Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow NOTE BY THE EDITOR. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 8 (Chrestomathia, Essays on Logic and Grammar, Tracts on Poor Laws, Tracts on Spanish Affairs)

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 8 (Chrestomathia, Essays on Logic and Grammar, Tracts on Poor Laws, Tracts on Spanish Affairs)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Law
Subject Area: Philosophy
Topic: Education

NOTE BY THE EDITOR. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 8 (Chrestomathia, Essays on Logic and Grammar, Tracts on Poor Laws, Tracts on Spanish Affairs) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). In 11 vols. Volume 8.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

If the term Ontology be considered, as it generally is, synonymous with that of Metaphysics, and be held to embrace all that is brought together by the English writers on that science, the following tract will be found to illustrate but a very small branch of the subject. The original MSS. have indeed all the appearance of being purely fragmentary; and it is probable that the Author intended to incorporate them in the great system of Mental Philosophy, of a design to prepare which he has left so many traces, and of which the works on Logic, Language, and Grammar, which follow this, may be considered as portions. Although thus limited in extent, it was thought best to publish these pages in the form of a separate work, as the analysis and classification of the matter of thought and language which they contain, form what may be called the elements of the Author’s Psychical System, and are understood, or more briefly repeated, in all his examinations of the operations of the mind. The philosophical reader will perhaps find in them a key to many of the difficulties that created the controversy between the Realists and the Nominalists; and they undoubtedly throw considerable light on that dispute. The reader who wishes to follow out this subject will find farther elucidations of it in the tract on Logic, at pp. 246, 262, and in that on Language, at p. 327.

The MSS. from which this tract is edited bear date 1813, 1814, and 1821.