CHAPTER IX
BOOLE AND THE LAWS OF THOUGHT
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Unity."
Sixty years ago, logicians had concluded that it would be convenient to express ordinary statements about facts in some sort of Arithmetical or Algebraic notation, so as to be able to work out the logical consequences of premises with the same ease as we work sums. Many attempts were made to create such a notation; but none of them proved satisfactory. There was in Lincoln a school-master in humble circumstances, who had, when a mere lad, solved for himself a problem of a very different order. It had occurred to him that the Scripture writers must have had some reason for laying so much stress on the command never to think of The Great All except as a Unity. He had acquired the habit of thinking of each class of things as a fraction of Unity. He found that this habit simplified all study; and by strict adherence to it he had, in the very small amount of leisure at his disposal, made of himself a fairly good linguist, a learned metaphysician, and a mathematician distinguished for the originality and vigour of his methods of investigation. When, therefore, he realized what was the problem over which logicians were pondering, it naturally occurred to him to try on their behalf the experiment of using the Arithmetical Symbol of Unity for Universe of Thought. Immediately the notation fell easily into order, and all the difficulties vanished.
