But will this conception of Logic either work out consistently in itself or lead to a tenable theory of scientific thinking?  Emphatically not.  What is the use of a logic which (1) cannot effect the capital distinction of all thought, that between the true and the false? (2) is debarred by its own principles from considering the meaning of any real assertion? and (3) is thus tossed helplessly from horn to horn of the dilemma ‘either verbalism or psychology’?

We may select a few examples of this fatal dilemma.

1.  In dealing with what it calls ‘the meaning’ of terms, propositions, etc., Formal Logic has always to choose between the meaning of the words and the meaning of the man.  For it is clear that words which may be used ambiguously may on occasion leave no doubt as to their meaning, while conversely all may become ‘ambiguous’ in a context.  If, therefore, the occasion is abstracted from, all forms must be treated verbally as ambiguous formulae, which may be used in different senses.  If it is, nevertheless, attempted to deal with their actual meaning on any given occasion, what its maker meant the words to convey must be discovered, and the inquiry at once becomes ’psychological’—­that is to say, ‘extralogical.’

2.  If judgments are not to be verbal (’propositions’), but real assertions which are actually meant, they must proceed from personal selections, and must have been chosen from among alternative formulations because of their superior value for their maker’s purpose.  But all this is plainly an affair of psychology.  So inevitable is this that a truly formal Ideal of ‘Logic’ would exclude all judgment whatever from the complete system of ‘eternal’ Truth.  For from such a system no part could be rightly extracted to stand alone.  Such a selection could be effected and justified only by the exigencies of a human thinker.

The impotent verbalism of the formal treatment of judgment appears in another way when the question is raised how a ‘true’ judgment is to be distinguished from a ‘false.’  For the logician, if his public will not accept either the relegation of this distinction to ‘psychology’ or the proper formal answer that all judgments are (formally) ‘true’ and even ‘infallible,’ can think of nothing better to say than that if the ‘judgment’ is not true it was not a ‘true judgment,’ but a false ‘opinion’ which may be abandoned to ’psychology.’[G] Apparently he is not concerned to help men to discriminate between ‘judgments’ and ‘opinions,’ or even to show that true ‘judgments’ do in fact occur.

3.  Inference involves Formal Logic in a host of difficulties.

(a) If it is not to be a verbal manipulation of phrases whose coming together is not inquired into, it must be a connected train of thought.  But such a connection of thoughts cannot be conceived or understood without reference to the purpose of a reasoner, who selects what he requires from the totality of ‘truths.’  If, then, ‘Logic’ has merely to contemplate this eternal and immutable system of truth in its integrity, and forbids all selection from it for a merely human purpose, how can it either justify, or even understand, the drawing of any inference whatever?