One critic, who was kind enough to look at this book in manuscript, recommended me to abandon the design of Publishing it, on the ground that my logic was too like all other logics; another suggested to me to cut out a considerable amount of new matter. The latter advice I have followed; the former has encouraged me to hope that I shall not be considered guilty of wanton innovation. The few novelties which I have ventured to retain will, I trust, be regarded as legitimate extensions of received lines of teaching.
My object has been to produce a work which should be as thoroughly representative of the present state of the logic of the Oxford Schools as any of the text-books of the past. The qualities which I have aimed at before all others have been clearness and consistency. For the task which I have taken upon myself I may claim one qualification—that of experience; since more than seventeen years have now elapsed since I took my first pupil in logic for the Honour School of Moderations, and during that time I have been pretty continuously engaged in studying and teaching the subject.
