DOUGLAS AINSLIE.
THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL,
March 1917.
[ADVERTISEMENT]
This volume is, and is not, the memoir entitled Outlines of Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept, which I presented to the Accademia Pontiana at the sessions of April 10 and May 1, 1904, and April 2, 1905, and which was inserted in volume xxxv. of the Transactions (printed as an extract from them by Giannini, Naples, 1905, in quarto, pp. 140).
I might have republished that memoir, and made in it certain corrections, great and small, and especially I might have enriched it with very numerous developments. But partial corrections and copious additions, while they would have injured the arrangement of the first work, would not have allowed me to attain to that more secure and fuller exposition of logical doctrine which, after four years' study and reflection, it now seems to be in my power to offer. I have therefore resolved to rewrite the work from the beginning on a larger scale, with a new arrangement and new diction regarding its predecessor as a sketch, which in a literary sense stands by itself, and only making use of a page, or group of pages, here and there, as suited the natural order of exposition.
Owing to this connection between the present volume with the above-mentioned academic memoir, it will be seen in what sense it may be called, and is called, a "second edition." It is a second edition of my thought rather than of my book.
B. C.