Symbolic Logic

Abstract

MR. MCCOLL still expresses surprise at my declining to answer a Yes or No question which he was pleased to put to me in NATURE (vol. xxiv. p. 124). It was, I should think, almost unique in a scientific journal. It turned upon a contradiction which he had detected between a statement which I never made and the fact that he surely entertained an impression that he had somewhere or other (he did not say where) seen me quoted as holding an opinion at variance with that statement. I did not think that time would be well employed in answering it. Even now he talks of his “quotation or misquotation”; a convenient but unusual latitude of expression for a serious case of the latter of these alternatives. Really I am not in the examination-room, and will not therefore attempt to compress into a few paragraphs the answers I should give upon intricate philosophical points, even were the questions reasonably framed. Moreover I must remind Mr. McColl that he does not profess to write as an impartial inquirer or critic, but asked for the insertion of his letter upon the ground that he conceived himself to have been attacked. I have fully explained the only point upon which he had any claim to call for an answer, and therefore now close the correspondence.