Note 24-1 — Chapter I · THE BEARING OF THE LAWS OF MIND ON RELIGION.

George Boole, Professor of Mathematics in Queen’s College, Cork, was born Nov. 2, 1815, died Dec. 8, 1864. He was the author of several contributions to the higher mathematics, but his principal production is entitled: An Investigation into the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities [London, 1854.] Though the reputation he gained was so limited that one may seek his name in vain in the New American Cyclopedia [1875], or the Dictionnaire des Contemporains [1859], the few who can appreciate his treatise place the very highest estimate upon it. Professor Todhunter, in the preface to his History of the Theory of Probabilities, calls it “a marvellous work,” and in similar language Professor W. Stanley Jevons speaks of it as “one of the most marvellous and admirable pieces of reasoning ever put together” (Pure Logic, p. 75). Professor Bain, who gives a synopsis of it in his Deductive Logic, wholly misapprehends the author’s purpose, and is unable to appraise justly his conclusions.