phasis as well as fuller and more varied
development, in defending them against definite objections, or
confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. The controversies
with Dr. Whewell, as well as much matter derived from Comte, were first
introduced into the book in the course of the re-writing.

At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the press, I offered it to
Murray, who kept it until too late for publication that season, and then
refused it, for reasons which could just as well have been given at
first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my
offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring of
1843. My original expectations of success were extremely limited.
Archbishop Whately had, indeed, rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the
study of the forms, rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr.
Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of
my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, on a matter so
abstract, could not be expected to be popular; it could only be a book
for students, and students on such subjects were not only (at least in
England) few, but addicted chiefly to the opposite school of
metaphysics, the ontological and "innate principles" school. I therefore
did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and
looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the
tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy. What hopes I
had of exciting any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the
polemical propensities of Dr Whewell; who, I thought, from observation
of his conduct in other cases, would probably do something to bring the
book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to the attack on his
opinions. He did reply but not till 1850, just in time for me to answer
him in the third edition. How the book came to have, for a work of the
kind, so much success, and what sort of persons compose the bulk of
those who have bought, I will not venture to say read, it, I have never
thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction with the many proofs
which have since been given of a revival of speculation, speculation too
of a free kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one time I
should have least expected it) in the Universities, the fact becomes
partially intelligible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book
had made any considerable impression on philosoph