THE DENUNCIATION" OF HISTORY AND LOGIC.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIX, Issue 4931, 14 June 1873, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DENUNCIATION" OF HISTORY AND LOGIC.

To the Editor : Sir,— The President of the Auckland Institute, iu addressing that body and the public on Monday evening, made sortie observations of an uuusual kind, which were biiefly reported iu your columns on the i following day, and as to which it is desiiable tha*; they should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Mr. Gillies was engaged in recommending the prosecution of physical studies —an object cei tainly that is altogether laudable ; but in order to magnify and exalt oue important department of knowledge, it is not necessary to depress or vilify others. The President of the Auckland Institute, however, spoke slightingly of giving attention to what he called "the dry bones of histoiy" and "the tin icethrashed Btraw of logic ;" and, subsequently, he declared broadly that " the two-thirds of histoiy ia myth, ' and that " logic is not a qcioncp n.t all, but meicly the art of quibbling." As Superintendent of the piovince of Auckland Mr. Gillies presides over the Boaid of Education, and hia voice is potential in foi ming the educational arrangements of our province. He is also, as a professional man, possessed of a high repute ; and he worthily occupies, for the second time, the chair of the Auckland InstitutP. It is therefore, I think, of some importance to put the young and the inexperienced on their guard against acoording a hasty defeience to an ipse dixit that can be easilyshown to be exceedingly improbable. By history we practically meau the writings of the best histoiians ; and every good historian makes it his business to set forth what is nothing more than legend as legend, to lepreaent matters of mere hearsay asheaisay, and to a«sert as credible fact only that which is duly authenticated. Now will any asuie couple of men, who are reasonably acquainted with the subject, venture deliberately to say that of the conclusions amved at by such investigators as Gibbon, Robertson, Hillam, Arnold, Niebuhr, Grote, Thirlwall, Macaulay, &c, an amount of twothirds is to be denounced as worthless ? Such wild words as thoso, if coming from a speaker less fully and farourably known than his Honor the Superintendent of Auck- ■ land, would inevitably bo taken to indicate a mental condition in which a habit of scepticism had become aggravated to the degree of being morbid. Denunciation or depreciation of one department of truth is far from being an effectual means of promoting the acceptance of some other, which is fallaciously supposed to be a rival. Indeed, all departments of real knowledge are naturally allied to each other, and do mutually further one another. A scientific chaiacter pei tains to each, when it is scientifically treated. Sagacity and scientific disci iminatiou are as truly exercised in duly tracing the succession of political and social sequenoos, as in estimating, for example, the evidence of tha grand conclusion that man is descended from the monkey. As wo have seen that it is prima facie unreasonable to denounce history, the cnao of logic is similar. Lo^ic professes to be the science of analysing rfasoniug and its concomitants, and thus ascertaining the characteristics that belong to valid reasoning as distinguished from deceptive, and to the various kinds of judgments or propositions as distinguished from one another. The science of loyie, as it now exists, is one of the products of fcho last balf-century. The movement began with Whately, who made the revival and reform of logic one of the main purposes of his life. John Stuart Mill doveloped the Logic of 1 uductiou, and his treatise upon the subject constitutes one of his two greatest woiks Augustus do Morgan, who ranks among the most eminent of mathematiciaus. and^Sir William Hanvlton, tho most distinguished metaphysician of Britain dining the past generation, have sedulously studied logic, and aided iu its development. And not a few other names of weight and celebiity might be adduced. All of theso have defined logic .is constituting a certain bidnch of science, and have regarded the science as impoitant , nor has any influential opinion to tho contrary, so far as I am awaio, been expicssed for many years past. Meantime logic has been entenng more and moie largely into the curricula of education. The great University of Cambridge, in which the old logic had been long set anide, now recogm-<e3 and teaches the enlarged science. It is in this state of things that the President of the Auckland Institute, tho Superintendent of the Auckland Koaul of Education, tells us, on the authority of hn mere ipse dixit, that Ioljic is thiice-thioshed s'uw, and is not a science at all, but merely the art of quibbling ; while he fuither makes it known that histoiy is but dty bones, au>l is for the most part myth. Iu the present session of the Imperial Paili.imcnt, as eve>ybody knows, Mi. Glad■toue's Government was defeated, and was temporarily extiuded from office, on tho question ot I'uiveruty education in Irelaiui. The Government proposed that the Timersity of Dublin should absoih the other -,.milai institutions of that country, and that from" the J)ublm University, thus reconstituted, there should be excluded, so far aa tho qualifications for University

nftj ■ ,.w concerned, all recognition ,,i ii !<iit li'itory ami of mental and moral sti i.t.t. Mi Gl.ulstouo and hia colleagues con- nlci cd it necessary to curtail tho supreme curriculum of study in that manner, because of t' o leqiwipmonts of religious denominations m li viand ; but they professed extreme rcliKf met' and regret at having to make such as nlici to necessity. The proposed mutilii'i n of t! ituli'* waaou .ill bides lament* d «ii ,. i ii' il ( a id it turned tho balance of Mute a', f nubt the ( rovcrnmout. In the Houso «il ( 'oium.id'., .mil ontsido of it, there have 1k« 'i .implo dohatcq upon the GoTernment in ' Hie, ,uid tliero has been exhibited much di\i i ,ity "f interest* and opinions ; but not one party hna been found, nor, in the JIousp at li\mt, and probably nowhere else, has a sinj>lo individual come forward, to deny that the exclusion of modem histoiy and of ment.il and moral science was a miseiablc mutilation, or at least a thing to be lamented. It would not bo difficult to show reasons why both tho study of history and that of logic aro valuable ; but it is not necossaiy foi me to protract this lengthened communication by now attempting to do so. —I am, &<\, R01i!,RT KtT)U, LL.D. of Trinity College, Dublin.