them a mass of novel ideas, the truth of which has not yet been tested, and by indoctrinating them with a mass of prejudices which differ from those of our forefathers chiefly by being expressed in new phraseology; it would be better to present to them a few subjects of study, selected according to some order which has been tested by long experience; and, when once a child's attention has been called to any topic, encourage him to think of it with absolute freedom and utter impartiality. This, and not any particular method for manipulating masses of syllogisms, is the main outcome of Boole's mathematical analysis of the Laws of Thought. It is a curious compilation; over-weighted with too great a mass and variety of material. In its attempt to bring the intellect and heart to work in unison, it fails to make its appeal to either easily intelligible. It needs a far closer study than ordinary readers can be expected to give to an author. Nevertheless, it is a very amusing book, because of its latent satire on those mental processes which religious and ethical writers call "thinking." A few quotations will make clear the author's opinion of ordinary religious controversy.
"I shall examine what are the actual premises involved; whether those premises be expressed or implied. By the actual premises I mean whatever propositions are assumed in the course of the argument, without being proved, and are employed as parts of the foundation upon which the final conclusion is built. . . . The chief practical difficulty of this inquiry will consist, not in the application of the method to the premises once determined, but in ascertaining what the premises are. In what are regarded as the most rigorous examples
