivision of the three kinds of simple arguments, with several
hitherto unrecognized types, and far greater clearness of
exposition, I shall have much that is new to say about mixed
arguments, which present many points of importance and of interest
that have never been remarked. I shall give a new classification of
them based, not upon the nature of their elements, but upon their
modes of combination. Besides setting forth my own doctrine of the
stechiology of argument, I shall examine the most important of those
which are opposed to it.
Most of the German logicians who are free from traditional
influences have regarded the judgment as the logical element,

because they find in it something sui generis. They find nothing of
the sort in the argument. I show just how much truth there is in
this, and that there really is a peculiar element in the argument; to
wit, the third category. I show what the peculiarity of the German
mind which leads to this and a number of other analogous views
consists in. I then analyze the nature of the argument, and show
among other things that in all reasoning there is a logica utens, or
an appeal to a vaguely defined logical doctrine. I show that it follows
from the definition of an argument, as a sign which definitely
signifies its intended interpretant, that an argument must be a self
conscious sign, and I formally define this selfconsciousness, without
any resort to psychology or to the peculiar flavor of human self
consciousness. I further show that properly, an argument is self
controlled, although a sign may be quite similar to an argument
without being selfcontrolled. I then show that from the definition of
an argument it follows mathematically that every argument is either
a deduction, an induction, an abduction, or an argument which
mixes these characters. I proceed to show what the chief varieties
of these [are], which will be one of the parts of this memoir most
emphasized. In particular I distinguish deduction into two types, the
corollarial and the theorematic, and induction into three types of
widely different natures. This division is specially significant, and
has never been published.
There are three different ways in which a method may be

calculated to lead to the truth, these three senses constituting three
great classes of reasonings. Deduction is reasoning which professes
to pursue such a method that if the premisses are true the
conclusion will in every case be true. Probable deduction is, strictly
speaking, necessary; only, it is necessary reasoning concerning
probabilities. Induction is reasoning which professes to pursue such
a method that, being persisted in, each special application of it
(when it is applicable) must at least indefinitely approximate to the
truth about the subject in hand, in the long run. Abduction is
reasoning which professes to be such that in case there is any
ascertainable truth concerning the matter in hand, the general
method of this reasoning, though not necessarily each special
application of it, must eventually approximate to the truth.
Of these three classes of reasonings abduction is the lowest. So
long as it is sincere, and if it be not, it does not deserve to be called
reasoning, abduction cannot be absolutely bad. For sincere efforts
to reach the truth, no matter in how wrong a way they may be
commenced, cannot fail ultimately to attain any truth that is
attainable. Consequently, there is only a relative preference
between different abductions; and the ground of such preference
must be economical. That is to say, the better abduction is the one
which is likely to lead to the truth with the lesser expenditure of

time, vitality, etc.
Deduction is only of value in tracing out the consequences of
hypotheses, which it regards as pure, or unfounded, hypotheses.
Deduction is divisible into subclasses in various ways, of which the
most important is into corollarial and theorematic. Corollarial
deduction is where it is only necessary to imagine any case in which
the premisses are true in order to perceive immediately that the
conclusion holds in that case. Ordinary syllogisms and some
deductions in the logic of relatives belong to this class. Theorematic
deduction is deduction in which it is necessary to experiment in the
imagination upon the image of the premiss in order from the result
of such experiment to make corollarial deductions to the truth of
the conclusion. The subdivisions of theorematic deduction are of
very high theoretical importance. But I cannot go into them in this
statement.
Induction is the highest and most typical form of reasoning. In
my essay of 1883, I only recognized two closely allied logical forms
of pure induction, one of which in undoubtedly the highest. I have
since discovered eight other forms which include those almost
exclusively used by reasoners who are not adepts in logic. In fact,
Norman Lockyer is the only writer I have met with who in his best
work, especially his last book, habitually restricts himself to the
highest form. Some of his work, however, as for example, that on
the orientation of temples, is logically poor.
Besides these three types of reasoning there is a fourth,
analogy, which combines the characters of the three, yet cannot be
adequately represented as composite. There are also composite
reasonings where an argument of one type is joined to an argument
of another type. Such for example, is an induction fortified by the
consideration of some known uniformity. Uniformities are of four
principal kinds of which Mill distinctly recognizes only a single one.
Mill's four methods of induction is a heterogeneous division, not
at all scientific, and, in part, of very trifling utility. Still, it is better
than no classification of inductions at all.
From Draft A MS L75.35, 53
Necessary deduction, in the narrower sense, is either corollarial

or theorematic.*
* EDITORIAL NOTE: By "in the narrower sense," Peirce

apparently means "leaving probable deduction aside." In the
MS this paragraph actually begins right after the sentence
near the beginning of the above segment in which probable
deduction is characterized. It is displaced here because it was
marked as rejected by Peirce.
Corollarial reasoning is that in which it is only necessary to consider

what the premisses mean in order to find that the conclusion is as
true as they. Theorematic reasoning is reasoning in which this is not
enough, but it is needful to perform experiments in the imagination
in order to assure ourselves that the conclusion is true. For
example, in order to prove that if all triangles of equal area have
the sums of their angles equal, then the difference of the sum from
two right angles must be proportional to the area of the triangle, we
shall imagine a triangle to be cut into any number of equal triangles.
Then we easily satisfy ourselves by experiment that when a triangle
is added to a polygon so as to increase the number of sides by n, the
sum of the angles will be increased by n2 times 2 right angles.
Consequently, if m triangles be added so as to increase the number
of sides by n the sum of the angles will be increased by nm times 2
right angles. Now when a large triangle is cut into a small triangles,
a1 triangles are joined to a triangles so as not to increase the
number of sides. Hence the large triangle will have the sum of its
angles equal to that of one of the small triangles diminished by a1
times 2 right angles or the sum of the angles of the large triangle
less 2 right angles will be a times the sum of the angles of the small
triangles after each of the asums has been diminished by two right
angles, which was the proposition to be proved.*
* EDITORIAL NOTE: The argument in the above passage is

intended to show that recourse to diagrammatic
experimentation is both required and sufficient in the case in
question to establish the conclusion, the point being to show
why mathematical reasoning is theorematic and not merely
corollarial. This is an important and controverted thesis, put
forward by Peirceagainst the grain, as alwaysat a time
when the formalist conception of mathematics, which holds
that all mathematical reasoning is reducible to what Peirce
calls "corollarial" reasoning, was in the ascendancy. The
formalist David Hilbert's famous lecture in which his list of
questions for 20th Century mathematics was put forth (which
both Gdel and Turing later addressed) was given in 1900, for
example. Unfortunately, this page of the manuscript is
difficult to read in several places and I don't understand the
argument well enough myself to be certain that I am
transcribing it properly. I haven't seen him use this particular
one elsewhere. It would be helpful if anyone who feels
competent to assess the argument would address the question
of whether it really adds up as it should. It is possible that
Peirce himself didn't think so since it occurs in a paragraph
the beginning part of which is marked through in a way
indicating rejection; but then Peirce's reason for rejecting
the paragraph may have had nothing to do with his view of
the validity of that argument.
The nature of argument [is] fully examined in all its aspects. All
arguments are either deductions, inductions, abductions, or mixed
arguments. My earliest statements were correct in this respect. But
in my paper in the Johns Hopkins Studies in Logic, overemphasizing
formalities, I failed to distinguish between abduction and a
previously overlooked or little noticed variety of induction which
may be called "abductive induction"; in consequence of which, that
paper, although correct as far as it goes, and although fully covering
the subject of which it professed to treat, entirely overlooked an
indispensable mode of inference, abduction, I myself having
previously described the inference correctly. Deduction is necessary
inference; but if it is applied to probability, then, while remaining in
itself necessary, it concludes a probability. That gives the doctrine
of chances. Induction is a totally different sort of inquiry,
proceeding, by means of experiment, to obtain an answer to a
previously propounded question. It has two species: the extensive,
where the question is how much, and the comprehensive, or
abductive, where the question is to be answered by yes or no (or
else is merely susceptible of a vague answer). Abduction is
distinguished from abductive induction in not being, properly
speaking, experimental, that is, it makes its observations without
reference to any previously propounded question, but, on the
contrary, itself starts a question, or problematically propounded
hypothesis, to explain a surprising observation. Since I barely
escaped error on this matter, I will in this present note illustrate the
difference between abduction, abductive induction, and probable
deduction.
Suppose, then, that, being seated in a street car, I remark a man
opposite to me whose appearance and behavior unite characters
which I am surprised to find together in the same person. I ask
myself, How can this be? Suppose I find this problematic reply:
Perhaps he is an expriest. He is the very image of such a person; he
presents an icon of an expriest. Here is an iconic argument, or
abduction of it. Secondly, it now occurs to me that if he is an ex
priest, he should be tonsured; and in order to test this, I say
something to him calculated to make him take off his hat. He does
so, and I find that he is indeed tonsured. Here at last is an indication
that my theory is correct. I can now say that he is presumably an ex
priest, although it would be inaccurate to say that there is any
definite probability that he is so, since I do not know how often I
might find a man tonsured who was not an expriest, though
evidently far oftener than he would be one. The supposition is,
however, now supported by an inductive induction, a weak form of
symptomatic or indexical argument. It stands on a widely different

basis from that on which it stood before my little experiment.
Before, it rested on the flimsy support of similarity, or agreement in
"flavor." Now, facts have been constrained to yield confirmation to it
by bearing out a prediction based upon it. Belief in the theory rests
now on factual reaction to the theory. Thirdly, while the man's hat
is off, I read in the crown of it a name that has been pasted into it. I
have no doubt whatever that it is the man's name. I do not go into
the question of how I come to be so confident of that. As long as I
have no doubt, it matters not how doubt came to be destroyed. I get
out of the car, and go to call upon the chancellor of the diocese; and
that he will tell me the truth I equally believe implicitly. I ask the
chancellor, "Who is Michael WoLing PtahHotep Jerolomon?"
(Pardon my nonsense.) He replies, "He is an expriest." "Is he the
only man of that name?" "No, there are, or may be, fifteen.
Fourteen of them reside in this town and are expriests. The
fifteenth went, twenty years ago, to High Thibet, and has never
been heard of since." It thus appears that the name read in the hat,
though having no striking "flavor" of expriest about it, nor any such
causal connection with the man's being an expriest as was the
tonsure, yet in consequence of this knowledge becomes a symbol of
the man's being an expriest; for a symbol is a sign which becomes
significant simply by virtue of the fact that it will be so interpreted.
So, it might conceivably have been an accident that the man was
tonsured, but now that the name Michael WuLing PtahHotep
Jerolomon signifies for me a probability of more than fourteen to
one of being an expriest, I must think that the probability on that
ground alone is over fourteen to one that he is an expriest. There is
no escape from that. It is what I consider myself certain of. It is only
a probability. Yet now, fourthly, combining the arguments into one
mixed argument, and considering, what is logically relevant, that I
have no serious stake in the question, I am satisfied to consider the
mixed argument as proof, and to dismiss the question until it may
acquire more importance. (Although the illustration is silly, it all the
better covers the case.)
Mixed arguments are of three kinds. The first consists of those
which tend to establish the same conclusion or contradictory
conclusions, or to establish two premisses from which, taken
together, a conclusion can be inferred; second, arguments consisting
of two parts of which one taken by itself lends no support to the
conclusion of the other, but tends to establish a fact which makes
the other a stronger or weaker argument. For example, I see two
men wearing both the same badge going to the polls together talking
with great delight over the effect of their vote; and I learn that one
of them voted the Democratic ticket. I infer that the other did so,
too. But subsequently, I learn that that badge is the symbol of
membership of a society which decided that its members should go
to the polls in pairs and that one of each pair should vote
Democratic and the other Republican. I consequently reverse my
previous inference. Under this head come inductions supported by
uniformities, of which there are four simple types. The third kind of
mixed arguments are those in which the same premisses form two
different kinds of arguments. Important subdivisions of induction
and deduction will be defined and illustrated.
Having thus set forth my own doctrine of the stechiology of
argument, I examine other doctrines.
MEMOIR 20
OF CRITICAL LOGIC, IN GENERAL
A thorough discussion of the nature, division, and method of
critical logic.

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy
MEMOIR 21
ON FIRST PREMISSES
My position on this subject comes under the general head of
sensationalism; but I contend that criticism is inapplicable to what is
not subject to control. Consequently, not sensation nor even
percepts are first premisses, but only perceptual judgments. I
subject what goes under the title of the test of inconceivability to
an elaborate examination, bringing out various useful truths. I also
examine the tests of universality and necessity, first adding certain
other characters which as much prove apriority as do those. These
tests have been taken in two senses, and there is a third more
advantageous than either.
I here undertake to demonstrate that the only justifiable first

premisses are perceptual judgments, that is, judgments that a
present percept presents a certain appearance. Certain well known
and obvious objections are examined. Kant's "deductions" examined
and his position shown to be untenable. The test of inconceivability
discussed. It is fully admitted that what a man under given
conditions cannot help believing is not amenable to criticism, from
his standpoint, as long as those conditions subsist. But if he duly
considers the matter, he always can doubt, and indeed, cannot help
doubting, anything unsupported by evidence, and not a perceptual
fact. I examine the socalled tests of universality and necessity,
having shown that other characters are as well entitled to being
regarded as tests of apriority. The different senses in which these
test have been understood, as well as another in which they may be
understood to better advantage, are considered and estimated.
Kant divided propositions into analytic, or explicatory, and
synthetic, or ampliative. He defined an analytic proposition as one

whose predicate was implied in its subject. This was an
objectionable definition due to Kant's total ignorance of the logic of
relatives. The distinction is generally condemned by modern
writers; and what they have in mind (almost always most
confusedly) is just. The only fault that Kant's distinction has is that it
is ambiguous, owing to his ignorance of the logic of relatives and
consequently of the real nature of mathematical proof. He had his
choice of making either one of two distinctions. Let definitions
everywhere be substituted for definita in the proposition. Then it
was open to him to say that if the proposition could be reduced to
an identical one by merely attaching aggregates to its subjects and
components to its predicate it was an analytic proposition, but
otherwise was synthetic. Or he might have said that if the
proposition could be proved to be true by logical necessity without
further hypothesis it was an analytic one, but otherwise was
synthetic. These two statements Kant would have supposed to be
equivalent. But they are not so. Since his abstract definition is
ambiguous, we naturally look to his examples in order to determine
what he means. Now turning to Rosenkranz and Schubert's edition of
his works, Vol II (_Critik der reinen Vernunft_), p. 702, we read,
"Mathematische Urtheile sind ingesammt synthetisch." That certainly
indicates the former of the two meanings, which in my opinion
gives, too, the more important division. The statement, however, is
unusually extravagant, to come from Kant. Thus, the "Urtheile" of
Euclid's _Elements_ must be regarded as mathematical; and no less
than 132 of them are definitions, which are certainly analytical.
Kant maintains, too, that 7+5 = 12 is a synthetical judgment, which
he could not have done if he had been acquainted with the logic of
relatives. For if we write `G' for `next greater than', the definition
of 7 is 7 = G6 and that of 12 is 12 = G11. Now it is part of the
definition of `plus' that Gx+y = G(x+y). That is, that G6+5 = G11 is
implied in 6+5 = 11. But the definition of 6 is 6 = G5, and that of 11
is 11 = G10; so that G5+5 = G10 is implied in 5+5 = 10, and so on
down to 0+5 = 5. But further, it is a part of the definition of `plus'
that x+Gy = G(x+y) and the definition of 5 is 5 = G4, so the 0+G4 =
G4 is implied in 0+4 = 4, and on down to 0+0 = 0. But this last is part
of the definition of `plus'. There is, in short, no theorematic
reasoning required to prove from the definitions that 7+5 = 12. It is
not even necessary to take account of the general definition of an
integer number. But Kant was quite unaware that there was such a
thing as theorematic reasoning, because he had not studied the logic
of relatives. Consequently, not being able to account for the
richness of mathematics and the mysterious or occult character of
its principal theorems by corollarial reasoning, he was led to believe
that all mathematical propositions are synthetic.
Kant, if I remember rightly, holds that no critical science is
necessary to establish the validity of analytic propositions. At any
rate that is the correct doctrine. But he announces, as the subject
of the great _Critik_ (observe that Kant spells this word, borrowed
from the English of Hobbes and Locke, with a `C'), the question
"How are synthetical judgments a priori possible?" I notice that
Paulsen in his book on Kant remarks that Kant never considered the
question "How are synthetical judgments a posteriori possible?", and
says that if he had done so he would have been forced to say that
there are not synthetical judgments a posteriori. But this is not true.
Kant does consider the question on page 8 of his first edition and
answers it in a totally different way from that described by Paulsen.
True, he does not go into it minutely, but he does go into it far
enough to show that he would have answered it in the general
manner of my memoirs. That page of the _Critik_ is a pregnant one,
but it is in strictest harmony with Kant's general position. Kant's
precise question now comes before us for answer. But he does not
state it quite accurately. It is not the question how synthetical
judgments are possible, which it is for the psychologists to explain,
but how they can be known to be true. In place of Kant's division of
judgments into the a priori and the a posteriori, I prefer to begin by
dividing them into inferential judgments and ultimate premisses. By
an ultimate premiss we must understand a judgment not derived by
an ascertainably selfcontrolled logical process.
As to inferred judgments, they are to be justified by the
methods of argument by which they have been derived; and the
justification of different classes of arguments will be considered in
the memoirs immediately following the present one.
As to ultimate premisses, my categories help me in a remarkable
way to show, from the nature of propositions, that every judgment
so formed must consist in judging that a present percept has a
certain kind of appearance, and that from the nature of logical critic
such judgments are not amenable to criticism.
It is not the question of how synthetical judgments are possible,

which would be a psychological question, but how they can be true
and known to be true. I shall not make his division of judgments into
the a priori and the a posteriori the leading one, but rather the
division into derived and ultimate propositions. By an ultimate
premiss we must understand a proposition not derived by an
ascertainably selfcontrolled logical process.
I shall make a logical analysis of the logical, not psychological,
nature of doubt, and shall show that no doubt can attach to an
ultimate judgment; and I shall further show that such judgments are
necessarily perceptual judgments; that is, that such a judgment
simply judges that a present percept has a certain appearance. This
discussion will be very elaborate and careful. It shows that
perceptual judgments alone are not amenable to criticism.
As for derived judgments, they must always remain open to

doubt; but they are justified in the measure in which the arguments
which lead to them are justified. It will now be necessary for me to
enter into a detailed criticism of all the opinions which are opposed
to my conclusions. I shall have to consider the opinion that logical
criticism goes back to the first impressions of sense, as Kant and
many nonKantians assume.
It is not the question how synthetical judgments are possible,

which would be a psychological question, but how synthetical
propositions can be true and be known to be true. But I shall not
make his division of propositions into the a priori and the a
posteriori the leading one, but rather the division into derived and
ultimate propositions. We must be on our guard in defining this
distinction not to fall into a mere matter of psychology, as Kant
does, floundering in a muddy bog of land and water, a psychological
deduction and a "transcendental" deduction mixed. By an ultimate
premiss we must understand a proposition not derived by an
ascertainably selfcontrolled logical process. We need not assume
that there is any premiss over whose derivation it is impossible to
exercise any control. It will suffice that, in fact, as far as we have
ascertained, there has been no such control. Derived propositions
are justified by the arguments by which they are derivable; and the
justification of such arguments will be considered in subsequent
memoirs. In regard to underived propositions, we may for the
moment compare a man who makes a judgment with a piece of
paper on which a proposition is written. If somebody has idly written
on a piece of paper, `The moon is made of green cheese', he has not
made himself responsible for the truth of the proposition; and if it
were asked how the paper was justified for carrying such a lie, the
obviously sufficient answer would be it cannot help it. In like
manner if a man looks at the moon and judges that it looks bright,
this judgment is entirely unlike the percept from which it is derived,
and still more unlike the first impressions of sense. Still, we have no
need of following Kant in attempting to make out what the
psychological process is. No use could be made of such knowledge, if
we had it, and Kant's psychological deduction is manifestly idle. The
one perfectly sufficient justification is that the man can no more
help judging that the moon he is looking at seems bright than a
piece of paper can help what is written upon it. For who is to find
fault with him? As long as he keeps his opinion to himself, as long as
he cannot help believing that the moon looks bright, he does believe
it perfectly; and as long as he does believe it perfectly, he does not
in the least doubt it, and as long as he cannot help believing it, he
cannot doubt it. In short it appears to him evidently true; and he
cannot blame himself for believing what is manifestly true. He
cannot so much as make an effort to believe otherwise. "So, then,"
somebody may say, "you believe in the test of inconceivability." But
nobody has any right to draw such an inference. On the contrary, it

is fairly presumable that I am consistent in my opinions; and
consistency with what I have just been saying forces me to declare,
not indeed that the test of inconceivability is untrustworthy, but
that the phrase `test of inconceivability' is a selfcontradictory
jumble of words, and that nobody can either trust to it or distrust it,
since there is no such thing. If a man cannot help entirely believing
that a proposition is true, it is absurd for him to pretend that his not
being able to doubt it is his reason for believing it. He has no reason
whatever for believing it; for reasoning is essentially selfcontrolled,
while he cannot help believing it. A reason is only operative while a
man is changing his mind. When he is once convinced, we say he has
a reason for his belief; but that only means that he can imagine
himself to be oblivious of the reason and to doubt the proposition
and that he sees, or thinks he sees, that if that were the case, the
knowledge of the reason would silence his doubts. Strictly speaking,
he is not now under the influence of the reason; and he "has" a
reason for his belief only in the sense of having stored in his mind
something which he feels would act as a reason should he ever be
led to doubt the proposition. A man has no reason for what he does
not doubt, still less any such ridiculous reason as that he does not
doubt it. I know that it may be said that the test of inability to doubt
is one thing and the test of inability to conceive is another. But I
deny it. What those people mean who talk of the test of
inconceivability [i.e. what this] means to them [is] simply erecting
inability to doubt into a reason. It is true that their minds are in a
confused state, as their language shows. It will be shown that true
inconceivability can only arise as a consequence of what is called
selfcontradiction. But many things are said by logically untrained
minds to be inconceivable because they seem to them so strange
that they do not know how to go to work to frame the conception.
For example, many persons would say that a man's being the father
of his own father was inconceivable. But there are various ways in
which such an event may be conceived, as, for example, by simply
supposing that all time forms a closed cycle which the two lives
completely exhaust. Certainly, unless there is some abstruse reason
to the contrary which does not at once strike me, it is quite possible
that, as a matter of fact, time does form a closed cycle. At the same
time, until some positive reason shall appear for believing that it is
so, it will be shown in another memoir that we are justified in
disbelieving it; and it is simply because they cannot entertain a
doubt on the subject, that some people pronounce the idea
inconceivable; unless they are dominated by the narrowest
associations of ideas.
Now what are the things which cannot be doubted? I will begin
by abandoning the field of pure logic, and asking what are the things
that I personally, find I cannot doubt. Doubt may be present in very
slight degree. Suppose there are a thousand propositions that, as far
as I can see, I do not, in fact, in the least doubt. Still, I might think
viewing them collectively, that some one of them, I know not which,
may be erroneous. I certainly do believe that among all the opinions

which I most firmly hold there are errors, very likely a good many
errors. This could not be if I had not the smallest doubt of any one
of them. There are doubts, then, in my mind which are so faint that
with all the energy of attention which I can well bestow upon the
scrutiny of my state of mind, I am not able to discern. But if there
by anything that I do not doubt at all, it must be a proposition the
evidence for which presents itself in its entirety here and now. For
although a compulsion may conform to a general law, it cannot have
any mode of being other than that of direct activity here and now. It
can, therefore, be no general proposition. It must be a perceptual
judgment; that is, the judgment that a present percept has a certain
appearance.
At the same time, I cannot, by a mental operation, doubt
anything which I do not already doubt. I do not mean to deny that a
surprising experience might create doubts not previously existing. I
cannot even review the evidence for a belief, unless I entertain a
doubt of it. Moreover, every doubt which I entertain is founded
upon some reason for a contrary belief. But when, in consequence
of a slight doubt, founded, perhaps, upon no more definite reason
than that I have often found myself mistaken, I am led to reexamine
the evidence, it very frequently happens that I discover some
circumstance which creates a doubt very much stronger, and
founded upon altogether different reasons.
Passing now to the pure logical doctrine, an assertion is an act
which represents that an icon represents the object of an index.
Thus, in the assertion, `Mary is redheaded', `redheaded' is not an
icon itself, it is true, but a symbol. But its interpretant is an icon, a
sort of composite photograph of all the redheaded persons one has
seen. `Mary' in like manner, is interpreted by a sort of composite
memory of all the occasions which forced my attention upon that
girl. The putting of these together makes another index which has a
force tending to make the icon an index of Mary. This act of force
belongs to the second category, and as such, has a degree of
intensity. Not that degree in itself belongs to the second category.
On the contrary, it belongs to the third. Degree is not a reaction, or
effort, but a thought. But degree attaches to every reaction.
Consequently, every assertion has a degree of energy.
Either at this point or later in the memoir, I shall examine the

socalled tests [of] universality and necessity which are supposed to
prove the a priori character of certain propositions. I shall first trace
the history of this doctrine. I shall then show that the statement of
it is incomplete, there being a number of other characters which are
equally entitled to be considered as tests of apriority. I shall then
show that there are two senses in which the test has been
understood; and that there is a third sense which makes a more

defensible doctrine than either. I show that the test may be
understood to embody several logical truths; yet if any proposition is
universal, necessary, etc., and there is nothing to show that it is
true, the only logical position is that it is false. A first premiss, other
than a fact of perception, is inadmissible. Kant's position is that it is
easy to show by universality and necessity that certain propositions
are a priori, but that their truth remains to be proved by an abstruse
line of reasoning. Now it would [be] absurd to admit into that
reasoning any a priori proposition as long as one maintains that such
reasoning is necessary to support any a priori proposition; and in
fact Kant's premisses appear to be quite evidently generalizations of
common experience. But granting that he in this way proves the
truth of an a priori proposition, it follows that antecedently to this
proof it was an idle hypothesis, and that its only support is a purely
experiential argument. But that is pure positivism; and Kant's
doctrine really seems to be nothing but nominalistic sensualism so
disguised that it does not recognize itself. Of course, it may be said
that Kant only maintains the concepts, not the judgments, to be a
priori. In the first place, this is directly contrary to Kant's own
opinions. In the next place, universality and necessity are characters
of propositions, not of terms. In the third place, Hume himself, even
as Kant misrepresents him, [and] much more [i.e., and all the more]
in his true character, would have been ready to admit that some
forms of thought arise from the nature of mind. Some persons who
have believed themselves to be Kantians hold that as soon as a
proposition is shown to be a priori, it is beyond all criticism. That is
utterly contrary to the spirit of Kant. But it is quite true that if there
is anything which I cannot help believing without any tincture of
doubt, I am out of all real discussion of its truth. No doubt that for
many persons there are such propositions, if by doubt we mean any
doubt that they recognize; and if by `can', we refer to ability
conditioned upon such means as they have put into practice.
Propositions so believed are almost always false; but there is no way
for their victims to be undeceived as long as they cherish that state
of mind. This seems to be the state of all those persons who think
that philosophy and logic are idle things; that all that is required is a
little good sense and reflection, and that extensive reading and
study are useless.
The previous memoir, No. 20, will have contained an elaborate
analysis of the logical nature of doubt which will be applied to the
problems of the present memoir, especially to show that judgments
founded on the experience of every hour of every man's life are not
subject to doubt of the ordinary kind and have some of the
characteristics attributed to a priori propositions.
Other views will be critically examined.
MEMOIR 22
THE LOGIC OF CHANCE
I here discuss the origin and nature of probability by my usual
method; also the connection between objective probability and
doubt; the nature of a "long run"; in what sense there can be any
probability in the mathematical world; the application of probability
to the theory of numbers. I show that it is not necessary that there
should be any definite probability that a given generic event should
have a given specific determination. It is easy to specify cases where
there would be none. There appears to be no definite probability of
a witness's telling the truth. I also show that it is quite a mistake to
suppose that, for the purposes of the doctrine of chances, it suffices
to suppose that the events in question are subject to unknown laws.
On the contrary, the calculus of probability has no sense at all
unless it in the long run secures the person who trusts to it. Now
this it will do only if there is no law, known or unknown, of a certain
description. The person who is to trust to the calculus ought to
assure himself of this, especially when events are assumed to be
independent. The doctrine of chances is easily seen to be applicable
in the course of science. Its applicability to insurance companies and
the like is not in any case to be assumed offhand. When it comes to
the case of individual interests, there are grave difficulties.
The rules of probability are stated in a new way, with the
application of high numbers and method of least squares according
to several different theories. Pearson's developments examined.
Inverse probabilities are shown to be fallacious.
There are many matters here under dispute; more than I here
set down. In all these cases, I take pains to state opposing arguments
in all their force, and to refute them clearly. This memoir is
intended to form a complete vade mecum of the doctrine of
chances, and to be plentifully supplied with references. It will be
somewhat long, but I hope not of double length.
Deduction, as such, is not amenable to critic; for it is necessary

reasoning, and as such renders its conclusions evident. Now it is idle
to seek any justification of what is evident. It cannot be rendered
more than evident. Fallacies, it is true, may be criticized; but this

subject will be postponed until all the legitimate modes of argument
have been considered.
But when deduction relates to probability, it becomes open to
criticism, not insofar as it is deductive but insofar as it relates to a
logical conception which in a sense deprives the reasoning of its
necessary character. I therefore in this memoir examine the nature
of probability, and the processes of the doctrine of chance. I flatter
myself that I shall put the whole matter, both of the origin of
probability and of the application of the calculus, in a much clearer
light than has hitherto been done. Objective probability is simply a
statistical ratio. But, besides that, doubt has degrees of intensity,
and although these have no necessary signification, it might be
useful for us to believe more intensely in propositions which would
less often deceive us than in such as would oftener deceive us. In
point of fact, we naturally "weigh" or "balance reasons," as if the
degree of our trust in them were significant of fact. This is a matter
requiring minute examination.
In the first place, regarding probabilities as statistical ratios,
probability is exclusively confined to cases where there is a "long
run" of experience, that is, an endless series of events of a general
character, of which some definite ratio have a special character,
which shall not occur at any regular law of intervals. It is not
necessary that this ratio should remain constant throughout the
experience. But it is requisite that there should be such a ratio. It is
easy to imagine cases in which there should be no such ratio;
perhaps even a universe in which there should be no such thing as
probability. (I will endeavor to determine this with certainty before
drawing up the memoir.) It is commonly said that there is a law of
the occurrence of the event, only it is unknown to us. But it is easy
to show that the utility of the calculus depends on there being no
law of the kind which would concern the application. Ignorance is
not sufficient.
The rules of probability are easily deduced, involving the
conception of independent events, that is, events such that the
product of the number of occurrences of both into the number of
nonoccurrences of both equals the product of the number of
occurrences of the first only into the number of occurrences of the
second only. From this follows the probability law.
Now as concerns the connection between probability and doubt,
we find the books stuffed with errors. It is, for example, generally
said that probability 1 represents absolute certainty. But on the
contrary, probability 1 is that of an event which in the entire long
run fails to occur only a finite number of times. In the next place,
the majority of the books give formulae from which it would follow
that the probability of a wholly unknown event is 1/2. It is evident
that probability, in this crude form, is quite unadapted to expressing
the state of knowledge generally. The relation of real evidence to a

positive conclusion is not a mathematical function. From a bag of
beans, I take out a handful, in order to test a theory which I have
some other reason for entertaining, that two thirds of the beans in
the bag are black. I find this to be nearly so in the handful, and my
theory is confirmed, and I now have strong reason for believing it
approximately true. But it is not true that there is any definite
probability that it is true. For what would such a ratio mean? Would
it mean that once in so often my conclusion is true? That depends on
the general commonness of different distributions of beans in a bag,
which is a positive fact, not a mathematical function. Mathematical
calculation is deductive reasoning, applicable solely to hypotheses;
and whenever it is applied to do the work of induction or abduction
it is utterly fallacious. This is an important general maxim.
This consideration affects the method of least squares, if this
method is looked upon in an extravagant theoretical manner; but
not if it is regarded as a way of formulating roughly an inductive
inference. Mr. Pearson's extensions, though they are excessively
complicated, and thereby violate the very idea of least squares, are
not without value. but other somewhat similar modifications of
probability are called for; and I shall endeavor to work out one or
two of them.
I give in this memoir a summary of all the ordinary scientific man
needs to know about probability in a brief intelligible manner. It will
have the advantage over Bertrand's book of being sound.
Although deduction is not directly and as such amenable to

critic, yet it becomes such when it deals with probability and certain
allied conceptions. The criticism is not properly of the deductive
process but of those conceptions. I here examine the philosophy of
probability and show, among other things, that it is by no means
true that every contingent event has any definite probability. I
describe the construction of an urn of black and white balls such
that there is no definite probability that a ball drawn will be white.
By way of illustration, I show that there is no definite probability
that a witness will tell the truth. Another point I make clear is the
distinction between probability unity and certainty. This is
illustrated by the case where a large number of players, playing
against a banker, at a perfectly even game, each bet one franc each
time until his [bet] nets a gain, when he retires from the table and
gives place to a fresh player. The probability is 1 that any given
player will ultimately net a gain, and therefore that all will do so;
and yet the probability is 1 that in the long run the bank will not
lose, or at any rate, there is an even chance that if the banker does
not come out precisely even he will win, too. I show that the "moral
value" of a player's chances is quite irrelevant to the Petersburg
paradox; and I correct various other errors current about

probability. Hume's argument about miracles will be analyzed.
Rules by which all errors in the use of the doctrine of chances
[can be identified] will be plainly laid down, and their use
exemplified.
MEMOIR 23
ON THE VALIDITY OF INDUCTION
This restates the substance of the Johns Hopkins paper: relegating
formalistic matters to separate sections, taking account of types of
induction with which I was not acquainted twenty years ago, and
rendering the whole more luminous. Other views will be considered
more at large.
This memoir will repeat substantially the theory of induction

given in my paper in the John Hopkins Studies in Logic, but now
stated in essential points more fully and clearly, while formalistic
matters are relegated to special sections. Moreover, my subsequent
discovery of forms of induction quite different from any there
considered, to which the applicability of the rules there developed
is not evident, renders a new presentation necessary. I shall now
consider other views more fully, and illustrate the bad influence
they have had upon science.
It will be shown to be mathematically impossible that induction

indefinitely persisted in should ultimately lead to a false conclusion
in any case whatsoever, whether there be any definite probability
or not, whether there be any real universe or not, whether the
universe be presided over by a malign power bent upon making
inductions go wrong or not. Such things might prevent inductions
from being drawn, but they could not make them go ultimately
wrong if they were rightly conducted and sufficiently persisted in.

From this principle follow certain rules of induction for each of the
three types of induction. These rules are clearly formulated and
illustrated historically.
I then proceed to inquire how far inductions may be
strengthened or weakened by other arguments, which do not in
themselves afford any information concerning the subjects of
inquiry in the inductions, but which do give information
strengthening or weakening any conclusions obtained. In particular,
I show that the knowledge of certain uniformities (of which four
types are the simplest) may so affect inductions.
I now review all the other theories of induction, beginning with
that of LaPlace which undertakes to assign a definite probability to
the inductive conclusion. I show that that is erroneous, and that,
rightly applied, Laplace's method would lead to the result that we
know nothing about the truth of the conclusion. I next examine
those theories that the future is like the past, that the universe
presents great uniformity, and demonstrate that assuming those
premisses to be true, they do not in the least help the validity of
induction. I show that all such statements really mean nothing
except that a badly conducted induction will lead to the truth, and
that they are not true. The question of whether there is any
objective sense in which they are true will be postponed to a
separate memoir. I go on to consider several other theories of
induction which mostly amount to denying its validity.
The doctrine commonly held that the validity of induction

depends upon the uniformity of nature, or what comes to the same
thing, upon the resemblance of the future to the past, is erroneous.
I find that there are no less than eight incompatible ideas of what
the uniformity of nature consists in, which not only have been put
forward, but are widely current. But the doctrine is false in every
sense. The most usual meaning attached to whichever of the two
phrases happens to approve itself is really nothing but a dimly
apprehended notion that some one of the lower forms of induction
is valid reasoning. This will be proved incontestably in my book. Now
it is nonsense to say that the validity of induction depends upon
itself; and it is false that the validity of the highest forms depends
solely on that of any lower
MEMOIR 24
ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF ABDUCTION
The categories furnish the definition of abduction, from which
follows its mode of justification, and from this again its rules. The
various maxims which are found in different books are passed in
review and, for the most part, are found to sin only in vagueness.
One question not very commonly studied is what is the character of
a phenomenon which makes it call for explanation. The theory of
Dr. Carus that it is irregularity, and that of Mr. Venn that it is
isolation, though the latter is defended with some power, are
positively refuted. This refutation does not apply to the theory that
the character sought is that of being surprising. This, however, is
open to another kind of objection. The true doctrine is nearly thus,
however.
History of the doctrine. Several rules of more or less value which

have been given examined. Comte's rule that a hypothesis must be
"verifiable" is misunderstood, or quite untenable, if it be taken to
mean that the truth of the hypothesis must be capable of being
directly observed. If it is properly understood, it only amounts to
this, that a hypothesis must be intelligible; since an unverifiable
hypothesis, such as a thinginitself, or such as supposing that in
complete darkness all blue things turn bright scarlet, is simply
meaningless. I consider the neglected question of what character it
is in a phenomenon which logically makes that phenomenon call for
explanation. Dr. Carus says it is irregularity. Mr. Venn says it is
isolation. Both these opinions can be decisively refuted. Another
theory, that a phenomenon demands explanation just insofar as it is
surprising, or contrary to what might have been probably predicted
from previous knowledge, escapes the objections to other solutions.
But surprise is an emotion that arises as a sort of succedaneum for
an explanation. Many other emotions have this same character,
perhaps all emotions. Shall we, then, give emotion a place in logic,
and say that every emotion ought to be replaced by a scientific

hypothesis? This is substantially what Socrates taught concerning
fear; and whoever does not approve of an emotion will naturally say
something analogous. But no such psychological doctrine can be
admitted into critical logic. The true doctrine [is] deduced
mathematically from the categories. The justification of abduction
follows from it; and from this in turn follow the rules of abduction.
I open this intensely interesting question by showing that of the

three types of induction one alone is of any real scientific value. I
then show that all that an induction of this type really accomplishes
is to ascertain the value of a ratio. It follows that the whole
substance of science must come to us by abduction, in the same
sense in which, according to the theory of natural selection in its
extended form, the whole interval between the moner and man has
been traversed by insensible variations in reproduction. Induction,
like natural selection, merely weeds out the unfit. What, then, can
be the justification for a hypothesis? In the first place, abduction
only concludes interrogatively. But that is no sufficient answer to
the question. Idle interrogations are as noxious as can be. The only
justification is that which is often illustrated in playing the game of
whist. Three rounds remain of a hand. How the cards lie, the leader
does not know. But he does know that if they lie in certain way, a
certain lead will save the odd card, while if they do not lie in that
way, no lead will do so. This justifies his assuming, for the purposes
of the lead, that so the cards do lie. For so alone his end may be
gained. The principle is that we are always justified in presuming,
for the purposes of conduct, that our sole end may be reached. But
all belief is belief for the purposes of conduct. Nothing has any
meaning aside from practical purposes. Aside from its practical
aspects a proposition cannot be false, because a meaningless thing is
not a proposition, and as such, has no room to be false. If, then, it
comes to this, that a certain hypothesis must be true or there is no
comprehensible truth, and if, as our ethical and esthetical
discussions have shown is the case, the comprehension of the
universe is the sole aim which a man can deliberately pronounce to
be good, he is justified in unconditionally embracing the hypothesis
which is alone consonant with the attainment of a comprehension of
the truth. It need not be said that the hypotheses which perfectly
fulfill that condition are extremely few. Perhaps the hypothesis that
the universe is governed by a selfconscious mind, in the senses in
which `selfconscious' and `mind' are logically defined, is the only
one there is. Still, practically, the case often comes to that. Possible
hypotheses consist of such hypotheses as we can make. `Can' is, no
doubt, an elastic word. What "can" be done depends on the amount
of effort. Still, the effects of efforts converge toward a limit. To fix
our ideas, take a concrete example. The commander of an army is in
battle. The battle is of such importance that the total sum of the
commander's duty is to win the day. As well as he can make out, in

the limited time he has for considering the question, if a certain
position can be immediately taken, the battle may be won, but
otherwise cannot. Then logic commands him to believe with his
whole heart and soul that that position can be taken, although if he
had time to make a reconnaissance it might be foolhardy and
illogical in the extreme to come to such a conclusion merely from
such data as are actually in his possession. This illustrates how much
the time that is allowed to form an opinion has to do, logically, with
that opinion. Now a scientific investigator is in a double situation. As
a unit of the scientific world, with which he in some measure
identifies himself, he can wait five centuries, if need by, before he
decides upon the acceptability of a certain hypothesis. But as
engaged in the investigation which it is his duty diligently to pursue,
he must be ready the next morning to go on that hypothesis or to
reject it. What logic requires of him is that he should accept that
hypothesis which is the only way that he can, at that time, see in
which there should be any comprehensible truth, and think of the
most surprising observable necessary consequence of it he can, and
the next morning put that consequence to the test of experiment.
Being as he is in a double position, as an individual, and as a
representative of the science of the race, he ought to be in a double
state of mind about the hypothesis, at once ardent in his belief that
so it must be, and yet not committing himself further than to do his
best to try the experiment. If he is merely skeptical, he will not do
half justice to the experiment; if he forgets his relation to general
science, he will shrink from putting his darling theory to such a test.
He must combine the two attitudes. Mendeleef, drawing up his very
rough arrangement of the elements, and upon the basis of that
risking his detailed descriptions of Gallium, Scandium, and
Germanium, is the very exemplar of what the logic of abduction
prescribes.
All this is inexact enough. I am here only endeavoring to give a
notion of the contents of this memoir. That I should lay myself open
to any just accusation of loose reasoning is not among the doubts
which trouble me most. I have for myself employed an algebraic
notation to secure the accuracy of my work; but I am not decided to
make use of it in my memoirs.
Upon this theory of the validity of abduction I base certain rules
for the practice of this kind of thought. In comparing these with
those of other logicians I remark that I find in their doctrines far less
that compels my dissent than in regard to induction,
notwithstanding their hard, inelastic conception of this kind of
reasoning. Yet it is here that they find themselves, most of them,
utterly deserted by their general conception of logic, which it is
here that I find mine most efficaciously helpful.
MEMOIR 25
OF MIXED ARGUMENTS
This is a highly important memoir upon a subject of singular
difficulty, although at first blush one would not anticipate any
difficulty or interest in it.
Among the matters specially interesting in this memoir are the

influence upon different kinds of induction of different types of
uniformities and the argument from analogy. In both cases, views
opposed to those which I deduce by my method will be carefully
examined. This memoir is more important than might be supposed.
I here consider all kinds of mixed arguments. We have, first,

arguments composed of independent arguments, either, as we may
say, competing, that is, leading to the same result, or cooperating,
that is, both required to produce the conclusion.
Next, we have arguments one of which concludes something, not
relating to the conclusion of the other, but relating to the argument
itself.
Finally, we have arguments which, from identically the same
premisses, produce the same identical conclusion in two different
ways. These are the most remarkable of the mixed arguments, and
the argument from analogy is the chief example.
MEMOIR 26
OF FALLACIES
There would be no advantage in devoting a special memoir to a
strictly scientific treatment of fallacies in general. It would be like a
chapter in a treatise on trigonometry which should treat of possible
errors in trigonometry. But since my purpose is that these memoirs
should not only be scientific but that they should also be useful, I
propose to devote this to fallacies because I think, though it is not
an attractive subject for a logician, that I can make the discussion
very useful. I shall not attempt a strict theoretical development, but
shall discuss fallacies under five heads, according to their causes,
showing under each head how they come about, how we can avoid
them in original reasoning and in controversy, how to detect them
and reply to others who fall into them. The five heads are: 1st, slips;
2nd, misunderstandings; 3rd, fallacies due to bad logical notions;
4th, fallacies due to moral causes; and 5th, sophisms invented to
test logical rules, etc. This will thus be of an entirely exceptional
character among the memoirs, more so even than the first.
Few logicians of great theoretical force have manifested much

interest in the general doctrine of fallacies. Ought it to be treated as
a branch of pure logic? Five classes of fallacies: 1st, mere slips, like
errors in adding up a column of figures; 2nd, misunderstandings;
3rd, fallacies having their origin in loose logica utens or faulty logica
docens; 4th, fallacies having their origins in bad morals; 5th,
sophisms which cannot deceive a sound mind but which try the
efficacy of logical rules. I consider it a duty not to neglect this
uninteresting subject; and I shall not confine myself to a purely
logical consideration of it, but say what seems likely to be of
service. 1st, certain rules may be given for checking our reasonings
so as to correct slips. 2nd, the ignoratio elenchi and petitio principii
are fallacies which presuppose that the logical process is sound.
Accordingly, no plea that an argument is one of these fallacies
should be entered in case there is any objection to the logical
process, unless that objection is to be waived. 3rd, fallacies of the
third class are extremely common, and the remarks under this head
ought to be serviceable. 4th, the fallacies of the fourth class are
common enough, too; but it is evident that no logical medicine can
reach the seat of the disease. The rules of good logic suppose good
faith. 5th, logic began with sophisms and some of them still merit
attention.
This is a subject which has very little attracted the attention of

the stronger logicians and is consequently in the most deplorable
condition. I divide them into three classes, as follows: 1st, those
fallacies which are mere slips, such as one may fall into in adding a
column of figures, which is, indeed, a fallacy; 2nd, those which arise
from misunderstandings, such as the ignoratio elenchi and petitio
principii; 3rd, those which have their origin in loose logica utens, or
more frequently, in the inexact logic docens. To these may be
added, 4th, sophisms which really deceive nobody, but which
present problems in logic often highly instructive. I make an attempt
to enumerate all varieties. Those of the first class are hardly worth
notice; yet still not utterly useless, any more than it would be to call
attention to the ways in which there is danger of error in performing
an algebraical computation. My remarks about the petitio principii I
hope will be useful. In the third class, I call attention to a number of
fallacies that are not mentioned in any of the books. Such, for
example, is the extension of the doctrine of the burden of proof to
cases where it has no meaning, but where formalistic reasoners
appeal to it as a source of knowledge, as if it were a law of nature.
Another class of examples of fallacies, to which logicians are
especially liable (and logicians are the most fallacious reasoners in
the world), are objections to arguments as being fallacious which
are, in reality, sound, but are merely misunderstood by the objector
to be arguments of a different kind from what they profess to be.
The books are full of pretended refutations of fallacies where the
reasoning criticized is really sound. Indeed, my observation leads
me to conclude that persons of good sense whose minds are not
vitiated by logical notions rarely fall into fallacies, unless they be
mere slips. On the other hand, I know no class of books in which
fallacies so abound as works on logic and philosophy. I have carefully
read a large number of German treatises on logic of a somewhat
original and superior kind, certainly at the least estimate over fifty
of them. But I do not think I ever met with a single onenot even
that of Schroederwhich does not somewhere fall into an
unquestionable and utterly indefensible logical fallacy. This is not
true of English books, but there are few English logics of any
strength. The Germans, I think, are naturally stupid about logic,
although some of the most magnificent reasoners have been
Germans. Kepler is quite incomparable in inductive logic;
Weierstrass and Georg Cantor superb in mathematical subtlety, for
all the latter's being one of the "Baconians" in Shakespeareology.
Among logicians, Leibniz, Lambert, Kant, Herbart are men of
distinguished power. But there is a vicious tendency to subjectivism
in Germans whenever they deal with any subject that tempts that
disposition. I do not wish to be supposed not to admire the Germans;
but when I see so many young Americans copying all their faults and
generally worshipping them, I am moved to say that they are not
gods.
MEMOIR 27
OF METHODEUTIC
The first business of this memoir is to show the precise nature of
methodeutic; how it differs from critic; how, although it considers,
not what is admissible, but what is advantageous, it is nevertheless a
purely theoretical study, and not an art; how it is, from the most
strictly theoretical point of view, an absolutely essential and distinct
department of logical inquiry; and how, upon the other hand, it is
readily made useful to a researcher into any science, even
mathematics itself. It strongly resembles the purely mathematical
part of political economy, which is also a theoretical study of
advantages. Of the different classes of arguments, abductions are
the only ones in which, after they have been admitted to be just, it
still remains to inquire whether they are advantageous. But since
the whole business of heuretic, so far as its theory goes, falls under
methodeutic, there is no kind of argumentation that methodeutic
can pass over without notice. Nor is methodeutic confined to the
consideration of arguments. On the contrary, its special subjects
have always been understood to be the definition and division of
terms. The formation of systems of propositions, although it has
been neglected, should also evidently be included in methodeutic.
In its method, methodeutic is less strict than critic.
The first business of this memoir is to develop a precise

conception of the nature of methodeutical logic. In methodeutic, it
is assumed that the signs considered will conform to the conditions
of critic, and be true. But just as critical logic inquires whether and
how a sign corresponds to its intended ultimate object, the reality,
so methodeutic looks to the purposed ultimate interpretant and
inquires what conditions a sign must conform to in order to be
pertinent to the purpose. Methodeutic has a special interest in
abduction, or the inference which starts a scientific hypothesis. For
it is not sufficient that a hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any
hypothesis which explains the facts is justified critically. But among
justifiable hypotheses we have to select that one which is suitable
for being tested by experiment. There is no such need of a
subsequent choice after drawing deductive and inductive
conclusions. Yet although methodeutic has not the same special
concern with them, it has to develop the principles which are to
guide us in the invention of proofs, those which are to govern the
general course of an investigation, and those which determine what

problems shall engage our energies. It is, therefore, throughout of
an economic character. Two other problems of methodeutic which
the old logics usually made almost its only business are, first, the
principles of definition, and of rendering ideas clear; and second,
the principles of classification.
I here consider precisely what methodeutic is. I show that it is

here permissible to resort to certain methods not admissible in
stechiologic or in critic. Primarily, methodeutic is nothing but
heuretic and concerns abduction alone. Yet even as heuretic it
indirectly has to consider other matters; and it extends to subjects
that are not particularly heuretic. It is proper, therefore, in the
study of methodeutic, to begin with the study of heuretic. Now it
follows from the nature of truth, as analyzed in an earlier memoir,
that it is not merely hopeless, but utterly nonsensical, to expect to
discover anything except such things as we may hope that time will
reveal. Consequently, to discover is simply to expedite an event that
would occur sooner or later, if we had not troubled ourselves to
make the discovery. Consequently, the art of discovery is purely a
question of economics. The economics of research is, so far as logic
is concerned, the leading doctrine with reference to the art of
discovery. Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly
a question of heuretic and is the first question of heuretic, is to be
governed by economical considerations. I show how this leads to
methodeutic inquiries of other kinds and at the same time furnishes
a key for the conduct of those inquiries.
MEMOIR 28
ON THE ECONOMICS OF RESEARCH
In all economics the laws are ideal formulae from which there
are large deviations, even statistically. In the economics of research
the "laws" are mere general tendencies to which exceptions are
frequent. The laws being so indefinite, at best, there is little
advantage in very accurate definitions of such terms as àmount of
knowledge'. It is, however, possible to attach a definite conception
to one increment of knowledge being greater than another. To work

this out will be the first business of the memoir. I also establish a
definite meaning for the amount of an increment in diffusion of
knowledge. I then consider the relation of each of these to the
expenditure of energy and value required to produce them in
varying conditions of the advancement of diffusion of knowledge
already attained. Comparing knowledge with a material commodity,
we know that in the latter case a given small increment in the
supply is very expensive, in most cases, when the supply is very
small, that as the supply increases it sinks to a minimum, from
which it increases to a very large but finite value of the supply
where no further increment would be possible at any finite cost.
Putting instead of supply, the amount of knowledge attained, we
find that there is a "law," or general tendency, subject to similar
large irregularities as in the case of the supply of a material
commodity, but here even greater. The final increase of cost of an
increment with the increase of attainment already achieved is
marked, on the whole, in almost all cases, while in many cases, at
least, there is a point of attainment where the cost of an increment
is at a minimum. The same general tendency appears in reference to
the diffusion of knowledge; but there is this striking difference, that
attainments in advance of sciences are very commonly actually on
the upward slope where increments are costing more and more,
while there are few branches of knowledge whose diffusion is
already so great that a given increment of the diffusion will cost
more and more, as the diffusion is increased.
I shall next pass to a study of the variation of the utility
(meaning, generally, the scientific utility) of given small increments
of scientific knowledge and of the diffusion of knowledge in varying
states of attainment. This is to be compared with the variation of
the total amount that will be paid for a commodity for a fixed small
increment of the demand, or amount thrown upon the market to
fetch what it will, with varying amounts of that demand. Here, the
additional total amount that will be paid for the small increment of
amount sold will correspond to the utility of the small fixed increase
of scientific knowledge or of the diffusion of knowledge; while the
demand being equal to the supply, this demand, or total amount
that is sold, will correspond as before to the amount of attainment
in scientific knowledge or in the diffusion of knowledge. For a
material commodity we know that if it is given away people will only
carry home a finite amount. One would have to pay them to carry
away more. On the other hand, there is probably some maximum
price for most things, above which none at all would be sold. It
necessarily follows that beyond a certain amount thrown upon the
market, a small increment in that amount would actually diminish
the total receipts from the sale of it, while for any smaller amount
the increment of receipts for a given small increment of amount
sent to market would be less and less. With regard to the scientific
utility of a small fixed advance of knowledge, the "law" is certainly
very different from that. In the first place, there is no degree of
knowledge of which a small increase would be worse than useless,

and while the general tendency is that the utility of such fixed
increase becomes less and less, yet the curve is rather sawshaped,
since like Rayleigh's small addition to our knowledge of the density
of nitrogen, now and then a small increment will be of great utility
and will then immediately sink to its former level. The scientific
advantage of the diffusion of knowledge is difficult to determine. It
cannot be believed that any increment of diffusion is positively
unfavorable to science. It is favorable in two ways; first, by
preparing more men to be eminent researcher; and secondly, by
increasing general wealth, and therefore the money bestowed on
science. I am inclined to think that the general tendency is that a
given increment of diffusion is less and less advantageous to science
the greater the attained diffusion. But I am not confident that this is
so, at any rate without very important deflexions. The general
effect, however, is nearly the same for the advancement as for the
diffusion of knowledge. Namely, beginning with dense ignorance,
the first increments cost more than they come to. That is,
knowledge is increased but scientific energy is spent and not at once
recovered. But we very soon reach a state of knowledge which is
profitable to science, that is, not only is knowledge increased, but
the facility of increasing knowledge gives us a return of more
available means for research than we had before the necessary
scientific energy was spent. This increases to a maximum,
diminishes, and finally, there is no further gain. Yet still, in the case
of energy expended upon research, if it is persisted in, a fortunate
discovery may result in a new means of research. I shall analyze as
far as I can the relative advantages, for pure science exclusively, of
expending energy (which is of such a kind as to be equally capable
of being directed either way) to the direct advancement of
knowledge and to the diffusion of knowledge. I find the latter so
overwhelmingly more important (although all my personal
sympathies are the other way) that it appears to me that, for the
present, to give to research, in money, one or two per cent of what
is spent upon education is enough. Research must contrive to do
business at a profit, by which I mean that it must produce more
effective scientific energy than it expends. No doubt it already does
so. But it would do well to become conscious of its economical
position and contrive ways of living upon it.
Many years ago I published a little paper on the economy of
research, in which I considered this problem. Somebody furnishes a
fund to be expended upon research without restrictions. What sort
of researches should it be expended upon? My answer, to which I
still adhere, was this. Researches for which men have been trained,
instruments procured, and a plant established, should be continued
while those conditions subsist. But the new money should mainly go
to opening up new fields, because new fields will probably be more
profitable, and, at any rate, will be profitable longer.
I shall remark in the course of the memoir that economical
science is particularly profitable to science; and that of all the

branches of economy, the economy of research is perhaps the most
profitable; that logical methodeutic and logic in general are specially
valuable for science, costing little beyond the energies of the
researcher, and helping the economy of every other science. It was
in the middle of the 13th century that a man distinguished enough
to become pope opened his work on logic with the words,
"Dialectica est ars artium et scientia scientiarum, ad omnium
methodorum principia viam habens." This memorable sentence,
whose gothic ornamentation proves upon scrutiny to involve no
meaningless expression nor redundant clause, began a work wherein
the idea of this sentence was executed satisfactorily enough for the
dominant science of the middle ages. Jevons adopted the sentence
as the motto of his most scientific contribution to logic; and it would
express the purpose of my memoirs, which is, upon the ground well
prepared by Jevons and his teacher, DeMorgan, and by the other
great English researchers, especially Boole, Whewell, Berkeley,
Glanvill, Ockham, and Duns Scotus, to lay a solid foundation upon
which may be erected a new logic fit for the life of twentieth
century science.
Political economy, in its general analysis by Ricardo and others,

is a fine example of logical method. Its chief fault is that no
coefficient of average stupidity is introduced and no coefficient of
average sentimentality, which could have been introduced into the
formulae. Of course, their values would have to be determined for
each class of society. Political economy now goes by the name of
economics, a change of title which obscures an important feature of
the science, that it relates to very large collections of individuals
whose average character must be much more fixed than those of the
single individuals. The chief factors to be considered are the
demand at different prices and the cost of different amounts
supplied. In the case of research we have something analogous
although measures cannot be made with any precision. The amount
of the commodity is to be represented by the amount of knowledge
of a given subject. The price is represented by the utility of an
addition to knowledge, especially the scientific utility. The cost is
the amount of energy, time, money, etc., required to produce a
given increase of knowledge. The irregularities are excessive. The
peculiarities of the individual case must always be considered.
Nevertheless, there are certain general rules, subject to frequent
exceptions, the consideration of which is far from being entirely
useless. Two such rules are, that the more we already know of a
subject, the less is likely to be the utility of a given increase of
knowledge, and that the more we already know, the greater is likely
to be the cost of a given increase of knowledge. But if for the
amount of knowledge we substitute the number of persons
informed, both rules will be reversed. Hence, by far the most
valuable knowledge is that which is common experience. This does

not, in itself, decide the question between the respective utility of
diffusing and advancing knowledge; yet I think it is evident that until
people generally know enough to conduct affairs with reasonable
economy, it is bad economy to spend much on the advancement of
science. Ten millions is a small sum when we are thinking of seventy
millions of people. But if a hundred million were expended in
teaching the people of the United States some things that are known
respecting our protective tariff, it would produce a larger amount to
be applied to the advancement of science. I do not begrudge the
money spent upon churches, because what is taught in churches is,
in itself considered, the most valuable of all truth. But I wish one
tenth of that amount could be appropriated to diffusing economic
knowledge, because that knowledge would produce the wealth
requisite for the advancement and diffusion of all other knowledge.
A great capitalist who is generous is a strange and wonderful
phenomenon, while the people are naturally generous to the point
of extravagance. In the light of these considerations, it becomes a
maxim of the economy of research that great encouragement should
be given to applications of science. For although steam and
electricity are things of trifling value in themselves, since people
were nearly as good and happy before the days of steam and
electricity, yet they become of extreme utility in causing great
expenditures to be made for the advancement of pure science.
Now coming to pure science, the economy of research demands
the opening up of new branches of knowledge as soon as the study
of them can be conducted scientifically, rather than in carrying to
extreme perfection sciences from which the richest juice has
already been pressed. Carry forward the research that is promising:
neglect the one whose outlook is dismal. If for one inquiry several
hypotheses are equally attractive, and in another but one, prefer
the latter. In any given inquiry, other things being fairly equal or
even considerably against equality, prefer the hypothesis which if
false can easily be proved to be so; if it can very easily be
dispatched, adopt it at once, and have done with it. But while you
hold it, hold it in good faith, so as to do it full justice. Among
hypotheses choose one whose elements are well understood, so that
unknown complications, and consequent expense of energy cannot
arise. Prefer general hypotheses to special ones, provided the more
general are so by being simpler; if they are so by being complex, it is
necessary to consider the economics of testing them more
particularly. For instance, instead of supposing
y=a+bx+cx2+dx3+etc. and determining the coefficients, ask whether
y has a constant term, next whether it tends to infinity with x, next
whether its increments are approximately proportional to those of
x, etc.
There are many economic reasons for preferring hypotheses
which seem simple. I do not here mean by simple, having only one
indeterminate element, although that is a manifest ground of
preference; but I mean simple to human apprehension. Especially,

in using abduction you already commit yourself to the hypothesis
that the truth is comprehensible to you, and therefore that what is
akin to your mind is likely to be true. Being committed to this, you
scarcely make an additional hypothesis in assuming that that which
is more akin to your natural way of thinking is more likely to be
true.
Nothing unknown can ever become known except through its
analogy with other things known. Therefore, do not attempt to
explain phenomena isolated and disconnected with common
experience. It is waste of energy, besides being extremely
compromising. Turn a deaf ear to people who say, "scientific men
ought to investigate this, because it is so strange." That is the very
reason why the study should wait. It will not be ripe until it ceases
to be so strange.
Do not waste your time over questions concerning which facts
are scanty and not to be gathered.
All these maxims are so many theorems of logic which I shall
endeavor in my memoir to present in systematic form.
The chief factors are [the] relation of the amount of increments

of knowledge, first, to the scientific utility, and second, to the
necessary expenditure of energy, etc. How far there are any
regularities in these relations. There is much to be learned from the
study of the economics of research, extending even into details of
scientific procedure. I give what I have been able to deduce. I also
consider, exclusively in the interest of the advancement of science,
the economics of the diffusion of knowledge. I find that the
advantage to research from such diffusion is, in the present
condition of things, even greater than the same amount of energy
expended in research itself, supposing that energy to be equally
available in either direction. If one has a great researcher it is a
terrible waste not to use him. I give an account of certain
investigations into the mode of development of great men. I find the
conditions not dissimilar to those of the production of giant trees in
a forest. Consequently, there is an application of economics to the
preparation of men for becoming great when great men are needed.
I examine the question of the kinds of knowledge of which the
diffusion is most desirable, always in the interest of the
advancement of science. I find the normative sciences, including
economics, of greatest importance. If our people could only learn
enough political economy to see that it is a difficult science in which
it is needful to trust experts, there would be far more money to
spend on science than the genius of the country could use to the
best advantage. The analytical part of political economy is directly
dependent on logical methodeutic. It is a question whether it is not

a branch of logic.

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy
MEMOIR 29
ON THE COURSE OF RESEARCH
Comparing the two wings of the special sciences, i.e.,
psychognosy and physiognosy, and taking the history of their
development as a basis, but correcting the history, as well as we
can, in order to make it conform to what good logic and good
economy would have made it, we get the idea of rational courses of
development which these branches might have followed. Between
these two there is a striking parallel; so that we can formulate a
general rational course of inquiry. Now passing to the study of the
history of special sciences, also modified by the same process, we
find some traces of the same law; or to express it more clearly, it is
as if the special science showed us one part of the general scheme
under a microscope. By successively examining all the sciences in
this way (or all I am sufficiently able to comprehend), we can fill in
details and make the general formula more definite. We find here a
succession of conceptions which we can generalize in some
measure, but which we find it difficult to generalize very much
without losing their peculiar "flavors." These I call the categories of
the course of research. They have not the fundamental character of
the categories of appearance, but appear, nevertheless, to be of
importance.
Endeavors to formulate a general method, as well as special

methods as much generalized as possible. Studies the connection
between, 1st, natural classification; 2nd, a general formula of
evolution; 3rd, a general formula in the history of intellectual
development; 4th, the general formula of the course of research.
Inquires into the proper method of attacking the present question.
There are results; but there remains much to be discovered.
One must suspect that a close relation exists between this

problem and that of classification; and since this one ought, one
would think, to be connected with some law exhibiting itself in the
history of science, we should expect a deep, sympathetic study of
the history of science to throw a light on the secret of the
categories of the classificatory hierarchy. It was owing to a hope
that this might turn out to be the case, and that those hierarchical
categories might have other useful applications, that I have
bestowed great study on the history of science.
The general course of the history of science has been something
like this. The first scientific problems to be taken up were medicine,
pneumatology, cosmogony, etc., which mostly seem hopeless today.
The result was that some successes began to be attained in
arithmetic and in the simplest parts of astronomy, and shortly there
was some development of geometry. We find in Pythagoras the
beginnings of a true science of the categories. His numbers were
categories; that is, elements of the phenomenon; and they bear a
certain general resemblance to my categories. The duality on which
he so much insisted was my second category, that of reaction. His
examples show this. He looked too much on the formal side of it,
but this was a good fault. We next find the Greeks developing a most
extraordinary understanding of esthetic truths. A little later, in
Socrates, we meet with a lofty ethical science. Logic follows in
Plato, thoroughly worked out in Aristotle. Metaphysics also takes
important steps; and that of Aristotle (a mere reworking of Plato) is
in some respects better than what is current today. We also find in
Aristotle decided success in psychology, the doctrine of association
being well stated. His mechanics was excessively bad. His biology
very rudimentary. Then came further successes in the simpler parts
of astronomy. Statics was established. Grammar became worked
out. Thus the order of development was substantially, and quite
minutely, that of my table of the classification of the sciences,
which I drew up exclusively to express the present state of the
sciences as living today. The only exception is that the beginnings of
several descriptive sciences were made although I place them at the
bottom. Omitting them, and also geometry, in which additions were
continually [text obscure: ed.], the order was: arithmetic, the
categories, esthetics, logic, metaphysics, psychology, statics,
grammar.
Modern science is to complex to permit any such arrangement.
The general law is that of progress from the more abstract to the
more concrete. The history of any welldeveloped science exhibits
the same law. In optics, the doctrine of rays and perspective came
first. The law of reflexion was early discovered. The law of
refraction was the first modern discovery early in the 17th century.
The velocity of light was ascertained in 1676. Polarization,
diffraction, and dispersion were discovered about the same time, as
well as phenomena which were really those of interference. Thus,
the main phenomena were already known. The general theory of

undulations was suggested by Huygens, and Hooke showed that it
would explain the colors of thin plates. It was approved by Euler.
But it was not until 1817 that Young saw the vibrations were
transverse. The electrical theory of light dates from 1873.
Here, therefore, a purely geometrical account of the
phenomena of ordinary experience was worked out. Then the main
phenomena were discovered and mathematically formulated. Then
the formal theory of the constitution of light was lit upon and
worked out mathematically, and finally the material theory of its
constitution arose from a mathematical analysis of another branch
of physics.
I have accumulated a considerable store of truth concerning the
course of scientific discovery of almost all branches; but I have not
yet brought it into the form of a system, as I propose to do in this
memoir.
MEMOIR 30
0N SYSTEMS OF DOCTRINE
Singularly enough, it seems to have been left to me to make a
first attempt to formulate in detail what a system of doctrine ought
to be. I follow the same general heuretic method as in the memoir,
No. 29, taking some of the most perfect systems extant, and
imagining how they might be more rational. In this way I work out a
series of conceptions which I term the categories of systems.
MEMOIR 31
ON CLASSIFICATIONS
I study classification, after some general considerations, by
actually drawing up a number of classifications of the only sort of
objects which we can sufficiently comprehend; that is to say,
different classes of objects of human creation; such as, contrivances
for keeping the skin warm, languages, words, alphabets, sciences,
etc. From these I endeavor to elicit a general series of categories of
classification.
All classification is based on a purpose. If this purpose is the idea

governing the production of the objects classified, the classification
is "natural." Every class which embodies information, in the sense
that something is true of all its members beyond what is involved in
the definition of the class, is a natural class. All classes are more or
less natural; and all classification is more or less natural. The study
of classification has been largely pursued by me in the light of actual
classifications of objects wholly or partially artificial, so that their
real nature is less occult than that of the forms of nature. By objects
partially artificial, I mean languages, sciences, customs of various
kinds, etc. From these classifications I ought to be able to deduce an
answer to the question whether there are any universal hierarchical
categories of classification, like those of Agassiz. I have done an
enormous amount of hard work that ought to bear on this question,
without obtaining any clear response. I do not know whether to say
anything about it in this memoir or not. It is an elusive question.
In 1867 I worked out a theory of natural classification which I

never published, because the naturalists did not seem to take to it. I
had been a special student under Louis Agassiz for about six months,
with a view to studying his method of classification, that subject
being a branch of logic. Since then, I have endeavored to penetrate
further into the matter, and I think with some success. I continue to
think that the definition I then gave of an important character is
just. Namely, if one asks a naturalist why he considers a character
"important," he surely must give some reason: he cannot be content
with saying that it impresses him as such. Now his reason will either
be that this character involves certain others, as for example a
particular likelihood to taking certain forms, or it will be that this
character is of an order of characters, such, for example, as its
relating to the skeleton of the animal, which are generally
important. This importance must ultimately resolve itself into an
importance of the first kind; so the importance consists in a
character's universally carrying with it certain others, be those
others no more than tendencies. The objection made by the

naturalists was that above families, or some said above species,
taxonomic characters do not generally carry others with them. But
in saying this they were evidently limiting too much their conception
of a character. For there must be some reason for regarding a
character as important, and it is obvious that, in the last analysis,
that means that the character imports some other. In fact, the true
objection to the definition is not, as the naturalists said to me at
that time, that so few characters are important, but, on the
contrary, that all characters, even quite trivial ones, appear as
important under that definition. This consideration leads, at once,
to the needed correction of the conception of importance; and a
very fundamental correction it is. Namely, it is that an important
character must not only entrain others, but it must entrain another
which has relation to the purpose in view. That brings us back to
Agassiz's conception of natural classification, which all my study
confirms me in holding to be correct. Namely, every classification
whatsoever, be it merely arranging words in alphabetical order, has
reference to some purpose, or some tendency to an end. By a
tendency to an end, I mean that a certain result will be brought
about, or approached, and in such a way that if, within limits, its
being brought about by one line of mechanical causation be
prevented, it will be brought about, or approached, by an
independent line of mechanical causation. This definition is the one
always virtually used by physiologists in determining whether there
is a tendency to an end. Every classification has reference to a
tendency toward an end. If this tendency is the tendency which has
determined the class characters of the objects, it is something of
which there is a unitary conception. Persons whose conceptions are
in need of logical training may misunderstand the statement that the
end is not brought about by mechanical force. This is because crude
and incomplete notions of "energy" and mechanical force have so
taken possession of empty heads that they do not perceive that
according to the general equation of motion no state of things is due
exclusively to the action of forces, because the equation of motion
is merely a differential equation of the second order; so that there
are six circumstances for each particle that are not due to force.
Now in case these trillions of circumstances present any general
character, as they always must, or the problem would not attract
any attention, a general character of the result is due to other
factors than force; and it very generally happens that the most
important characters are due to other factors. Take, for example,
the phenomenon of the diffusion of gases. Force has very little to do
with it, the molecules not being appreciably under the influence of
forces. The result is due to the statistics of the equal masses, the
positions, and the motions of the molecules, and to a slight degree
only upon force, and that only insofar as there is a force, almost
regardless of its character, except that it becomes sensible only at
small distances. These features of a gas, that it is composed of equal
molecules distributed according to a statistical law, and with
velocities also distributed according to a statistical law, is an
intellectual character. Accordingly, the phenomenon of diffusion is a

tendency toward an end; it works one way, and not the opposite
way, and if hindered, within certain limits, it will, when freed,
recommence in such way as it can. Not only is an end an intellectual
idea, but every intellectual idea governing a phenomenon produces
a tendency toward an end. It is very easy to see by a general survey
of nature, that force is a subsidiary agency in nature. There ought,
therefore, to be discoverable natural classifications in nature; and
Agassiz was right in saying that such a classification must have
reference to an intellectual idea. I need not say that the idea itself,
like almost every profound and important idea of philosophy, was
very old. It was Aristotle's, if not older. The theory of natural
development is in nowise opposed to this, whatever flavor it may
take, least of all in the Darwinian flavor. For natural development
takes place in one way, not in the opposite way; and the Darwinian
machinery for it is reproduction, which is manifestly a tendency to
an end. The neoDarwinians seem to wish to make reproduction and
variation as mechanical as they can. This is a praiseworthy effort,
because it must inevitably eventuate in making the truth more plain
that they are not mechanical, in the sense of being governed mainly
by force. I do not know enough about biology to entertain a definite
opinion that the work of classification is now conducted by a wrong
method. I only note that naturalists certainly entertain a number of
opinions about classification which are not true of classification
generally. But how far these errors affect their work, I do not know.
I fancy that the study of nature must largely force the right ideas
upon them largely.
As a specimen of what I refer to as erroneous notions
entertained by naturalists about classification, I may mention the
idea that if two classes merge into one another they cannot be
natural classes. If we turn to classifications of human works, where
the true principles of natural classification are beyond question, we
soon find this idea refuted. In order to illustrate this, I shall, in the
memoir, discuss the weights found by Prof. Petrie at Naucratis, and
admirably worked over by him. I show, by an application of the
principles of probability, beyond all reasonable doubt and so clearly
that every naturalist must see the force of this argument, that in
certain cases, where weights were intended to conform to two
different standards, a weight intended to conform to the lighter
standard was heavier than another weight intended to conform to
the heavier standard. We can even say, roughly, how often this
occurs. As a consequence of this, it is impossible to say which
standard certain individual weights were intended to conform to.
The two classes of weights merge, and as far as individual weights
are concerned, merge inextricably, although they can be separated
statistically. Therefore, a naturalist does not prove that two species
are not natural classes by merely showing that they blend. I will give
another example to show that the general principle which seems to
underlie the naturalists' notion, namely, that an object has not
distinct parts unless those parts have definite limits, is false.
Namely, a lake with two islands in it certainly consists of two simple

parts, if by a simple part we are to understand a part not enclosing
an island. But the boundaries may be drawn as [below], or almost
any way.
[illustrative graphical figures omitted]
I do not pretend to have had any signal success in my studies of
classification. Yet what I have found out seems worth giving. I have
made classifications of artificial contrivances whose genesis we can
indubitably understand. In these cases, we find a course of
experience in which my three categories are repeated in order over
and over again. First, there is a form with its peculiar characteristic
of flavor. The reaction of experience develops manifest
inconvenience, whence comes thought, resulting in one or more
new forms (all novelty involves the first category) which in process
of time has to contend with new difficulties, a new analysis is made,
resulting in new improvements.
I have not, at yet, discovered any particular law of the
succession of problemsat least none that I should care to put
forward.
I do not pretend to have reached any signal result in my studies

of classification, which have been, however, extended. But I have
found out some things. I think there must be some general
categories of classification, and that it may be that those of Agassiz
approaches them. Indeed, wherever I have tried them they seem to
answer the purpose, without, however, convincing me of more than
this, that there is some truth in them. I should also expect my
general categories to be of aid in determining the categories of
classification. Classification, is, I believe, best studied in classifying
different branches of human inventions and other human creations.
Let us consider, for example, means of protection of human beings
from cold. It will evidently be necessary to take account of the
purpose of the classification; whether, for example, the object be to
gain a conception of what has been done, or to decide what will best
be done in a given case. But, at all events, the first step must
certainly be to analyze the conditions of the problem. The human
body generates heat; and all that is requisite is to keep the skin and
the air that is breathed at certain temperatures. Practically, the
latter point needs no attention. It is merely the skin which must not
lose heat too rapidly. The first obvious suggestion is to surround it
with a nonconductor; and if no inconveniences attached to this
method, no other would ever be used. But several other conditions
have to be fulfilled. The skin must be under atmospheric pressure, it
must be supplied with oxygen, sufficient evaporation must go on
from its surface, and yet not too rapidly; the person must not be
encumbered with heavy clothing, and the man must not be

imprisoned. On account of the last condition, the reliance must be
upon something in the nature of clothing, and yet on account of the
last but one, when the man is quiescent this clothing must not be
too heavy. On account of the vast difference in the evolution of heat
of a man in exercise and at rest, unless we can find some light
clothing which conducts heat better when the man is in motion than
when he is still, he must be differently protected in the two states.
Thus, if we are making our classification for the purpose of finding a
good solution of the problem of keeping the skin in good condition,
the first class of conceivable contrivances will be a clothing weighing
as little as possible, as devoid of elasticity and resistance as
possible, somewhat porous, and conducting heat much better when
the man is in motion than when he is at rest. Then the question
arises, shall this be carried out by means of some peculiar material
or by means of some mechanical contrivance. Either of these
methods would require some clothing not cumbrous and yet warm
enough to make it safe and comfortably for a man to sleep without
other protection. This might be devised; although it would be
somewhat expensive. But clothes must be changed, and the man
must bathe. These conditions are not impossible of fulfillment. But a
chemical change of conductivity is for the present out of the
question. Then the clothing must be so made that motion causes it
to open and admit air. This suggests very loose clothes capable of
being tightened, if one could find a fashion of loose clothes which
were not in the wearer's way in moving about. A man needs a house,
it is true; and we have adopted the unhealthy practices of living in
the house and of eating hot food. If we lived out of doors, it would
be unsafe to eat hot food. A house ought to be a storage place only.
However, granting that a man wants to live in the house, his plan
has been to put on extra clothing when he goes out. If he is going to
live in the house, the question is what clothing he should wear in
the house. If the mean annual temperature is high enough, he need
only have a large enough space to store sufficient air, and ventilate
it only when the sun shines sufficiently to heat the house by means
of a glasshouse arrangement. He will then wear just clothing
enough in the house to make up the difference, and no artificial
heat will be needed. It is obvious that if we are to live in the house,
the walls should be made so thick and impervious to heat that
artificial heat is unnecessary, except perhaps during the winter
storms. It is singular that we do not pursue this mode of life either.
We live in houses so ill ventilated as to cause frightful loss of life and
render old age rare, and yet we build them so wretchedly as to
involve great expense in heating them. We wear clothing which is
heavy, tiresome, and unhealthy, without being warm enough. Since
we insist in living in such places, and refuse to make use of the heat
of the sun, which would easily heat a house throughout the winter
with a proper contrivance, except in unusual weather, we have to
consider artificial heat. In order to generate heat, we must have a
source of energy. We ask, first, whether there is energy at our doors
to be used, and, second, where we can find it. Every man has the
sun, the wind and earth currents; many men have waterpower and
tides. All these might be utilized to heat a house, for nothing is so
easily done as to convert energy into heat, but so far it has not been
done economically, except by direct solar heat, which I have already
considered. The only sources of procured energy of any
consequence at present or hitherto are muscular energy and
combustion. The former is too expensive. We are reduced to
combustibles. Then the question is, shall the combustion be
performed in the house, or out of the house. In the former case,
shall our fuel be solid, liquid, or gaseous. In the latter case, are we
to bring a heated substance, say steam, into the house, or are we to
bring in an electric current? Going back to the former case, we have
a crossclassification, according as the combustion is to be
performed in the very room that is to be heated, or hot air, steam,
hot water, or electricity is to be carried through the house.
We thus have the beginning of a classification of means of
keeping warm, and our business now is to look this over and see
what we can learn about classification. The course of our discussion
has been this. Beginning with the purpose, which was somewhat
complex, we analyzed it; and owing to the complexity of the
purpose but one solution of the problem of attaining it seemed to
present itself. But it was found that that solution involved certain
inconveniences, which seemed to be due to the interference of
another purpose. A new problem thus arose which was analyzed and
solved. But this solution was found to involved inconvenience. The
result was a new problem whose conditions were simpler, for the
reason that the inconveniences had caused us to overrule some of
the original requisitae. Being simpler, half a dozen methods of
solving it arose. It is evident that any such discussion will present a
problem, where the third category is prominent; then a solution,
where the first category comes into prominence; then an
inconvenience, where the second category rises into prominence;
then another problem, and so on. At each solution we have
generally a subdivision. That is, there will generally be several
solutions.
If anything of this sort is to be found, say in zoological
classification, each branch would be a solution of the problem of
producing an animal. But an inconvenience arises in connection with
each, and each class is a solution of the problem of dealing with that
inconvenience, and so on. This, however, does not seem to accord
with the facts. It seems more reasonable, if we are to adhere to the
formula of alternate solutions and inconveniences, to suppose that
there was first a moner, which, owing to reactions with its
environment produced rhizopods, gregarina, etc. That finally, owing
to changed conditions, a sponge, a worm, and a hydra were
severally produced as solutions of the problem. That the hydra after
minor difficulties had resulted in various new forms until a greater
crisis gave rise to a crinoid, etc.
But I attach no particular value to all this, in its present state.
MEMOIR 32
ON DEFINITION AND THE CLEARNESS OF IDEAS
In January, 1878, I published a brief sketch of this subject
wherein I enunciated a certain maxim of "pragmatism," which has of
late attracted some attention, as indeed, it had when it appeared in
the Journal Philosophique. I still adhere to that doctrine; but it
needs more accurate definition in order to meet certain objections
and to avoid certain misapplication. Moreover, my paper of 1878
was imperfect in tacitly leaving it to appear that the maxim of
pragmatism led to the last stage of clearness. I wish now to show
that this is not the case and to find a series of categories of
clearness.
In January, 1878, I published a very brief sketch of my doctrine

of this subject, including a maxim of "pragmatism," which has of late
years attracted some attention. I there developed three grades of
clearness of ideas. I now propose to treat all these more completely.
Especially, my former account of pragmatism omitted most
important questions and limitations. Furthermore, I am now
prepared to show that there is a fourth, still higher grade of
clearness, which I think I ought to set forth clearly.
In 1877 I published a paper on this subject in which I set forth a

doctrine called "pragmatism" which has since been talked of. But I
know more about the clearness of ideas than I did a quarter of a
century ago. I there described three grades of clearness: 1st, that
which results from familiar use of the conception; 2nd, that which
results from logical analysis, and is expressed by a formal definition;
and 3rd, that which results from understanding the practical
implication of the conception. I propose in this memoir to develop
these three grades with fullness and not in the sketchy manner of a
magazine article. I shall give the whole theory of definition and
discuss its principal forms. I shall show, I hope quite convincingly,
the great harm done by that definition by abstraction of which the
Germans are so fond. For instance, to define coryza, you direct a
person to think of a man with a bad cold. Now take away his pocket
handkerchief. Then take away his watch, knife, pocketbook, loose
change, keys, shirtbuttons, boots, gloves, and hat. Then
successively take away his clothes, body, and soul; and what you
have left is a beautifully clear notion of coryza. I shall explain the
doctrine of pragmatism more fully, and guard against extravagant
applications. Finally, I shall develop a fourth, and higher, grade of
clearness, resulting from an appreciation of the intellectual
relations of the definitum.
MEMOIR 33
ON OBJECTIVE LOGIC
The term òbjective logic' is Hegel's; but since I reject Absolute
Idealism as false, òbjective logic' necessarily means more for me
than it did for him. Let me explain. In saying that to be and to be
represented were the same, Hegel ignored the category of reaction
(that is, he imagined he reduced it to a mode of being represented),
thus failing to do justice to being, and at the same time he was
obliged to strain the nature of thought, and fail in justice to that
side also. Having thus distorted both sides of the truth, it was a
small thing for him to say that Begriffe were concrete and had their
part in the activity of the world; since that activity, for him, was
merely represented activity. But when I, with my scientific
appreciation of objectivity and of the brute nature of reaction,
maintain, nevertheless, that ideas really influence the physical
world, and in doing so carry their logic with them, I give to objective
logic a waking like which was absent from Hegel's dreamland. I
undertake in this memoir to show that so far from its being a
metaphorical expression to say that Truth and Right are the greatest
powers in this world, its meaning is just as literal as it is to say that
when I open the window in my study, I am really exercising an
agency. For the mode of causation in the one case and in the other
is precisely the same. In fact, there are two modes of causation
corresponding to Aristotle's efficient and final causation, which I
analyze and make clear, showing that both must concur to produce
any effect whatever. The mind is nothing but an organism of ideas;
and to say that I can open my window is to say than an idea can be
an agent in the production of a physical effect. This naturally looks
toward a special metaphysics of the soul; but I pass this by, as not
germane to my present subject, and go on to examine the logic of
ideas in their physical agency. Herein I find the key to the different
series of categories which the studies of memoirs Nos. 29, 30, 31,
32 developed.
The remaining three memoirs are of the nature of elucidations
of sound methodeutic by applying it in practice to the solution of
certain questions, which, although they do not belong to logic, are
of special interest in the discussion of logic.
In this memoir, I pass beyond pure logic, to the consideration of

the outward influence of ideas. It is a remarkable fact that,
notwithstanding the miserable motives that seem to be the strongest
in almost all men, yet, upon the whole, Justice and Truth are the
greatest powers in the world. One may say, if one will, that they are
not powers at all: that the fact simply is that men are somewhat
disposed to tell the truth and to act justly when they can detect no
disadvantage in doing so, and that, since their injustice and lies
balance one another, this gives a slight but steady pressure toward
what is true and just, but that the only agencies are men. Now it is,
no doubt, true that Justice and Truth are not physical forces; and no
more are men's minds. In order that a physical effect should be
produced, a physical force is requisite. But that no more proves that
Justice and Truth are not causes, than it proves that human minds,
which act in precisely the same way, are not causes. One may say, if
one is determined to look upon the matter from one side alone, that
human energy and physical force give Justice and Truth the only
efficacy they have. But it is quite as true to say that Justice and
Truth animate their defenders and communicate power to them.
This is not only just as true, although it would not be a truth
germane to a physical investigation, but it has the advantage over
the other statement of being the pertinent truth when we are
considering the phenomena of the advance of Truth and Justice.
If I, sitting in my study, begin to feel warm, I may go through a
process of thought ending in a desire to have my window open. I say
to myself, if I want my window open, I must open it; and if I am to
open it, I must rise from the table; and thereupon my thought
becomes sunk in the depths of consciousness. The next thing I can
clearly discern is that I am across the room opening my window.
Now the fashionable theory is that my physical actions are entirely
explicable from beginning to end by mechanics, that my
consciousness is merely an inward aspect of certain physical
phenomena, and that if this aspect did not exist at all, as it happens
to do, the laws of mechanics would still make all my conduct from
the cradle to the grave just what it is. For my part, I think this
flagrant nonsense. I do not admit that it is an admissible hypothesis
that consciousness and a chemical action in the brain are two
aspects of something, because that involves the hypothesis that
there is a something for them to be aspects of, and that I cannot
admit because it is an utterly unverifiable hypothesis, a meaningless
piece of metaphysics. An aspect is an idea. It has no being other
than its being represented. It is a fundamental position of logic,
without which there can be no distinction of truth and falsity,
certainly no falsity, that being and being represented are entirely
different. If there be no falsity, it is not false to say that the mind is
a substantial entity entirely independent of matter. If there is any
falsity, being and being represented are different. Since, then, an
aspect is merely a mode of being represented, if a chemical change
is a mere aspect, it is not a real fact. In short, the whole physical
universe must go by the board (for a chemical change is as real as
any physical fact), consequently again no falsity. You may say, if you
please, that the only substance is matter, and that mind is a mere
aspect. That will not involve the same absurdity. That is pure
materialism. But it is difficult for me to imagine that all the strong
minds who pretend to believe in "psychophysical parallelism" really
fail to see that it is utter nonsense.
Let us start then with the theory of pure materialism. The mind
is nothing but the complex of a brain's ideas, and these ideas are
mere aspects. That is an intelligible position. There is no way of
overthrowing it except by hard fact. I believe that such facts
abound. I propose to defend this proposition in this memoir. I say,
then, that if there were nothing but matter, there could not be a
law of nature. Well, there are no laws of nature, will be the answer,
but only uniformities. I join issue there. Next, I say, if there were
nothing but matter there could be no such thing as reasoning. There
are logical machines, I shall be told. Yes, machines constructed by
mind to fulfill a special process which they are made to fulfill by the
action of mind on matter. But not performing any of the processes
which logic criticizes, nor even any higher kind of mathematical
reasoning. Next I say, if there were no mind, other than a mere
aspect, a symbol could not determine a physical effect. My
opponents will say that habit explains it. To this I rejoin that it
cannot probably shown that habit would explain it, and even if it
does, if there were nothing but matter there could be no habit.
Finally, I say that if there were nothing but matter, there could be
no such power as we observe in abstract ideas [such as] Beauty,
Truth, Right. I will develop these arguments in the memoir, and I
hope to make them convincing. As for the common objection to
materialism, that matter could not feel, I grant that it is worthless.
If my arguments are sound, an idea is not a mere aspect. Then I
am bound to say what sort of being it has. This I postpone to the
next memoir. At present I wish to consider objective logic, by which

I mean the logical processes of ideas acting upon the external world.
I propose to give a sketch of this sort of logic, if it can be called
logic.
Have ideas any power in the physical world? Absolute idealism is

contrary to fundamental principles of logic. Psychophysical
parallelism is meaningless. The two tenable positions are
materialism and spiritualism, between which positive facts must
decide. These facts will be discussed. Small weight of psychical
research. It appears to be true that matter can act directly only
upon matter, and ideas directly only upon ideas. A tertium quid
inadmissable. Still it does not follow that matter cannot act on ideas
and ideas on matter. Recent physical research tends to favor the
possibility. Laws of nature are ideas. Proof that they really influence
matter. How? Von Hartmann's unconscious mind. The logical process
of active ideas.
MEMOIR 34
ON THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE
The vagueness of the language with which men commonly talk of
the uniformity of nature at once masks the diversity of a number of
distinct questions which are wrapped up together in that phrase,
and at the same time masks the great diversity of opinions that are
very commonly held upon these questions. I have discussed these
different questions in half a dozen different papers; but there is
none of them [of which the] statement of my argumentation cannot
be much amplified and improved, and to which new historical
matter cannot bring considerable light. Moreover, I wish to bring all
the different questions to one focus, and consider them together.
This, I am sure, will cause thinkers to be more favorable to the
views which I have at different times defended. Among the
questions is that of nominalism and realism, in connection with
which I shall show that all modern philosophy, by an accident of
history, has been blind to consider ations of the greatest evidence
and moment.
MEMOIR 35
ON METAPHYSICS
The great distinction between Aristotelian philosophy and a
modern philosophy is that the former recognized a germinal mode of
being inferior to existence, which hardly [even] Schelling does;
certainly no other modern philosopher. This question is considered
in the light of the methodeutic developed in previous memoirs. The
result is applied to all the questions of high metaphysics.
{From Draft D (308)} In this memoir I defend essentially

Aristotelian opinions which give room for the real being and agency
of ideas, distinguishing an esse in futuro from an esse in praeterito
and an esse in praesento, and also a mode of action substantially
Aristotle's final causation, as well as physical action which is
substantially his efficient causation.
MEMOIR 36
ON THE REALITY AND NATURE OF TIME AND SPACE
This applies my methodeutic to the discussion of a question
which will have repeatedly emerged during the course of the
memoirs. I may say briefly that I defend the wellknown opinion of
Newton. But other questions are considered. I do not think any
theory satisfactory which does not offer some explanation (a
mathematically exact and evident one) of why space should have
three dimensions.
I hold, with Newton, that time and space are real entities. I
discuss the question of whether they are so or not, and then
consider their real properties.
SECTION 2
ESTIMATE OF THE UTILITY OF THE WORK
To my apprehension, any man over sixty years of age, who is
endowed with reason, is a better judge of his own powers and of the
utility of his performances than other people can be expected to be.
Particularly is this true when the man has accumulated a large fund
of unpublished results. Yet as soon as such a man assumes the
attitude of seeking recognition for the utility of his work, suspicions
as to the candor of his appreciations may be suggested by those
who, for any reason, are unfavorable to the action he desires.
For that reason, I shall confine myself to asserting in a general
way my profound conviction of the utility of publishing my results,
as likely to influence some sciences, but still more as themselves
stimulating a most important branch of science, that of logic, which
is at present in a bad way. The latter kind of utility is not much
diminished if I have fallen into some errors. Beyond averring that
conviction, I do not offer myself as a witness to the utility of the
work. I should, indeed, not have gone so far as I have done, were I
not persuaded that the Executive Committee ought to require, as
one of the first conditions of extending aid to any work, that the
person who was to do it should be saturated with faith in its utility
and value.
I will indicate certain lines of thought which, if pursued by the
Executive Committee, may determine an opinion in regard to the
utility of the work I propose. These lines of thought are two. The
one bears upon the value of my researches considered as
contributions to pure science; the other relates to their probable
influence, direct or indirect, upon the progress of other sciences. I
will first venture upon a few suggestions along the latter line.
What would be the degree of utility of a really good and sound
methodeutic, supposing that it existed, for the other sciences? I am
not of opinion that a science of logic is altogether indispensable to
any other science, because every man has his instinctive logica
utens, which he gradually corrects under the influence of
experience. Indeed, instinct, within its proper domain, is generally

less liable to err and is capable of greater subtlety than is any
human theory. Perhaps it may sound like a contradiction to talk of
"instinctive logic." It may possibly be thought that instinct is
precisely that which is not logic or reason. But think of a man whose
business it is to lend out money. The accuracy of his cool reason is
what he relies upon; and yet he is not guided by a theory of
reasoning, but much rather upon an intense love of money which
stimulates his faculties of reasoning. That is what I call his logica
utens. There are many fields in which few will maintain that any
theoretical way of reaching conclusions can ever be so sure as the
natural instinctive reasoning of an experienced man. Yet let instinct
tread beyond its proper borders but by ever so little, and it becomes
the most helpless thing in the world, a veritable fish out of water.
Sciences do often go wrong: that cannot be denied. Their history
contains many a record of wasted time and energy that a good
methodeutic might have spared. Think of the Hegelian generation in
Germany! Is reasoning the sole business whose method ought not to
be scientifically and minutely analyzed? To me, it is strange to see a
man like Poincare (whom I mention only as a most marked case
among many) who, in his own science, would hold it downright
madness to trust to anything but the minutest and most thorough
study, nevertheless discussing questions of the logic of science in a
style of thought that seems to imply a deliberate disapproval of
minute analysis in that field, and a trust to a sort of "On to
Richmond" cry, I mean a cry that those who have not closely studied
are better judges than those who have.
Many will say that all that may be true, but that, as a matter of
fact, we are already in possession of a scientific system of logic, that
of Mill. Now it is displeasing to me to be forced to decry Mill's Logic;
because, looking at it in certain very broad outlines, I approve of it.
The book has unquestionably done much good, especially in
Germany, which needed it most. But I must declare that quite no
deep student of logic entertains a very high respect for it. If,
however, that book, though written by a literary and not a scientific
man, by a mere advocate of a shallow metaphysics, has had so
beneficial an influence as unquestionably it has, would it not seem
to be desirable that the same subject should be pursued, I do not
say by me, but by scientific students of it? Surely, enough has been
done to make it manifest that there is such a thing as strictly
scientific logic. For instance, the doctrine of chances is nothing else.
The doctrine of chances has been called the logic of the exact
sciences; and as far as it goes, so precisely it is. Its immense service
to science will not be disputed by any astronomer, by any geodesist,
nor probably by any physicist. Pearson and Galton have shown how
useful it many be in biological and psychognostic researches. The
utility of truly scientific logic, then, is indisputable. But that general
logic is today in a bad way would seem to be sufficiently shown by
the fact that it is pursued by thirteen different methods, and mostly
by a confused jumble of those methods, of which I, a very fallible
person of course but still a scientific man who has carefully weighed
them, pronounce but one, and that one in bad odor, to be alone of
general validity. Is it, then, not desirable that an interest in pursuing
logical inquiries in a true scientific spirit and by acknowledged
scientific methods should be aroused? If it be so, is not the
publication of my researches, even if they contain some errors, as
likely to stimulate such studies as anything that could be suggested?
Slight and fragmentary as my publications have been, dealing with
the less important of my results, have they not in some appreciable
degree stimulated the production of such work? I point to the third
volume of Schroeder's Logik. Look at it, or ask him, and I think you
will say that I have exercised some stimulating agency. Everybody
admires (nobody more than I) the beautiful presentation by
Dedekind of the logic of number; and Dedekind, by the way,
pronounces all pure mathematics to be a branch of logic. Read his
Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen, and then read my paper on the
Logic of Number, published six years earlier, and sent to Dedekind,
and ask yourselves whether there is anything in the former of which
there is not a plain indication in the latter. Let me not be
misunderstood. I am simply arguing that my papers have stimulated
the science of logic. I wish with all my heart the Executive
Committee could have in view some other student of logic of vastly
greater powers than mine. But even if they had, considering how
much energy has been spent in obtaining my results, would it not be
a pity not to have them presented to the world?
It is my belief that science is approaching a critical point in
which the influence of a truly scientific logic will be exceptionally
desirable. Science, as the outlook seems to me, is coming to
something not unlike the age of puberty. Its old and purely
materialistic conceptions will no longer suffice; while yet the great
danger involved in the admission of any others, ineluctable as such
admission is, is manifest enough. The influence of the conceptions
of methodeutic will at that moment be decisive.
Vast, however, as the utility of logic will be in that direction,
provided that logic shall at the critical moment have developed into
that true science which it is surely destined some day to become,
yet the pure theoretical value of it is greater yet. No doubt, it is
possible, while acknowledging, as one must, that logic produces
useful truths, to take the ground that it is a composite of odds and
ends, a crazyquilt of shreds and patches, of no scientific value in
itself. But seeing that pure mathematics is so close to logic, that
eminent mathematicians class it as a branch of logic, it is hard to see
how one can deny pure scientific worth to logic and yet accord such
worth to pure mathematics. Probably there are naturalists of culture
so narrow that they would deny absolute scientific value to pure
mathematics. I do not believe the Committee will embrace such
views. And then, there in metaphysics to be considered. Everybody
must have his Weltanschauung. It certainly influences science in no
small measure. But metaphysics depends on logic, not merely as any
science my occasionally need to appeal to a logical doctrine, but,

according to the greatest metaphysicians, the very conceptions of
metaphysics are borrowed from the analyses of logic. Now if there is
any such thing as pure scientific value, as distinguished from the
admiration one might have for a newly discovered dye, in what can
it consist if not in intellectual relations between truths? If so it be,
then, in view of the relation of logic to metaphysics, and that of
metaphysics to all science, how can it be said that logic is devoid of
scientific value, if there by any such thing as scientific value? If logic
is the science which my memoirs go to show that it is, it is the very
keystone in the arch of scientific truth.
Little known as my papers have been, I believe that there are
some men, whose judgments must command respect in the world of
science, who will testify to the utility of the work that I have done,
and to the probable utility of that which I am about to do.
SECTION 3
ESTIMATE OF THE LABOR REQUIRED FOR THE WORK
My results in each of the three dozen topics have to be carefully
revised, though for the most part that has often been done already,
have to be set into logical order, and have to be presented in the
fully convincing forms which they merit. It is also most desirable
that the presentation of each should be as brief and as closely
confined to what is pertinent as is consistent with completeness and
with perspicuity. A certain amount of labor must be bestowed upon
their literary polish; for my purpose requires that they should be
read by persons who are not professional logicians. Indeed, for
persons who are disposed to think, I believe that as far as in me lies
I should make them even attractive; although I am painfully
conscious of my small literary ability.
Taking all these things into consideration, my experience of
what I can do suffices to enable me to say that six memoirs a year is
all I ought to promise, although I should confidently hope to finish
the three dozen in five years.
I should be loath to inflict as many as a million words upon a
student: it would so narrow my field of influence. I am sure that my
results could not be presented as they merit, in all their

convincingness in half a million. The majority of the memoirs could
be compressed into about 20,000 words each; but only by laborious
and clever condensation. A very few which might be much shorter
are overbalanced by quite as many or more that must inevitably
mount to 50,000 words each, dividing themselves advantageously
into two parts. To bring the total within the million, seeing that they
so increase in matter as the series advances that every one of the
last quarter of the series is excessively dense in matter, is going to
be a task calling for all my vigor but most needful.
Persons whose business it is to write, and who are not troubled
with having too much to say, may argue that 200,000 words a year is
only 700 words a day for six days in every week, and that such a
limit can only be set by indolence. To this I can only reply that it
would be much easier to make the memoirs three times as long as I
propose. At that rate, they would be better, taken singly. But the
whole would be too much. If anybody suspects me of indolence, I
shall only have to turn in all the papers; and it will be seen that I
have in each case written from three to five times as much as I
include in the final copy.
When one calculates that this means only 400 to 700 words a
day for six days in the week, I fear the Executive Committee may
receive suggestions that it is indolence which I am scheming for. But
I am willing to agree to send on with each memoir papers written in
the preparation of it showing that it is the result of condensation to
from 1/3 to 1/5 of what I was prepared to say; and that I have
actually written 2000 words a day (which is my steady habit at all
times). When one takes into consideration the amount of careful
reading almost every memoir involves, to say nothing of the
intellectual labor of revising my results and putting them into shape
and logical order, I do not think that anybody will think it wise to
endeavor to persuade the Executive Committee that indolence is my
characteristic.
SECTION 4
ESTIMATE OF OTHER EXPENSES INVOLVED

These other expenses are mainly books, although the person
who examines and reports upon the memoirs should be remunerated
for his labor. Historical statements and critical examinations form an
essential part of the plan. Books must be hand. My entire library
contains only about 2000 books. I shall require 500 more, costing
say $2000.
It is desirable that during this work I should occasionally see

something of scientific men and students of philosophy. That is,
however, not indispensable.
But what is indispensable is that what is said should be said
convincingly, and therefore that due notice should be paid to
opposing opinions. For this purpose, books must be criticized. Now
no matter how familiar one may be with a book, one must have it at
hand in order to venture upon any remark about it, except the most
general. There are other books which are absolutely indispensable
for this work. I should have to add 500 volumes to my present
library of some 2000. They would cost me $2000. I might perhaps
obtain the use of them for five years by agreeing to surrender my
whole library at the end of that period. It is true that I could then no
longer give students the advantage of my instruction, as I like to do,
and my earnings are dependent on my books that such a step would
be a dernier resort. Everyday duties must come first; but after them
my supreme effort will be to give the world the results of logical
studies. However, I do not know that I could make such an
arrangement.
SECTION 5
NEED OF THE AID ASKED FOR
I am bound to confess that should the Carnegie Institution refuse
all cooperation, I should continue to be animated by a robust faith
that somehow my results would be given to the world; and I am fully
satisfied that that faith is logically justified. It might prove mistaken;
and if it did, my concern would be limited to knowing that I had

performed my part. But while I fully believe that I shall succeed in
any case, I have no definite idea of how I could do so in default of
the aid which I ask from the Carnegie Institution; and in that sense I
can truly say that such aid seems to be indispensable. I believe the
Executive Committee will help me.
SECTION 6
SUGGESTED PLAN FOR THE REQUISITE AID
I should suggest that each memoir, as finished, should be sent by
me, in MS. or type written, to the office of the Carnegie Institution
and should be at once placed in the hands of a man of my own rank
as a thinker, or higher, whose duty it should be, not to go into any
criticism of it but to look it over, say in an hour or two, and report
upon whether or not it seems to be such a solid piece of work as is
worthy of acceptance. Upon his favorable report, say within a week,
the Carnegie Institution should cause a sum of money to be remitted
to me and should become the owner of the copyright in the memoir
sent in.
I should suggest that if the length of the memoir was from
15,000 to 30,000 it should count as a unit; if more as two units, and
that the remittance should be so much per unit. This is a mere
suggestion as, indeed, is the whole plan.
The Committee might see fit to put a limit upon the number of
units that would be receivable in one year. I do not think that under
any circumstances it could exceed nine, and that number could only
be reached some year owing to special circumstances.
The memoirs should be handed in in their regular serial order.
Since the books needed would be needed at the outset, if the
Carnegie Institution would supply me with 500 books of my choice to
be kept for a term of years, I would agree that my whole library
should go at my death to the free school of logic I desire to found or
to any other party whom the Carnegie Institute might designate. If
this plan is not agreeable, I should ask in some form to receive extra
help the first year. By making selections of subjects, I could write
nine memoirs in the first year; but it would be a bad plan. The
memoirs ought to be written in the order of consecution.
I would suggest that each memoir when completed should be

sent by me in MS. or type written to the office of the Carnegie
Institution and should be submitted to the judgment of a qualified
person, on order that he should report whether it represented the
expected amount of work and thought; and that upon his favorable
report the treasurer of the Carnegie Institution should remit to me a
certain sum, say so much for a memoir of 20,000 words, and double
that amount if the length exceeds 40,000. Or the amount might be
invariable; or it might be strictly proportionate to the number of
words. I have usually been paid $25 a thousand words for such
philosophical writing as I have been paid for. Of course, none of it
was nearly as laborious as this will be. The amount would have to be
sufficient for the support of myself and wife, and for the purchase
of some books. There might be a limit as to the amount of work
receivable in any one year. The memoirs could be published
separately, and could be sold for the benefit of the Carnegie
Institution.
Since the books needed are needed at the very outset, although
it would be far better that the memoirs should be prepared in their
intended order of consecution, as numbered above, yet in order to
enable me to obtain the needed money for the books, I might the
first year produce such memoirs as could be most quickly produced,
and might thus make nine or ten. This would be a bad plan; but
since I am informed that the Executive Committee will, under no
circumstances aid in furnishing books required for the work done
under their auspices, it seems to remain the only feasible plan. In
case my information should be incorrect, if the Carnegie Institution
will provide me with $2000 worth of books for a term of years, my
whole library shall go to a school of logic, or some arrangement shall
be made agreeable to the committee.
SECTION 7
PROBABILITY OF THE COMPLETION OF THE WORK
Each memoir is complete in itself. The science of logic will be

completed not earlier than the sciences of biology and of history are
complete. But it is eminently desirable that the series of three
dozen memoirs should be completed. Having all my life long
sacrificed every interest to logic, it might seem that I was insulting
the Executive Committee if I were to suppose their knowledge of
human nature was such that they could doubt my finishing this
series if death, total incapacity, or the necessities of daily life did
not intervene. It has been represented to me, however, by persons
of the highest credit, that the Committee would insist on some
assurance that the whole would be finished. Without permitting
myself either to believe or disbelieve this, I think I am justified in
offering such assurance as lies in my power, in case the Committee
should something of the sort.
I am in excellent health and capital trim for this work. I do not
think there will be much danger of my breaking down in five years.
However, if the Committee thinks there is, I would suggest that in
the first six months, instead of writing the first three memoirs, I
write, in six equal monthly parts, each of not less than 15,000
words, abstracts of the memoirs, six memoirs in regular order being
treated in each part. Then in case the work of writing the memoirs
(which under this arrangement would only begin at the end of six
months) were broken off, otherwise than by the action of the
Carnegie Institution, the copyright of this abstract should pass to the
institution; but the Carnegie Institution during those first six months
should contribute liberally to aid the production of these abstracts. I
say "liberally," because books would have to be procured. If, on the
other hand, the series of memoirs were completed then, but not
before, I should be at liberty to do what I pleased with the abstracts.
What I should be pleased to attempt would be to make out of them a
logic for the people, a charming classic for the twentieth century,
thus, as a secondary object, sparing my old age the mortifications of
extreme poverty, although I am not capable of making such an
object a leading one. If the memoirs were, say, half of them
published, then this abstract (which I should have been continually
polishing) could be used to complete the publication. In this I am not
peculiar. For my observation is that the men are rare who are able
to pursue steadily a purely egoistic purpose; a fact of psychology
which those who are capable of it, are apt to overlook. [EDITORIAL
NOTE: the preceding two sentences were originally appended by
Peirce as a footnote to the remark before them.]
But a better plan, I think, would be to devote the first three
months to writing abstracts of the last nine memoirs, omitting
altogether the historical and critical parts. This would be a very
great loss; because, though the plan might result in a tolerably
complete presentation of the main argument, its convincingness
would be unfelt by the mass of readers. Still, it would leave the
matter in such shape that a writer of ability coming after me would
be able to rewrite this part of the series, the most practically useful
part, so as to bring out the whole force of the argument. But I

should always object to the publication of any such abstracts as long
as there was any hope of my producing the full memoirs.
As an additional or alternative security, I should suggest,
supposing that other security were desired by the Executive
Committee, that a contract be executed between the Carnegie
Institution and me by which I should be bound to send in the
memoirs with no interval between any successive two exceeding
three months, unless some visitation of providence (say, a five
month's illness, a conflagration, or a domestic calamity) should
intervene, and even then not exceeding five months. Otherwise, I,
failing in this, should be bound to repay to the Carnegie Institution
all money up to that time paid to me, while losing the copyrights of
the printed memoirs. I would yearly furnish bonds that such money
should be refunded, if failure should occur within one year. I should
secure my bondsman by putting into his hands first draughts of the
memoirs for the ensuing year, which though they would not be
satisfactory to me, would, nevertheless, a la rigueur conform to the
agreement. Of course, this would be but partial security.
I beg to say, lest the Executive Committee should deem this
proposition ridiculous, that I express no opinion about it. I stand
ready to carry it out, if desired. I am most anxious to meet what
highly credible people believe to be the wish of members of the
Committee; and no better plan occurs to me.
Of course, in case any contract were made, the Carnegie
Institution would by its terms become bound to persist in the
arrangement to the end, and to publish each memoir within, say,
one year of the date of its approval.
I have a reputation of not finishing things. I suppose there is
some basis of truth beneath it. But it has been, like every evil
reputation, exaggerated out of all semblance of truth by calumny. It
should be remembered that I was connected for along time with the
Coast Survey; and it will be easy for members of the Committee to
ascertain that that office has been, at time, a veritable hotbed of
intrigue, and that I, in particular, have sometimes suffered great
injustice there. Voluminous memoirs were prepared by me for
publication which I never could get printed; and then I was accused,
vaguely and in intangible forms, of not getting my work ready for
publication. For the truth of this (except that the accusations were
made) I stand responsible. I have often made this statement. If it is
not true, why am I not called upon to go ahead with the printing?
Excepting in the case of one early paper on the logic of
mathematics, which I concluded I did not know enough about to
continue, I have never had a disinclination to go on with any series
of publications which I had begun. On the contrary, the
disinclination has always been on the side of those who were to pay
for the printing. When such disinclination was manifested, of course

I ceased to press the matter.
I understand that it is thought that I have a disposition not to

persist in my undertakings. I admit I have sometimes projected
schemes which I did not carry out for one reason or another,
especially because I have had comparatively small interest in
anything but logic and the methods of science; but my reputation in
that respect is largely manufactured of Coast Survey intriguers. I
prepared for publication three voluminous memoirs for the Survey.
The persons who were in power in the Coast Survey refused to print
them, and then told people that I never got my material into form to
be printed. I have since then repeatedly offered to see these
memoirs through the press; but these offers have always been
declined, for the reason, as I think, that it was supposed they were
made with a view of getting some influence upon the Survey.
Meantime, the effect of finding that I could not get my work printed
was that I busied myself with logic which alone I cared for
independently of publication.
I have never had a disinclination to continue any series of
publications which I had begun. The difficulty has always been that I
could not get any more printed. I am informed that the Carnegie
Institution will desire some assurance that the series of memoirs I
propose will be completed. I am ready, then, to sign a contract by
which, should more than three months elapse without my handing in
a new memoir until the series is complete, unless I should die or
have been, according to a physician's certificate, ill, by no fault of
mine, and thus incapacitated, for at least five months, then I shall
be obliged to refund all that has been paid to me; and each year,
after the first, I will find security for such payment; while the
Carnegie Institution, on its side, shall be bound to continue the
arrangement to the end, and to procure the publication of each
memoir within a reasonable time of its being reported upon
favorably. It seems to me that this is a sufficient reply to the
objection (which seems to me factitious) that because I have always
sacrificed every interest to logic, I am now likely to sacrifice logic to
indolence.
SECTION 8
PROBABLE NET COST
Mill's Logic went through nine editions before the copyright
expired. I should not expect anything like that. But still, the utility
of these memoirs will require me to make them as agreeable reading
and as little tedious as their scientific character will allow. Great
pains will be bestowed upon this; and it will be perfectly proper that
they be handed over to a publisher and sold like any books. In time
there will be some sale for them. It would certainly make up in
considerable part for the remittances made to me. For five or six
years' support of me and my wife, the Carnegie Institution would
receive the fruit of over forty years' meditation and labor. For the
price of 500 books, it would, after a term of years, have 2500 books
to dispose of. I think its objects would profit by the transaction.
If the Carnegie Institution should adopt some such plan as that I

have ventured to suggest, they will advance me something like a
professor's salary for five years, and in return will have the product
of my pen for that time. Now Mill's Logic went through nine or ten
editions. To be sure, it was not so voluminous as my memoirs will
be, was written by a literary man, and was just deep enough to
please people who were not very accurate in their thinking. In these
respects, my memoirs will be at a great disadvantage, no doubt.
Still, there will be some sale for them; and the Executive Committee
can judge how far the net cost of the assistance given me might turn
out less than the amount first put in. I may mention, as a possibility,
that if my wife and I continue to live in this very lovely place, which
has 60 acres improved with 112 acres woodland, and a large house, I
should, if I get the aid asked from the Carnegie Institution, try to
have a free summer school of logic here; and should that flourish,
that is, should learners and teachers come here, and should the
place pass into my possession, then, if the Carnegie Institution
should have any use for it, it would with little doubt pass to the
Institution as a gift. Of course, there are several contingencies here.
SECTION 9
BASIS OF MY CLAIM
A man has put nearly fifty years of singleminded endeavor into a
work of benefit to science. He has a sort of claim, vague only in
being addressed to no particular party, that he should be rewarded
for what he has done. But the only reward which would be a reward
would be that of being enabled to complete his lifework.
At this juncture one of the most extraordinary figures of all
humanity puts down an enormous sum of money and expresses the
wish that it be used, as the second of six emphasized aims, "to
discover the exceptional man in every department of study
whenever and wherever found, inside or outside of schools, and
enable him to make the work for which he seems specially designed
his life work."
Composed as your body is, reason alone will determine your
decision. Logic is a "department of study." Whether or not, in this
narrow field, I am an "exceptional man"and to be such is anything
but a good fortune, in such a direction nothing but a burdenyou
will determine, looking probably into the third volume of
Schroeder's Logik where my work is mentioned in some two hundred
places. On page 1, I am called the "Hauptfoerderer" of "eine
grossartige Disziplin," the "Logik der Beziehungen." Although my
explanations attached to the above list of proposed memoirs are of
such a nature as to preclude their showing how greatly the logic of
relatives really determines all my conclusions upon every topic of
logic, nevertheless the impression which a reading of those
explanations would create, that the subject of relations does not
constitute any overwhelming part of the subjects of my researches,
is quite correct. Should it seem to you to be true that the duties of
an "exceptional man" in the department of logic have to be borne by
me, then it will become one of your duties to aid me in the
performance of mine to make the work for which this man "seems
specially designed his life work." I am frank to say that the idea that
phrase embodies has long impressed me; namely, that men seem to
be specially designed for various kinds of work, and that, if it be so,
the work for which I seem to have been designed is that of working
out the truths of logic.
If you should be led to this opinion, then my claim to the reward
for the life I have so far put into this work, the reward of being
enabled to complete it, in the sense in which it is susceptible of
completion, is no longer so vague; but I shall then find in you a
definite party upon whom I have that claim; since in satisfying it,
you will only be carrying out one of the responsibilities which you
have accepted.
Whatever action you may take, it is my duty to believe, and I do
believe, that the work will get done. At any rate, all that I feel much
concern about is that I should do my very utmost to carry out my
part effectively. I have no disposition to even ask myself what

specifically your duty is, of which you are the sole judges, except so
far as we shall all have to render account hereafter. Submitting,
then, my application to your kindly wisdom, I remain, Gentlemen,
With profound respect, etc., etc.
(signed) C. S. Peirce

Joseph Ransdell
Dept of Philosophy

Charles Sanders Peirce&#39;s MS L75

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Charles Sanders Peirce&#39;s MS L75

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

HomePagePapersbyPeircePeirceRelatedPapersIntrotoL75 L75Version2

Logic, Considered as Semeiotic

EDITORIAL NOTE: By the "Appendix" Peirce means the entire

2. Considerations as to its Utility.

Final Version MS L75.346349

COMMENT to L75.349 by Ransdell (Rev. 7398)

method in terms of a mechanistic procedure of generating or

What I desire aid in doing is in bringing before the world the

result of my researches into logic.

by mere hard thinking, that it was necessary to wait for the

EDITORIAL NOTE: Peirce apparently means that he failed in

called a hedonist, I who from the beginning of my career to this day,

From Draft B MS L75.39

devotion to that task would be requisite for its accomplishment.

From Draft C MS L75.6064

What are the researches of which I speak?

investigations of each together with an exhaustive critical

From Draft A MS L75.2933

But what would be the contents of my three ponderous volumes

have no need of any separate theory of logic to reinforce them.

End of PART 1 of 10 of MS L75

Queries, comments, and suggestions to

EDITORIAL NOTE: Bracketed material in the above scheme is

further elucidation: write it up as a criticism or commentary

This [classification] would be restricted to sciences as they

Final Version MS L75.357

From Draft E MS L75.207

This is the system which has a scale of values of only two

Final Version MS L75.357

From Draft E MS L75.208209

My work in this direction is already somewhat known, although

an exceedingly backward state and destitute of any method of proof

Final Version MS L75.357

From Draft B MS L75.19

[This memoir] will examine the nature of mathematical

From Draft E MS L75.209210

I have hitherto only published some slight hints of my

unpublished. I also find that the most effective kind of theorematic

From Draft C MS L75.90102

No science of logic is needed for mathematics beyond that which

will not here undertake to explain what the theory is in detail.

converts the |97| proposition "Opium puts people to sleep" into

numbers of the first abnumerable multitude which are not

From Draft C MS L75.129132

I now pass to a rough statement of my results in regard to the

Final Version MS L75.358

From Draft B MS L75.19

From Draft C MS L75.102108

My aim in this paper, upon which I have bestowed more labor

Editorial Note (by Ransdell):

In my present limited space, I cannot make myself clear, still

consciousness whenever we experience an event. The old, which

more rapidly, concave upwards. But if it

From Draft C MS L75.134139

Although I cannot in my present limited space make myself

impossible that in those languages the common noun should be

From Draft C MS L75.140142

I will name these elements here, although I cannot stop to

EDITORIAL NOTE: Here is a tabulation of the nomenclature for

From Draft E MS L75.161162

[This memoir] will explain the nature of a normative science and

From Draft D MS L75.231233

I here show the peculiar character of a normative science;

analyses of the problems of esthetics and of ethics.

Charles Sanders Peirce's MS L75

Charles Sanders Peirce's MS L75