8 " No living Englishman." This was of course published in 1883, and I think that it was true. My eulogy may perhaps on the whole be exaggerated, and that question I leave to others to decide. What I wrote remains as the expression of the gratitude I felt towards one whose book had helped me greatly in my logical struggles.
9 The second paragraph of this foot-note would have been better omitted. When writing it I did not know of the existence of a mathematical logic which was not equational. But even now I am in effect perhaps in no better case.
Whether a student of logic, who is incapable of learning mathe matics and has therefore to leave out of his theory a recognized part of the facts, should never have written on logic at all, or should later at least suppress all that he once wrote — I will not offer to discuss. And what should be his attitude towards a claim to base the principles of logic on mathematics, I once more hardly know. If a person like myself ventures to point out that something of what is thus offered seems to himself to be untenable and irrational — he can be met with the reply that, if he understood mathematics, he would forthwith think otherwise. And what his answer to this should be, I confess I can not say.
I am of course unable to accept a claim made on behalf of mathe matics to have rationally solved logical and metaphysical problems in a way unintelligible except to the mathematician. And there is one thing only which would incline me to accept such a claim. It would have to be made by a man, who can meet on their own ground the non-mathematical logicians and metaphysicians— can show that he understands and enters into their views and their puzzles — and can inspire the belief that he himself is somehow able better, even outside mathematics, to deal rationally with ultimate problems. But my whole acquaintance with this subject is unfortunately too limited even to justify perhaps what now I have ventured to set down.
Bradley, F. H.
The principles of logic