A Logic of Facts

The Logic of the Schools, however indispensable in its place, fails to
meet half the common want in daily life. The Logic of the Schools begins
with the _management_ of the premises of an argument; there is, however,
a more practical lesson to be learned in beginning with the _premises_
themselves. A thousand errors arise through the assumption of premises
for one arising in the misplacement of terms. The Logic of the Schools
is an elaborate attack upon the lesser evil.

Sir James Mackintosh has remarked that 'Popular reason can alone correct
popular sophistry'--and it is in vain that we expect amendment in the
reasoning of the multitude, unless we make reasoning intelligible to
the multitude. As to my object, could I, like Gridiron-Cobbett, adopt a
symbol of it, I would have engraved Æsop's 'Old Man and his Ass,' who,
in a vain attempt to please everybody, failed (like his disciples--for
even _he_ has disciples) to please anybody. The folly of that
superfluously philanthropic old gentleman should teach us _proportion_
of purpose. To be of real service; to _some_ is in the compass of
individual capacity, and consequently, the true way of serving, if not
of pleasing _all_. The republic of literature, like society, has its
aristocratic, its middle, and its lower classes. No one has combined, in
one performance, the refinement applauded in the universities, with the
practical purpose, popular among those who toil to live, and live to
toil. The populace are my choice--of them I am one, and, like a recent
premier, Earl Grey, am disposed 'to stand by my order.' I write for this
class both from affection and taste. If I can benefit any, I can them.
I know their difficulties, for I have encountered them--their wants, for
they have been mine. This will account for the liberties taken with the
subjects upon which I treat. There is more than one kind of hunger that
will break through barriers, and I have taken with an unlicensed hand,
wherever it was to be found, what I wanted for myself, and what I know
to be wanted by those who stand at the anvil and the loom, and who never
had the benefits of scholastic education, and who never will.