PERSPICUOUS DEMONSTRATION of 
 
 H ow LOGIC stands ready to 
 TEACH US TO DO 
 
 Frank, Honest, Sincere, Telic 
 THINKING; 
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO 
 
 Frank, Honest, Sincere, Courteous 
 STATING; 
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO 
 
 an enlightened altruistic 
 CONSCIENCE, 
 
 VERACITY, and 
 SINCERE COURTESY; 
 
 ALL PREREQUISITES TO 
 
 Universal Social Harmony, 
 
 thus incidentally terminating the 
 present continuous legal wounding and killing 
 of PEDESTRIANS. 
 
 Copyright 1921 
 By JACOB FRECH 
 
 Acme Printing Co., Washington, D. C. 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. A 
 charge is made on all overdue 
 books. 
 
 ( f, ! 
 
 
 A 
 
 JAN 19 '37 
 
 U. of I. Library 
 
 
 1 j > 
 
 
 9324-S 
 
( o 1 4" i % (o Q. 
 
 F ? 1 f 3 
 
 SUBJECT: The fallacy-breeding power of natural illusion and 
 
 of natural prejudice (or prepossession) and their influences re 
 
 certain traffic safety laws; and suggestion of a remedy. 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 
 May 2, 1918. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 1. Sometimes an analogon is more cogent than a direct ex- 
 ample. Let one try to fix his gaze as well as possible on a point 
 on the outer circumference of a tire of a wheel of an auto moving 
 at any degree of uniform speed. This point will be exactly where 
 the outer-end of a diameter, (or of an imaginary spoke having 
 neither breadth nor thickness) would be. Assume that he does 
 this for the purpose of ascertaining whether he can see that that 
 observed point (or that part of the tire) moves (through space) 
 faster or slower at one time in any one uniform revolution than 
 it moves at some other time during that same revolution. 
 
 2. He may find it practically impossible to make that observa- 
 tion. The eye is not quick enough to watch the relative successive 
 rates of speed of the point during a very quick revolution and the 
 result must be an illusion; and in a slow revolution the informa- 
 tion gained by the eye of an observer not logically inclined, may 
 be obscured or confused or warped by a natural prejudice or pre- 
 possession. 
 
 3. This natural prejudice or prepossession is embodied in the 
 following fallacious major premise: whenever an auto wheel 
 moves at a uniform rate of speed : every part of its tire moves at a 
 uniform rate of speed: for otherwise the tire would split. This 
 prejudice or prepossession is an undefined feeling rather than an 
 explicit thought or an explicit judgment. 
 
 4. However, if the eye were quick enough, and if the mind 
 is freed from certain natural prejudices or prepossessions, and if 
 the observer’s reasoning powers were logically trained he could 
 observe and realize the following facts: 
 
 (a) That the point (call it P) on which his gaze is supposedly 
 fixed moves during any one entire revolution through space faster 
 than the auto moves. 
 
 1 
 
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 F?1f 
 
 1 
 
 1/3 
 
 nr) 
 
 I ^ 
 
 X 
 
 SUBJECT: The fallacy-breeding power of natural illusion and 
 
 of natural prejudice (or prepossession) and their influences re 
 
 certain traffic safety laws ; and suggestion of a remedy. 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 
 May 2, 1918. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 1. Sometimes an analogon is more cogent than a direct ex- 
 ample. Let one try to fix his gaze as well as possible on a point 
 on the outer circumference of a tire of a wheel of an auto moving 
 at any degree of uniform speed. This point will be exactly where 
 the outer-end of a diameter, (or of an imaginary spoke having 
 neither breadth nor thickness) would be. Assume that he does 
 this for the purpose of ascertaining whether he can see that that 
 observed point (or that part of the tire) moves (through space) 
 faster or slower at one time in any one uniform revolution than 
 it moves at some other time during that same revolution. 
 
 2. He may find it practically impossible to make that observa- 
 tion. The eye is not quick enough to watch the relative successive 
 rates of speed of the point during a very quick revolution and the 
 result must be an illusion; and in a slow revolution the informa- 
 tion gained by the eye of an observer not logically inclined, may 
 be obscured or confused or warped by a natural prejudice or pre- 
 possession. 
 
 3. This natural prejudice or prepossession is embodied in the 
 following fallacious major premise: whenever an auto wheel 
 moves at a uniform rate of speed : every part of its tire moves at a 
 uniform rate of speed: for otherwise the tire would split. This 
 prejudice or prepossession is an undefined feeling rather than an 
 explicit thought or an explicit judgment. 
 
 4. However, if the eye were quick enough, and if the mind 
 is freed from certain natural prejudices or prepossessions, and if 
 the observer’s reasoning powers were logically trained he could 
 observe and realize the following facts: 
 
 (a) That the point (call it P) on which his gaze is supposedly 
 fixed moves during any one entire revolution through space faster 
 than the auto moves. 
 
 1 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 (b) That P moves very much faster than the auto when P is 
 near the highest possible place in the wheel (call it T for top), and 
 that it (P) ceases to move (comes to a momentary rest) at the 
 instant when it is at the lowest possible place (call it B for bottom) , 
 i. e. P stops at B (on the ground) as it completes its forward- 
 downward direction, makes an angular change in its direction and 
 starts with a bound on its next upward-forward direction towards 
 T (top). 
 
 (c) That the rate of speed of P during every revolution varies 
 increasingly from no speed at B (ground) to maximum speed at T 
 (top), and thence varies decreasingly to no speed again at B. 
 
 (d) That regardless of the regularity or irregularity of speed 
 of the auto, P moves through space two diameters of the wheel 
 while going from B to T or from T to B. 
 
 5. If, as herein intimated, the eye cannot accurately report 
 to the mind these properties of a moving auto tire, the question 
 may well be asked, How can the mind obtain or imbibe that infor- 
 mation, and become convinced of its truth. 
 
 6. The question is a very proper one, and in fact might be 
 one of vital importance, assuming for instance that one or more 
 of those properties were a factor in what is termed the skidding 
 of a swift moving auto, under certain circumstances. The writer 
 does not mean to assert nor to imply that it is such a factor ; for 
 this illustration is here used merely as an analogon tending to 
 prove how easily the most practical man can be self -deceived, can 
 nurse a fallacy, and can sincerely reject valid argument when it 
 does not appeal to his practical reason or so-called common sense. 
 
 7. Man is endowed with a peculiar faculty or power which 
 we call REASON. That power enables the mind to SYLLOGIZE 
 or to THINK or to REASON, (using this latter word here as a 
 verb). These three emphasized words are here used as being 
 practically synonymous. 
 
 8. Reason enables us to analyze or dissect a complex problem 
 into its simpler parts so that each part can be studied by itself; 
 and so that the results of the study can be synthesized and the 
 otherwise complex or entangled or confusing problem be almost 
 as clearly or distinctly understood, as a whole, as can be so un- 
 derstood each of the analyzed, and consequently simpler, parts of 
 that complex problem. 
 
 2 
 
May 2 , 1918 
 
 9. LOGIC is the (psychological) science of reasoning (or 
 thinking of syllogizing) . It tells or shows us that by INDUCTION 
 (or inductive methods) we can try and often succeed in DISCOV- 
 ERING and PROVING principles (or heretofore secrets) of 
 Nature; and that we have no science other than Logic to guide our 
 reason in systematically doing so; for logic is also the science of 
 system and method in general. 
 
 10. Logic also teaches us that having discovered any one prin- 
 ciple of Nature we can record it in the form of a GENERAL PROP- 
 OSITION (or a TRUTH) and place or file it in the record-body of 
 SCIENCE, thus forming or creating an exhaustless TRUTH- 
 TREASURY, upon which we can forever make drafts ; each draft 
 being in the form of a MINOR PREMISE of a deductive syllogism ; 
 so that whenever we wish, in any certain CASE, (phenomenon, 
 object, problem, difficulty, etc.) to know or to use any subordinate 
 or unobvious individual or specific TRUTH INVOLVED (or in- 
 explicitly contained or embodied) in such a recorded or known 
 general proposition, we can by the exercise of our trained logical 
 powers or ingenuity, obtain that involved individual or specific 
 truth by DEDUCTION (or deductive methods) ; by using that 
 general proposition as a MAJOR PREMISE of the necessarily re- 
 sulting deductive SYLLOGISM. 
 
 11. When a deductive syllogism is in the First Figure, it has 
 the following attributes, some of which are peculiar to that figure, 
 while the others are common also to the other three figures ; 
 
 The logical subject of the Major Premise is unambiguously des- 
 ignated the MIDDLE TERM of the syllogism. These two combined 
 words never have any other meaning. Their meaning is as unam- 
 biguous as is the legal definition of a United States Treasury Note: 
 and the function and the univocality of the middle term of a syllo- 
 gism is as important in our daily reasonings as is the function and 
 the univaluity (if the term is permissible) of a Treasury Note in 
 our commercial transactions. 
 
 12. It is probably as certain as it is remarkable and lamentable 
 that many educated persons have had no opportunity to have 
 knowledge of what the words Middle Term stand for; and that 
 probably very many educated persons have no adequate knowledge 
 of what the words Middle Term stand for; or at least do not use 
 them in any important discussion or argument ; in which their use, 
 if also understood by the addressees, would sometimes sooner bring 
 the case to a needed clear-cut issue; or would sometimes result in 
 
 3 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 the framing of more precise and effective regulations. Probably 
 much of each of the ethical treaties of the Nineteenth and earlier 
 centuries is practically valueless or worse because the derived con- 
 clusions are drawn from dogmatic premises or from premises con- 
 taining either an Undistributed Middle Term or an Ambiguous 
 Middle Term or some other violation of the rules of the syllogism. 
 
 13. An intelligent person may well say that he never has heard 
 of a Middle Term, and consequently think that neither he nor his 
 associates use any Middle Term, either implicitly or explicitly, con- 
 fusedly or correctly. Likewise some intelligent person may also 
 well say he never has heard of syntax , or metaphor or prose, 
 whereas whoever hears him or reads hi$ communications, knows 
 that that person is, or was, wrestling somehow, fumblingly or 
 otherwise, with syntax and metaphors while trying to express his 
 thoughts in prose. 
 
 14. As already stated the logical subject of the Major Premise 
 is designated the MIDDLE TERM of the syllogism and it also is 
 (or becomes) the predicate of the MINOR PREMISE ; the logical 
 predicate of the Major Premise is unambiguously designated the 
 MAJOR TERM, and is (or becomes) also the predicate of the de- 
 duced CONCLUSION. The certain CASE (phenomenon, object, 
 problem, difficulty, etc.) that the mind has before it when feeling 
 the impulse to syllogize deductively is unambiguously designated 
 the MINOR TERM of the syllogism, and is and becomes the subject 
 of both the Minor Premise and of the deduced Conclusion. 
 
 15. Now reverting to the seemingly paradoxical movements of 
 P which the eye can not easily observe, it is to be remarked that 
 probably more than 2000 years ago, relevant major premises were 
 discovered and recorded by scientists which enable the reason to 
 satisfy itself that the four stated propositions, par. 4, regarding the 
 movements of P are true, notwithstanding that autos and auto tires 
 were not then known. 
 
 16. The following table represents what logicians would prob- 
 ably term a Deductive Syllogism of the First Figure in the quantity 
 of Extension : a figure to which the other three syllogistic figures 
 are said to be reducible. This table may possibly serve to demon- 
 strate that when those two propositions of the syllogism that are 
 termed Premises, (Major Premise and Minor Premise) so meet in 
 the mind that the mind, by a fortunate or sagacious act sees or 
 realizes their mutual relevancy, or when the two propositions are 
 
 4 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 adequately brought by one person to the attention of another sin- 
 cere person, the theretofore possibly unrealized conclusion instantly 
 and certainly flashes from them , like a spark from flint and steel. 
 The two propositions may have been independent or segregated 
 pieces of information long listlessly wambling around in the sub- 
 conscious mind, or lying inactive and unappreciated like Gray’s 
 gem of purest ray serene, never until then explicitly coming to- 
 gether or copulated in the conscious mind. 
 
 Names 
 
 of 
 
 Propositions 
 
 S or 
 
 Individual or 
 
 Case or 
 
 Minor Term 
 
 Copula 
 
 M or 
 
 Species [or 
 Middle Term 
 
 Copula 
 
 P or 
 
 Genus or 
 
 Major Term 
 
 Minor 
 
 Premise 
 
 Major 
 
 Premise 
 
 A point on the 
 outer circumfer- 
 ence of a tire of 
 a wheel of a mov- 
 ing auto 
 
 is 
 
 A point on the 
 circumference of a 
 circle rolled along 
 a straight line 
 
 Ditto 
 
 is 
 
 A point that 
 generates a com- 
 mon cycloid 
 (which necessarily 
 has the recorded 
 discovered or de- 
 ducible attributes 
 of a common cy- 
 cloid) 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Ditto 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 17. The foregoing example illustrates that the peculiar and 
 irresistible cogency of a syllogism having unquestionable premises 
 and no ambiguous term consists of the fact that the conclusion 
 exists in the premises and is born from their conscious conjunc- 
 tion, as is evidenced by the fact that in a written syllogism the 
 conclusion is completely indicable by dittoing from the premises 
 (without writing one significant word as a part of the conclusion) . 
 This principle of cogency applies to syllogisms whose premises 
 relate to the protection of pedestrians, AND TO OTHER ETH- 
 ICAL PROBLEMS, if the premises contain precise or clearly de- 
 fined or unambiguous terms and are statements of facts or prin- 
 ciples or authoritative precepts, i. e., are unquestionable truths 
 or unquestionable precepts. 
 
 18. This much has been written in the thought that it may 
 serve as evidence of the utility of establishing , when time and 
 opportunity permit, an Executive Departmert of Science, a need 
 for which was developed in paragraphs 25 and 32, January 5, 1917. 
 That Department would be empowered and equipped to make and 
 to promote the making of psychological investigations, inductively 
 and deductively. 
 
 5 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 19. As one of many useful results, the solution of those psycho- 
 logical problems of importance to the advancement of this Nation 
 that have arisen in this discussion of the ethical right hut not yet 
 legal right , of a pedestrian to dignified and safe passage on a street 
 crossing and on a roadway having no sidewalks, would he aided hy 
 discovered premises of a quality better than can be obtained from 
 a study of the data furnished by the findings of our Coroner Jury 
 systems (par. 18, Mch. 31 and 50-d, June 5, 1917). These data 
 being probably the only official data now made public on the sub- 
 ject. Occasionally communications from various sources are pub- 
 lished that unintentionally tend to breed or to confirm homicidal 
 fallacies on the subject by fastening aversive epithets on the pedes- 
 trians; or by confounding a legal right to endanger, to injure and 
 to kill timid or infirm pedestrians, with an ethical right to do so. 
 (Par. 21, June 5, 1917), and expressing the notion right , ambigu- 
 ously by using only the unqualified word right. 
 
 20. When the notion, or word, right is the middle term and it 
 is unconsciously or unsuspectedly interpreted as an ethical right in 
 one premise and as a legal right in the other premise, and if the 
 two classes of right differ in those premises, the syllogism has 
 nominally or audibly or visibly not more than the three required 
 terms ; but actually it has four terms , by reason of the duplicity of 
 the middle term. Logicians term such a syllogism a quadruped , 
 and as it violates the rule that a syllogism can not have more than 
 three terms, that syllogism is not a valid basis for its deduced con- 
 clusion. 
 
 James McCosh, former President of Princeton College, in his 
 able treatise on Logic says: 
 
 “In a syllogism there can only be one middle term. It is 
 only thus we can bring the extreme (minor and major terms) 
 into comparison. When a middle term is ambiguous we may 
 have two middle terms in sense though not in sound: and we 
 are ever liable to compare the one extreme with the middle 
 used in one sense, and the other extreme with the middle used 
 in another sense. Hence the fallacy of ambiguous Middle. 
 
 “Many valuable practical as well as scientific ends are to 
 be gained by an acquaintance with logical principles and the 
 violations of them. It is most important, for the guidance of 
 our thoughts, to know what are the essential steps involved in 
 inference; that in most reasoning there is a major premise 
 implied in the form of a general principle. By logical training 
 
 6 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 the mind is led to look keenly into the meaning of terms and 
 the relation of terms to one another, and to place the case 
 fairly before the mind. 
 
 “How useful, too, to know what are the common forms of 
 invalid reasoning ; to be aware of the places where error lurks; 
 so that we may be on our guard against its insidious attacks , 
 or ready if need be to seek it out and expose it to view and 
 hunt it to death. * * * A prejudiced heart presents a par- 
 
 tial, an exaggerated, a distorted case to the judicial power 
 * * * our erroneous judgments and invalid reasonings 
 
 spring from the prepossessions of the heart, * * leading us 
 
 to trace effects to wrong causes and deceiving us by fair 
 appearances and specious analogies. * * * 
 
 “It is one of the advantages arising from science , from 
 honest discussion , and progress of thought generally, that it 
 gives greater precision to language by compelling us to dis- 
 tinguish the diverse things wrapt up in one complex phrase, 
 and to get a separate term for each. It was disputed whether 
 the syllogism was or was not an invention of Aristotle, and 
 both parties were right and both ivrong according to the use 
 they made of the term. Such discussion led to a distinction 
 being drawn between invention and discovery, the former 
 being confined to the devising of something new, and the latter 
 to the finding out of what before existed, and we now deny that 
 Aristotle invented the syllogism, while we claim for him that 
 he discovered the syllogism to be the form to which all reason- 
 ing can be reduced.” 
 
 22. John Grier Hibben, Professor of Logic in Princeton Uni 
 versity, announces the following in his treatise on Inductive Logic 
 
 “In any course of reasoning concerning the conduct of our 
 every day affairs or in scientific investigation we reason both 
 inductively and deductively in a complete process. * * In 
 
 the actual experiences of life we do not find our premises 
 ready made. They are the result of wide observation and 
 patient investigation and experience. * * Knowledge is 
 
 capable (susceptible) of arrangement in a self-consistent and 
 harmonious system and which moreover in its content and 
 form faithfully represents objective reality. 
 
 “It is the peculiar function of logical analysis to discrimi- 
 nate between the relevant and the irrelevant. 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 “It should be kept prominently in mind that surface dif- 
 ferences may hide essential resemblances and that surface re- 
 semblance may hide essential differences. ,, 
 
 Sir John Stoddart, in his Philosophy of Language, says : 
 
 “There are two modes of acquiring knowledge with refer- 
 ence to the distinctions of Genus , Species and Individual; the 
 ascending or inductive mode and the descending or deductive 
 mode. These are the two wings of the human mind.” 
 
 23. Following are extracts from paragraphs 25, 32 and 33 of 
 January 5, 1917 : 
 
 (Par. 25, Jan. 5, 1917.) Legislators have it in their power to 
 ignore psychological and ethical principles. In fact some of these 
 principles they can not yet apply or be guided by, because some 
 have not been discovered or proved ; for this a scientific department 
 of the Government is needed. 
 
 (Par. 32, Jan. 5, 1917.) The legislator can at any time change 
 the law he made whenever he finds that it does not produce the 
 desired effect, or that it does avoidable evil. A principle can not be 
 changed. A principle that causes evil can be counteracted by 
 judiciously bringing other appropriate counteracting principles 
 into play. To discover and classify or find the relative relations 
 of principles is the business and province of SCIENCE ; a branch 
 that possibly may in the future become an important Government 
 department , whose business it would be to discover important psy- 
 chological principles and to disseminate them. If there were a 
 Science Department in existence, questions or suggestions of prin- 
 ciples such as those affecting the welfare of more than 200,000 
 citizens per year (par. 16, Jan. 5, 1917) could properly be referred 
 to that department with the reasonable hope that adequate scien- 
 tific refutation or confirmation would be furnished with syllogistic 
 completeness (par. 6, Nov. 25, 1916). Such a Department would 
 become a Department of useful knowledge or of general informa- 
 tion that is not to be found in other existing Governmental depart- 
 ments. It would necessarily classify its information, because 
 science is classified knowledge, and it could furnish needed infor- 
 mation regarding principles on request, or state the exact place or 
 places in which that information can be found, viz; one or more 
 named standard books or pamphlets which treat only of that prin- 
 ciple, or what pages of one or more named composite books or pam- 
 phlets contain standard articles on that principle. This would en- 
 able scientific investigators to make useful and wonderful progress. 
 
 8 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 (Par. 33, Jan. 5, 1917.) This would greatly facilitate the 
 framing of adequate safety laws, and the improvement of experi- 
 mental safety-laws, and consequently would aid in improving the 
 Police Regulations of the District so as to tend to insure dignified 
 and safe passage of pedestrians on street crossings and on road- 
 ways having no sidewalks. 
 
 24. In a certain sense every case and every separable part of a 
 case and every questioned term in a case brought into a court is 
 analogous to or is in fact a minor notion or minor term of a rele- 
 vant syllogism. The relevant law (or law-clause) and law prece- 
 dents, (being major premises) contain respectively the various 
 relevant middle terms with which these minor terms can be com- 
 pared. 
 
 25. Every police officer who observes an attempt or an act 
 that he thinks comes within his disciplinary province instantly 
 forms in his mind a notion of that attempt or act, which notion it 
 may be useful here to designate syllogistically a minor notion; if 
 he, or any one for him, names that notion, the name of that notion 
 is a syllogistic minor term. He then bethinks himself as to whether 
 there is a middle notion (or a middle term) in a major premise 
 (M is P) of the law (or police regulations) which includes that 
 minor term, as does a species include one of its individuals. If he 
 knows of such a middle term then he feels that he has a case that 
 the court ought to take cognizance of. All that he has to do there- 
 fore is to try to establish or prove his case or minor term; if he 
 proves it and if the judge sees that if fits into the middle term he 
 forms the minor premise (S is M) and deduces the conclusion 
 (S is P) ; and imposes a penalty, if the law imposes a penalty. 
 Likewise every prosecuting officer or plaintiff’s attorney studies 
 the alleged act of the accused or the defendant and has it in his 
 mind as a minor notion or minor term, and searches the law and 
 precedents for the relevant middle term; if he finds one, he feels 
 that he has a case that he can properly bring into court. The attor- 
 ney for the accused or the defendant tries to show that the alleged 
 minor term is wrong, or if he cannot do that, he tries to show that 
 it is not an individual of, or included in, the cited middle term, 
 (S is not M) ; etc., etc. 
 
 26. As some of our laws are far from their ethical goal, and 
 as some harmful or vicious though not yet illegal acts must some- 
 times be disciplined although a relevant middle can not be found , 
 (because our laws are in some instances far in arrears of the needs 
 
 9 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 of society), an accidental attribute of the harmful or vicious act 
 is taken as a minor because a middle can be found for that acci- 
 dental attribute. For instance, there being no middle or no en- 
 forcible middle for the act of killing a pedestrian while the driver 
 is not exceeding speed limits 'the auto driver may be brought to 
 trial on an accidental minor, such as having no license, for which a 
 middle can be readily found. Also, the middle, obstructing traffic , 
 might be used for picketing a store, if the pickets did not keep con- 
 stantly moving; whereas the ethical injury lies in the one case in 
 the avoidable killing and in the other case in the picketing, it 
 being a public continuous peace-breach provoking discourtesy. 
 (See par. 47.) 
 
 27. No conscientious person can satisfy his mind that he 
 ought or ought not to have done a certain thing, or ought or ought 
 not to have done it in a certain way, except by conscious or uncon- 
 scious syllogism. Conscience is consequently as liable to fallacy as 
 is any other mode of illogical or unenlightened or untrained rea- 
 soning. 
 
 y 
 
 28. When we apply to questions affecting the legal protec- 
 tion of the human mind, or the body, or life, a principle of Eco- 
 nomics instead of a principle of Ethics, when the two differ, we 
 may be falling into homicidal fallacy ; for Perry in his treatise on 
 Political Economy says that Ethical Science appeals only to an 
 enlightened conscience whereas Political Economy appeals only to 
 an enlightened selfishness and that exchanges are made because 
 they are mutually advantageous and for no other reason. 
 
 29. In the metaphoric exchange made between the auto driver 
 and the pedestrian by the legislators the mutuality of the advan- 
 tages is nullified by the fact that the auto drivers have on the street 
 or roadway one or more powerful, swiftly moving, danger-threat- 
 ening machines and the pedestrian has only his body ; and with re- 
 gard to the rhetoric of the laws and their interpretation and en- 
 forcement, the advantage is again one-sided as is evident from 
 these letters and from an article in a Washington newspaper of the 
 21st ultimo, which reads as follows: 
 
 “The motorists in various States are constantly on the 
 watch for offensive legislation, which is invariably introduced 
 by overzealous legislators each year. 
 
 “The answer to the whole thing is for each motorist to do 
 his individual part in the fight against discriminating lega- 
 tion. The best way to get results is through your own motor 
 dub. 
 
 10 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 “In union there is strength has become a trite expression, 
 but its truth is indisputable.” 
 
 30. There is no organized body, association, club or union of 
 pedestrians, on the watch for or to fight against discriminating 
 legislation. With regard to the appalling number of pedestrian 
 deaths and injuries, certain terms of the legislation that watchful 
 and belligerent auto associations by their natural self-interested 
 activity cause to be satisfactory to the auto drivers , the individual 
 pedestrian (man, woman or child) mournfully finds to be uninten- 
 tionally homicidal for the pedestrian. 
 
 31. The natural prejudice and prepossession of the conscienti- 
 ous and impulsive auto drivers encounter no corrective suggestions 
 from pedestrians when the drivers appear before the legislators 
 and recommend so-called Safety-first pedestrian legislation or 
 amendments thereof. 
 
 32. The slogan “Safety -First” completely shields the ill- 
 informed impetuous class of auto drivers from needed disciplinary 
 educating ; it means in effect that, if a mother escapes an auto or 
 street car she successfully applied “Safety-first,” whatever it stands 
 for; and that, if she is injured or killed, then she neglected to apply 
 “Safety-first” and consequently is likely to be pronounced careless, 
 or negligent, or imprudent, or the victim of an accident; lawfully 
 injured or killed. 
 
 33. It may be interesting to carefully observe a mother ven- 
 turing to cross a street on which are autos or a street car. Observe 
 the look of deep concern and great fear; imagine the palpitations 
 of that mother’s heart. If the thought that in the mind of that 
 mother, at that time, there can exist the notion or feeling of care- 
 lessness, or negligence, or imprudence, were not due to natural 
 prejudice or prepossession, it would have to be ascribed to syste- 
 mic absolute subordination of mothers' lives to traffic economy; 
 that economy being measured by a maximum unit of not over three 
 seconds, at the utmost, and even then only whenever a human life 
 is in jeopardy. If no humane remedy is applied, in the course of 
 some years we will kill in our entire country, one hundred mothers 
 carrying prayer books to or from church, to one man reading a 
 newspaper, assuming that such a man was ever killed. When in- 
 quiry is made, “why are so many pedestrians killed and injured?” 
 one is likely to hear, right and left, the enthymematic innuendo, 
 “Safety -first, you know,” or the slanderous enthymeme “People will 
 
 11 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 read newspapers when crossing a street.” Because of the contin- 
 ually and widely disseminated non sequitur fallacy, either form of 
 answer is convincing ; and there ends that inquiry into a cause that 
 can be easily counteracted or controlled. 
 
 34. The science of LOGIC has been given prominence in this 
 letter because science is in effect applied logic. Logic is the mother 
 of all science. No Logic , no Science. A Department of Science 
 would be in a sense a department of applied logic; consequently 
 were a Department of Science created it would soon see the need 
 of inquiring to what extent Logic is being taught in the public 
 schools; and if not adequately taught WHY NOT. 
 
 35. It would also in the course of time discover that, Ethics 
 is susceptible of being treated as a science by itself , limited solely 
 to conduct between human beings, and towards the lower animals ; 
 its principles, or general propositions, or established truths, being 
 established by the logical process of induction and deduction, and 
 its nomenclature and terminology made reasonably univocal by 
 scientific naming or redefining. This would probably soon result 
 in the erection of a science of sincere courtesy, which in fact em- 
 braces nearly the entire field of Ethics; for no person can think of 
 doing, or begin to do, what we would call wrong of any kind or 
 degree, to any person, without violating some species or principle 
 of sincere courtesy or without breaking away from the restraints 
 of sincere courtesy. 
 
 36. The importance of the establishment of a science of 
 courtesy to the problem of safety of pedestrians is probably appar- 
 ent from the fact that courtesy is necessarily largely treated of in 
 this series of letters. 
 
 37. Par. 6, Jan. 5, 1917, states that as the Principle of Cour- 
 tesy is not yet analyzed and constituted a science, it is either little 
 understood or inadequately understood however frequently we use 
 the word courtesy; and that consequently the process of counter- 
 acting certain relevant evil psychological principles or germs is 
 slow because as yet it is unscientifically or unmethodically con- 
 ducted. 
 
 38. The proposed Department of Science would probably soon 
 find proof of the foregoing assertion, by realizing that as indicated 
 in par. 8, Jan. 5, 1917, there are three great divisions or species of 
 courtesy agreeing with or conforming to the three necessary organ- 
 ismal relations of superordinacy, subordinacy and coordinacy ; that 
 
 12 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 these three species of courtesy require for precise communicating 
 or teaching 3 nouns to name them ; and 3 more to name the corre- 
 sponding species of discourtesy. That these 6 species call for 6 
 adjectives to specify their respective qualities and 6 adverbs to 
 specify their respective modes; such as the words graciousness, 
 gracious, graciously; and deference, deferential, deferentially, and 
 comity, comitous, comitousiy, would be, if all of these words were 
 in our language, and were specifically or scientifically defined as 
 names for the acts, the qualities and the modes of the three species 
 of courtesy, respectively. 
 
 39. Of these 18 needed ivords some of our best dictionaries do 
 not probably contain even one that is adequately or specifically de- 
 fined. Those dictionaries have probably 50 or 75 words purporting 
 to name (1) acts, (2) qualities and (3) modes of courtesy and dis- 
 courtesy, but nearly every one is confusingly or redundantly or 
 overlappingly or unscientifically or unspecifically defined. Conse- 
 quently when one of those words is used in a sentence the addressee 
 has no information as to what species of courtesy was exercised 
 or what species of discourtesy was exercised, (par. 14) ; and con- 
 sequently no two addresses are likely to have the sarhe understand- 
 ing about it. 
 
 40. If for instance gracious were defined as the name of the 
 specific difference of courtesy to a subordinate; deferential as the 
 name of the specific difference of courtesy to a superior, and comi- 
 tous as the name of the specific difference of courtesy to an equal ; 
 then the thought presented in par. 8, Jan. 5, 1917, would read as 
 follows, and would consequently more precisely present the in- 
 tended thought: 
 
 “Sincere courtesy recognizes that there is a human or per- 
 sonal dignity in every reasonable human being, and duly hon- 
 ors or respects that human being because of that dignity; or 
 duly honors or respects the human dignity in that human 
 being; it is probably immaterial which of these two views is 
 taken; because as sincere respect begets sincere respect or 
 Sincere Courtesy begets Sincere Courtesy, the effect is the 
 same, viz. HARMONY, in the form of mutual 
 (1) gracious protection or guidance, 
 and (2) deferential service; 
 and of (3) comitous co-operation; 
 agreeing with the relation of 
 (1) Superordinacy 
 and (2) subordinacy 
 and (3) co-ordinacy, 
 
 13 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 that may exist between any two persons whether the relation 
 of ordinacy be of natural or of conventional or of legal origin. 
 The result is likely to be Agreeability and Utility, or Reci- 
 procity.” % 
 
 41. Logic is the science of frank , honest, sincere thinking. It 
 is the science of Truth or Consistency of Thought with Fact. It 
 aims to prevent self-deception. Metaphorically it may be said to 
 be the plumb, the level, the square and the measure of thinking, 
 and can be made as useful in mental constructing or mental archi- 
 tecture as those instruments are in physical constructing and archi- 
 tecture. Logic teaches the principle of Relativity of Knowledge; 
 that is, that any proposition that explicitly affirms any one thing 
 and consequently purports to convey only that information, im- 
 plicitly contradicts every proposition that is inconsistent with that 
 affirmation and consequently is equivalent to all the propositions 
 that need to be[ framed to express those denials. Consequently 
 when two propositions are inconsistent with each other, logic dis- 
 covers that fact instantly and questions one or both; and thus 
 tends to displace Error and establish Truth. 
 
 42. Logic teaches the principles of naming classes or notions. 
 As every common noun is a name of a genus, and as every adjec- 
 tive or adjectival word, when used restrictively specifies one of the 
 species of the genus indicated by the common noun which it quali- 
 fies, the vastness of the scope and the potential utilities of Logic 
 in this one field, is evident. 
 
 43. It teaches the principles of Defining class names, thus 
 aiming at Precision or Unambiguity. 
 
 44. This suggests the thought that the proposed Department 
 would at some time devote attention to the Dictionary end of our 
 language and proceed to desynonymize many of our words and dis- 
 card many of the self-contradictory definitions of the same word. 
 Many of our words are defined say, by Thomas This, Richard That 
 and Henry Tother, as having a good meaning and a bad meaning; 
 some of them have both an affirmative and a negative meaning. 
 Some of them may be said to box the compass in their meanings. 
 (Par. 39.) 
 
 45. Words and terms are as useful and as needful in the ex- 
 change of thought as money is in the exchange of goods or value. 
 And their ambiguities and their self-contradictory attributes are 
 sometimes as harmful as our money system would be harmful were 
 a purported dollar worth 60 cents in “A’s” hands, 70 cents in “B’s” 
 hands, on one day, and possibly be reversed on the next day. 
 
 14 
 
May 2, 1918 
 
 46. Logic teaches the principles of Classifying things or no- 
 tions indicated by terms; grading them hierarchically according 
 to their correlative relations of superordinacy and subordinacy and 
 sequentially ranging the co-ordinate species of each genus in 
 those instances in which a certain order of precedence (or se- 
 quence) is of scientific or practical or mnemonic utility. 
 
 47. Referring to the thought stated in paragraph 26 and in 
 extension of it, it may be useful to state that the absence of certain 
 necessary ethical middle Terms in the law tends to cause occa- 
 sional disrespect for the law because of the seeming subterfuge that 
 has to be formally practiced in such cases in order to preserve the 
 peace, or because of the seeming impotency if no disciplinary ac- 
 tion is taken. The logical remedy for such evils is probably to 
 amend the law as quickly as possible so as to enable the evil to be 
 speedily abated with dignity and equity or ethical justice. Such 
 ethical laws then tend to create a certain healthy widespread dis- 
 countenancing public sentiment that thereafter the emotion of 
 SHAME is likely to be a sufficient deterrent. 
 
 48. The writer’s apology for this letter is the extreme im- 
 portance to the Nation of a scientific discussion of the subject, if 
 the stated principles are reasonably sound. His apology for its 
 great length is that he could not express some of his thoughts with 
 adequate precision without using terms that he had to define or 
 whose precise use he had to illustrate in this letter, because these 
 terms are not in ordinary use. Sometimes one does not see one of 
 them in the course of a year’s reading of newspapers ; whereas the 
 mental processes, well or ill conducted, which those little-used terms 
 represent, are going on in every person’s mind every day. 
 
 49. A hundred pages could easily be filled with extracts from 
 authors of logical treatises perspicuously and cogently stating rea- 
 sons why a study and knowledge of Logic would be advantageous 
 to every person for his every day life as well as for scientific pur- 
 suits in the mental and the physical world. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 JACOB FRECH. 
 
 As has been done with all prior letters on this subject, copies of 
 this letter will be transmitted, respectively, to 
 
 The Chief Justice of the United States. 
 
 The Chief Justice of the District Supreme Court. 
 
 The Judge of the Police Court, D. C. 
 
 The United States Attorney, D. C., and 
 
 The Coroner, 
 
 with the permission, and for the reasons, stated in par. 15, April 
 3, 1916. 
 
 15 
 
SUBJECT: Homicidal and other evil influence — on ill-informed 
 or unlogically or unethically trained conscientious law-conform- 
 ing drivers and other persons concerned about traffic safety — 
 of certain illogically devised aversive pedestrian-designating 
 terms; and the ethical propriety of scientifically aiming to 
 discontinue their evil-causing use. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 January 10, 1920. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 1. Paragraph 19 of the letter of March 31, 1917 — on the 
 subject of the ethical but not yet legal right of a pedestrian to 
 dignified (par. 15, June 22, 1916) and safe passage on a street 
 crossing and on a roadway having no sidewalk — reads in part and 
 in effect as follows: The inadvertent but continued official and 
 popular use of a materially inaccurate classname, averse to the 
 pedestrian class, as a name for the cause of injury or death, of 
 pedestrians, effected by conscientious (par. 2, June 22, 1916) law- 
 conforming or law-guided, ill-informed or undisciplined drivers — 
 is more harmful to society than the issuing of false pieces of money 
 or of false checks is harmful to society. The bias of the inaccurate 
 name is uniformly against any hope of possibility of protecting 
 pedestrians in the future by seeing a need for adequately amending 
 the regulations. The false classname creates or supports a homi- 
 cidal fallacy that the pedestrians are the cause of their destruction. 
 It tends in each instance to cause another like lawful injuring or 
 killing, and so on interminably. If the medical profession were to 
 classname causes of illness and death from preventible diseases 
 in like illogical manner, it would recede hundred of years, into the 
 Darker Age, in effectiveness in discovering and controlling certain 
 causes of disease. As stated in par. 1, May 2, 1918, sometimes an 
 analogon is more cogent than a direct example. 
 
 2. (a) The following quotation is an extract from McCosh’s 
 Treatise on Logic : “Bacon directed the attention of modern 
 thinkers to the incidental disadvantages of language. Though we 
 think we govern (all of) our words, yet certain it is that (some) 
 words, as a Tartar’s bow, do shoot back upon the understanding 
 and do mightily entangle and pervert the judgment. 
 
 1 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 (b) Locke, in his Essay, says: u Error and obscurity, mistake 
 and confusion, are spread in the world by the ill use of words; 
 when men’s ideas are confused, the language they employ will also 
 be confused, and thus increase the confusion.” McCosh says: 
 “When a science is properly constructed by inductive and deductive 
 means, it soon finds (makes) an appropriate nomenclature. Im- 
 perfectly formed sciences, material or mental, have (some) terms 
 whose influence may be evil” M. Cousin says: “Assuredly all 
 science ought to seek a language well constructed.” 
 
 (c) Fowler, in his Grammar, says : “The opinion entertained 
 of an object influences the mind in the application of the term to 
 that object, and the term when applied influences the opinion” 
 
 (d) Whitney, in his Treatise on Language, says : “Sometimes 
 we find at the basis of a word a mere blunder, as when we talk about 
 lunatics, as if we still believed the aberration of their wits to depend 
 upon the devious motions of the moon (luna) ; or as when we style 
 our aborigines, Indians, because the early discoverers of this Con- 
 tinent set their faces Westward from Europe to find it; or as when 
 we call our noted American feathered biped, a turkey, in servile 
 imitation of that ill-informed generation of Englishmen, which not 
 knowing whence he came, dubbed him, ‘the Turkey fowl’.” 
 
 (e) Sidgwick, in his Use of Words in Reasoning, says: “A 
 concealed complexity in the fact appealed to as evidence is the root 
 of the defect technically called ambiguity of the middle term, (par. 
 21, May 2, 1918) . It is in our habit of (erroneously) viewing facts 
 which admit of being concisely described (concisely named) as 
 simple facts, that the danger chiefly resides. Our natural tendency, 
 when our reflective power is inexperienced is to fall under the domi- 
 nation of (certain) words — a tendency which may be observed 
 both in the individual and in the human race. This superstitious . 
 attitude towards language shows itself in many forms; one of 
 these forms is the inclination not to suspect a Middle Term of 
 ambiguity. The particular CASE, S, is seen as M,” (par. 16, May 
 2, 1918), “and if we accept as true the statement that all M is P, 
 we consider it proved that S is P. If we can connect two premises 
 by a Middle Term which, being a single word or a concise expres- 
 sion, looks simple, our easy going, childish ( natural , untrained ) 
 logic is satisfied. We do not, at first, look behind words at the 
 precise details they are meant to cover, and so we tend to overlook 
 differences in meaning between the Middle Term as used in the 
 two premises respectively. The concealment of real complexity 
 under verbal simplicity is one of the most ubiquitous and familiar 
 facts of language.” (Par. 22, May 2, 1918.) 
 
 2 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 (f) Take the concise, misleading term, “stepped before” or 
 “stepped in front of” an auto or a car. A conscientious driver, 
 police officer, coroner’s jury, or newspaper (thus by a figure of 
 personification, giving a newspaper a conscience) is likely to use 
 that term in the case of any pedestrian, man, woman, or child, who 
 is unintentionally but murderously avoidably injured or killed by a 
 driver who saw, or ought, from ethical or altruistic or courteous 
 motives, to have seen, that person approaching his path, before he 
 was 150, or 120, or 90, or 60, or 30 feet from the point where he 
 must inevitably do that injuring or killing, if the pedestrian does 
 not hear, or does not expertly or ingeniously or luckily interpret 
 his legal-right-of way, fear-inspiring, paralyzing blast. The driver 
 knows, or can know, that there is no law explicitly requiring him 
 to timely slack speed or timely take some other adequate safety 
 step in such an extremely dangerous case, and he knows that there 
 is no law that explicitly gives a pedestrian right of way on a street 
 crossing or on a roadway having no sidewalk. This means, and 
 the driver so understands, or can understand, or learns, or can 
 learn, by natural, almost unconscious induction, in the reading of 
 decided cases, that the law does not give a pedestrian, man, woman, 
 or child, a legal right to dignified and safe passage on a street 
 crossing or on a roadway having no sidewalk, in the legal path of 
 any driver who does not violate the speed law, the temperance law, 
 or the license law; although the maximum legal speed in such a 
 dangerous case, is a homicidal or outlawing or MURDEROUS legal 
 speed. ETHICS would give the pedestrian dignified and safe pas- 
 sage on a street crossing or on a roadway having no sidewalk ; its 
 ground for doing so is, he is a human being. As already stated, 
 Ethics is the GOAL of LEGISLATION. With regard to pedes- 
 trians, legislation is not yet in sight of that goal ; or in other words 
 legislation, judging from the Police Regulations cited in these 
 letters, does not probably know in what point of the compass its 
 unconscious ethical goal is because we have no adequate science of 
 Ethics and because of the alluring appearance of the visible 
 economic goal. 
 
 In the absence of a logical Ethics we must sometimes do like 
 the wideawake landsman, who, relieving the captain at the wheel, 
 for a few hours’ sleep, and who, being directed to steer continually 
 for the North Star, did so, until he found that the vessel had some- 
 how passed the North Star and consequently the awakening captain 
 found him steering for Mars, and the vessel near the breakers. 
 
 (g) The accessory ideas in this unsympathetic illogically used 
 term, “stepped before” or “stepped in front of” an auto or a car, 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 excuse and legalize the self-centered, recklessly inhumane injuring 
 or killing of a human being, whom it at the same time selfishly 
 slanders. In the present relevantly ill-informed state of society, the 
 illogical use of such driver-excusing and law-excusing and victim- 
 slandering terms tends to keep the public conscience somewhat 
 placid and unruffled. 
 
 For a discussion of like illogically used terms, viz : 
 
 Careless pedestrian, 
 
 Negligent pedestrian, 
 
 Imprudent pedestrian, 
 
 'Newspaper-reading pedestrian, 
 
 Dangerous or defiant pedestrian, 
 
 please see par. 7-a and the paragraphs of other letters of this dis- 
 cussion therein explicitly referred to. 
 
 3. Ordinarily we can not realize that a very great majority 
 of a very large class of educated conscientious persons may 
 naturally hold, in common, a false opinion (belief, sentiment) 
 necessarily very injurious to society, for which opinion there is no 
 sufficient evidence, no proof, no VALID PREMISES, no LOGICAL 
 ground, nothing but DOGMA, or natural prejudice, or natural pre- 
 possession. Such false opinion may be so deeply ingrained and so 
 tenacious — because of its venerable age, and its dogmatic authority 
 or seeming unquestioned universality and seeming clearness to the 
 physical or mental eye — that only an intellectual or psychological 
 constructive evolution can, in the present state of non-logical train- 
 ing, adequately convince the possessors (of such illogical opinion), 
 of the evil or homicidal consequence of that opinion; and conse- 
 quently only by a very slow or almost imperceptible degree of 
 progress — a mode in which Nature sometimes acts in her Provi- 
 dential Constructive Stages ; such as the developmental change in a 
 locust of a certain species, or probably in a century plant. 
 
 4. (a) Take, for instance, the case of the mistaken opinion 
 that, during any one revolution of a wheel, on an auto moving at 
 a uniform rate, a point on its tire, (1) moves likewise at a uniform 
 rate, (per. 4, May 2, 1918) ; or (2) moves in successive circles ; 
 
 (b) It is probable that 900,000 out of a million of educated 
 drivers (or owners) will upon being questioned, be found to hold 
 one or both of those mistaken opinions ; and that they will support 
 their opinion by the natural but invalid premise that they can see 
 plainly and clearly that a conspicuously colored spot (point) on the 
 rim of a fast moving auto moves at (1) a uniform speed and (2) 
 makes circles, or goes around and around, and that to hold other- 
 wise is to discredit the sense of unobstructed clear sight, and is an 
 absurdity. 
 
 4 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 (c) Every one of the 900,000 educated drivers, or owners, 
 very likely rests under the belief that when his eyes tell him that 
 the point moves at a uniform speed or generates circles then it must 
 be true that the point does so. Whereas the major premises filed 
 in the record body of SCIENCE tell us that the conspicuously 
 colored spot makes a series of common cycloids, assimilating a 
 series of semi-circles or LEAPS, and that the rate of speed of the 
 spot is never the same for any two successive instants of time; and 
 that when an auto is going 30 miles per hour, the point when at the 
 exact top goes 60 miles per hour, and when very near the bottom 
 goes less than 30 inches per hour. 
 
 (d) This class of mistaken opinion may do no harm to society, 
 assuming a theory that a widespread knowledge of that FACT 
 would not have a tendency to cause such general exercise of care- 
 fulness that it would largely tend to decrease the occurrence of 
 skidding, with its frequently resulting frights, injuries and deaths. 
 
 (e) One of the daily papers of Sunday, December 21, 1919, 
 tells us that a boy on a sled delivering groceries, being at rest at the 
 curb, was crushed to death, in this city, by a skidding auto. That 
 boy had an ethical right to live a useful life many years, and the 
 driver and the families of the boy and driver had an ethical right 
 to have a joyous holiday season. The defective rhetoric of our law 
 based on economic theories engender and encourage driver-prac- 
 tices that have in this instance decreed otherwise. 
 
 5. But, it is FACT that as many as 900,000 or more out of a 
 million conscientious educated persons, can hold a homicidal mis- 
 taken opinion created by or weaved into an illogically used term; 
 a false or illogical opinion that, by reason of the nigh universal non- 
 cognizance of its illogicality necessarily and nondisapprovingly 
 destroys, in public view, during a long period of relevant particular 
 NESCIENCE the lives of millions of innocent, falsely-judged, 
 human beings. 
 
 6. (a) Take, for instance, as an analogon, the case of the 
 erroneous opinion that there did at one time (or that there does 
 now) exist a species of persons who made (or who make) individ- 
 ual covenant with a supposed supernatural being, popularly desig- 
 nated, an evil spirit or a devil; and consequently each individual 
 of that species was (or is) aversively classed as a WITCH. Science 
 has not yet found sufficient ground for such opinion. But such 
 opinion did exist persistently and homicidally for many years in 
 the minds of the best educated conscientious persons, in high 
 positions in many national governments, as is evidenced by the 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 following extract from the Encyclopedia Brittanica : “The authori- 
 zation of belief in Witchcraft was based partly on the Mosaic Law 
 — especially Exodus XXII. 18 (Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
 live) ; partly in a peculiar construction of other parts of Scripture, 
 such as 1 Cor. XI. 10; where the words “because of the angels” 
 were supposed to prove the reality, of the class of demons called 
 incubi. Witnesses incompetent in ordinary cases were on account 
 of the gravity of the offense admissible on a charge of witchcraft 
 against but not for the accused. An alleged witch was to be con- 
 jured, by the tears of our Saviour and of our Lady and the Saints, 
 to weep, which she could not do if she were guilty. The authors 
 explain that witchcraft is more natural to women than to men on 
 account of the inherent wickedness of their hearts. * * * The 
 
 most interesting trial is that of the Suffolk witches, because Sir 
 Matthew Hale was the judge and Sir Thomas Browne was the 
 medical expert witness. Sir Thomas Browne testified that the 
 swooning fits of the victims of alleged witches were natural, 
 heightened to great excess by the subtlety of the devil cooperating 
 with the witches. The Chief Baron, in his summing up, said, that 
 there were such creatures as witches was undoubted, for the Scrip- 
 tures affirmed it. In many of these trials the accused confessed 
 before execution. Torture, as the Milan case shows, might force 
 from the accused confession of an impossible crime. 
 
 Towards the end of the 17th century the feeling towards witch- 
 craft began to change. This change of feeling was no doubt caused 
 to a great extent by the works of writers, few in number but strong 
 in argument. Legal writers did little to shake the prevailing 
 opinion. Coke, Bacon, and Hale certainly admitted the possibility 
 of witchcraft. Luther and other eminent writers no doubt had full 
 faith in the existence of witchcraft. 
 
 (b) In the abstract of the Laws of New England printed in 
 1655 appears this article: III. Witchcraft, which is fellowship by 
 covenant with a familiar spirit, to be punished with death. In the 
 15th century, Joan of Arc was condemned on a charge of witch- 
 craft.” 
 
 (c) The following extract from an article on Joan of Arc, in 
 the Encyclopedia, illustrates with what certainty and persistence, 
 illogically, but highly, educated minds can unsuspectingly and un- 
 questionably foster a delusion: “What she chiefly supplied to the 
 French cause, was concentrated energy and resolution. Above all 
 she inspired the soldiery with a fanatic enthusiasm armed with the 
 sanctions and ennobled by the influence of religion; and she over- 
 awed the enemy by the superstitious fear that she was in league 
 
 6 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 with supernatural powers. * * * By means of negotiations 
 
 instigated and prosecuted with great perseverance by the Univer- 
 sity of Paris and the Inquisition, she was sold to the English, who, 
 at the instance of the University of Paris, delivered her over to the 
 Inquisition for trial. She was burned at the stake in the streets 
 of Rouen, May 30, 1431, as a heretic and sorcerer. The greatness 
 of her career consists in her pure, true and ardent character, which 
 made her a pathetic victim to the cruelties of a superstitious age.” 
 
 (d) The entertainment of that false opinion by that highly 
 educated class of persons caused the death in public view, of many 
 persons, on a legal charge, legal trial and legal conviction, of a 
 species of alleged act of which Science has not found any evidence, 
 in the past or present, and does not expect to find any in the future. 
 
 7. (a) While that lamentable destruction of human life was 
 going on in every Christian country, as now goes on the destruction 
 of pedestrian-lives, because of a nigh universal false belief, the 
 ill-informed, ill-trained, conscientious public looked on as placidly 
 and nondisapprovingly, as nearly all of us do NOW on the wound- 
 ing and killing of pedestrians classed by various Coroner’s juries, 
 many newspapers, and other makers of public opinion, as species of 
 Careless pedestrian (par. 1 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) 
 
 Negligent pedestrian (par. 1 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) 
 Imprudent pedestrian (par. 17 and 18, Mch. 31, 1917) 
 Jaywalking pedestrian (par. 2 to 19, Dec. 6, 1916) 
 Newspaper-reading pedestrian (par. 33, May 2, 1918) 
 Dangerous or defiant pedestrian (par. 13, Jan. 5, 1917) 
 that is, they constitute a genus of 
 Illdeserving persons, or 
 Reprehensible persons 
 
 by reason of the aversive accessory ideas in these terms. 
 
 (b) The popular nigh universal use of these aversive illogically 
 or unscientifically applied terms tends to cause many unreflecting 
 persons to feel that the autoists and the street car managers — 
 when doing or causing their injuring and killing while conscien- 
 tiously complying with the rhetorically defective law — are legally 
 (or not unlawfully) doing necessary economic or police service to 
 society by disciplining or teaching very many persons of that 
 factitiously reprehensible class, (misconceived to be reprehensible, 
 by fallacious prejudice aided by unconscious rhetorical artifices) 
 by giving them a needed physical lesson over which they can 
 ponder in a hospital, and by putting many of them where they 
 can never again obstruct traffic, or cause scientific investigation 
 to be made of scant-time schedules or their homicidal mode of 
 enforcement. (Par. 50-h, June 5, 1917.) 
 
 7 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 8. Some day, possibly, in a future generation, when logic — the 
 science of frank, honest, sincere thinking — shall be adequately 
 taught in the public schools and applied to the realm of Ethics, 
 constituting it a science necessarily limited to conduct between 
 human beings, and towards the lower animals, and serving as an 
 acknowledged goal to legislation, our then better informed and 
 trained makers of public opinion may begin to see that the persons 
 who are being legally wounded and killed by drivers are nearly all 
 species of 
 
 Immature (par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) 
 
 Aged (par. 17, Mch. 31, 1917) 
 
 Inexperienced (par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) 
 
 Timid (par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) 
 
 Eyedefective (par. 21, Jan. 5, 1917) 
 
 Eardefective (par. 3 to 30, Mch. 31, 1917) 
 
 Infirm (par. 10-c, this letter) , or 
 Invalid persons; 
 
 that is, they constitute a genus of 
 Unfortunate persons; or 
 Outlawed persons; or 
 Doubly handicapped persons, 
 
 unable to successfully cope against homicidal conditions that the 
 defective rhetoric of the law permits or creates. 
 
 9. A number of cases tending to support this theory have been 
 analyzed in the following designated paragraphs, namely: 
 
 I of Sept. 11, 1915; 
 
 7 of Nov. 30, 1915; 
 
 13 of June 22, 1916; 
 
 6 of Oct. 16, 1916; 
 
 II to 13 of Nov. 25, 1916; 
 
 2-b and 12, 18 and 21 of 
 
 Jan. 5, 1917 ; 
 
 17 to 19 of Mch. 31, 1917; 
 
 10, 16 and 37 of June 5, 1917 
 (case of President and 
 Mrs. Wilson). 
 
 10. Christmas Day of 1919, furnished us the following re- 
 ported cases : 
 
 (a) A 12 year girl seriously injured by a car was brought to 
 Emergency Hospital ; she may die. 
 
 (b) A 17 year boy struck by a motorcycle; brought to Cas- 
 ualty Hospital. 
 
 8 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 (c) A crippled soldier -patient knocked down and seriously in- 
 jured by express truck, was brought to Emergency Hospital. 
 
 11. It will probably be conceded that a traffic safety-law should 
 be couched in frank, honest, sincere, and explicit or specific 
 language. 
 
 (a) Such a law would, for the instruction of drivers with 
 regard to human life, have a major premise explicitly speaking 
 of one or more of the species of pedestrians named in paragraph 8 ; 
 or would be so worded as to show clearly that it has one or more 
 of that species in contemplation. Our law does not do that. 
 
 (b) It would have one or more major premises coupling the 
 term right of way with the term pedestrian. Our law has no such 
 major premise. 
 
 (c) It would have one or more major premises coupling the 
 term timely slowing down or timely slacking speed when danger- 
 ously approaching a pedestrian’s path, with the term vehicle or 
 street car. Our law has no such major premise. 
 
 12. The large number of persons legally killed as witches is 
 not stated in the British Encyclopedia. 
 
 Following is an extract from Legal and Political Hermeneutics 
 by Francis Lieber in which he quotes from Revelations of God by 
 Henry Stephani : “It has been computed that on the whole NINE 
 MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND beings were sacrificed 
 as witches or wizards in Christian countries, not to mention the 
 COUNTLESS victims of the most barbarous torments.” This 
 number is a little larger than the recently estimated number of 
 men, of all the contending nations, killed in the World War. 
 
 13. It is possible that the logical investigation and discovery 
 by Copernicus (1473-1545) contradicting beliefs regarding the 
 physical relations of the sun, the earth, and the moon, and the 
 adoption or confirmation of that discovery by Bruno (1548-1600) 
 and Galileo (1564-1642) had a tendency to expedite the change 
 in the feeling towards the belief in Witchcraft. Copernicus died 
 on the day on which his book was delivered to him from the pub- 
 lisher ; Bruno was burnt at the stake ; he was an author of several 
 treatises on Logic; Galileo retracted his expressed opinion under 
 menace of torture. “On the Continent and in England there was 
 during two centuries a steady flow of literary attacks on the rea- 
 sonableness of the belief in witchcraft” (Enc. Brit.). These facts 
 illustrate the pertinacity of some classes of errors and the diffi- 
 culty and the slowness of the progress of some classes of Truth, 
 
 9 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 and the discouragements encountered by explorers in search of 
 some classes of Truths to be used for the benefit of mankind. 
 
 14. A popular saying reads : “Truth crushed to earth will rise 
 again.” Logic, or frankness, honesty and sincerity, requires that 
 that saying be modified about as follows: Some truths crushed to 
 earth will rise again; Some ethical truths crushed into the earth 
 are paved over by the selfishness of economic systems, or of other 
 firmly established systems, and share the fate of an acorn under a 
 concrete roadway. 
 
 15. The writer has discovered one error in this series of letters. 
 This error is due to that universal cause of error known as natural 
 prejudice or prepossession or self-delusion. That class of error 
 is caused by not critically examining, or by not examining again 
 the premises of a conclusion, because of an unquestioned feeling 
 that the accepted conclusion was validly syllogized, in the mind, 
 long, long ago, and hence not now open to doubt. It is a truism, 
 that we do not doubt a proposition that we do not doubt. 
 
 16. The statement in par. 15, May 2, 1918, implying that the 
 cycloid was discovered probably more than 2,000 years ago is 
 erroneous. Since that letter was written the writer has accident- 
 ally learned that the cycloid was discovered by Galileo , in 1616. 
 
 17. It is said to be one of the most wonderful curves ever dis- 
 covered. It throws much light on the question of the speed of 
 gravitating bodies, a subject he was then investigating. Science 
 tells us that of two bodies whose sliding is conditioned solely by 
 the same frictionless surface, say of a huge bowl, conforming to 
 an inverted cycloidal curve, if both are released at the same in- 
 stant, both will simultaneously reach the same point at the bottom, 
 regardless of any difference in altitude of the two objects at the 
 instant of release. Assume a huge smooth bowl whose inner sur- 
 face is so shaped as to conform to a cycloidal curve generated by 
 a circle, say, 555 feet (height of Washington Monument) in diame- 
 ter. One body released 555 feet above the earth, (1110 feet sliding 
 distance from the bottom point; the other body simultaneously 
 released, say 111 feet above the earth; both will reach the bottom 
 point simultaneously. 
 
 18. The probably extreme importance to the physical, intel- 
 lectual and ethical advancement of this Nation that might neces- 
 sarily result from a scientific discussion of the question of the 
 ethical but not yet legal right of a pedestrian (say a mother, par. 
 7, June 5, 1917), to dignified (par. 15, June 22, 1916) and safe 
 passage on a street crossing or on a roadway having no sidewalk, 
 
 10 
 
January 10, 1920 
 
 is the apology of the writer for this unavoidably long contribution 
 to such discussion. It being possible that as a logical consequence of 
 the instituting, when popular opinion will permit, a Governmental 
 Department of Science (pars. 23 and 34, May 2, 1918) fhere would 
 result Governmental initiative and encouragement of the study by 
 our public-school teachers and scholars, and consequently by most 
 of our people and by the teachers and scholars in the higher educa- 
 tional institutions, of the science and the art of frank, honest, 
 sincere, humanely purposive, or telic, thinking (par. 41, May 2, 
 1918). 
 
 19. Frank, honest and sincere thinking is a prerequisite to 
 frank, honest, and sincere stating. 
 
 Frank, honest and sincere stating, (veracious stating) to every 
 person or group of persons, that is ethically entitled to a veracious 
 statement — where courtesy or modesty, or consideration for the 
 welfare of the addressee (an invalid, for instance) does not enjoin 
 silence or kindly disposed deception — is probably a prerequisite to 
 the earning of the CONFIDENCE, Trust or Sympathetic feeling 
 of that person, or group of persons; — and is consequently, prob- 
 ably a prerequisite to the establishing and preserving UNIVERSAL 
 ethical or social HARMONY (par. 40, May 2, 1918). 
 
 Such a result would tend to the discovery of a major premise 
 to insert in the Police Regulations that would tend to insure to 
 pedestrians, to human beings, the legal right to dignified and safe 
 passage on a street crossing and on a roadway having no sidewalk. 
 
 20. When once the scientific and ethical attitude of mind is 
 formed in any group, it is probable that it would be considered by 
 the majority of that group, to be as unscientific, as unethical, as 
 DISHONORABLE, for any two or more persons, to engage in dis- 
 courteous or vindictive intellectual or physical combat, as it is now 
 considered to be educative, entertaining and HONORABLE to en- 
 gage in scientific, courteous or playful intellectual or physical con- 
 tests. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 JACOB FRECH. 
 
 As has been done with all prior letters on this subject, copies 
 of this letter will be transmitted, respectively, to 
 The Chief Justice of the United States, 
 
 The Chief Justice of the District Supreme Court, 
 
 The United States Attorney, D. C., 
 
 The Judge of the Police Court, Di. C., and 
 The Coroner, 
 
 with the permission, and for the reasons, stated in par. 15, April 3, 
 
 1916. 
 
 11 
 
SUBJECT: Probable dependence of legalizing pedestrian ethical 
 rights on the popularizing of the teaching of logic (science, 
 truth) . 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 September 10, 1920. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 1. Paragraphs 16 to 19, letter of November 30, 1915, and 2 
 to 8, June 22, 1916, read, in effect, as follows: 
 
 (Par. 16, Nov. 30, 1915.) With regard to the question of the 
 class of pedestrians whom popular but erroneous opinion classes 
 as careless, it is useful to state that of the three pedestrians, each 
 over 60 years of age, living in three of four adjoining residences 
 mentioned in the letter of Sept. 11, 191 5,” (the first of this series 
 of fourteen letters) “who were run over by autos, one was for a 
 long time Chief Clerk of an executive department of the United 
 States ; the second was for a long time the Chief Clerk of a bureau 
 of one of those departments ; the third is a private citizen of equal 
 ability. It is evidently a mistake to designate this class of pedes- 
 trians as careless pedestrians (par. 7, Jan. 10, 1920). Our auto- 
 drivers are generally conscientious, kind-hearted persons, but like 
 most persons they feel a zest in taking chances; that is, to take a 
 chance that a pedestrian in their path or unwittingly walking into 
 their path will get out of their way in ample time. In doing this 
 the auto-driver is taking what is called a sporting chance, or a 
 gambling chance ; the stake unfortunately for the pedestrian being 
 the pedestrian’s life (not the auto-driver’s life). The auto-driver 
 subconsciously bets with himself that the pedestrian will get out of 
 his way in ample time. He generally wins his bet; sometimes by 
 only a narrow margin. If, however, he loses, he feels that he will 
 be excused (by the judiciary and consequently by the public) ; be- 
 cause he thinks that all others under the same circumstances have 
 probably been excused. Fortunately, the gambling instinct is 
 inhibitible or controllable within reasonable limits by adequate in- 
 struction. 
 
 1 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 (Par. 17, Nov. 30, 1915) The suggested changes (par. 11 and 
 17, Sept. 11, 1915; 3, Oct. 18, 1916; 4, March 31, 1917, and 11, Jan. 
 10, 1920) in the wording (or rhetoric) of the regulations probably 
 contain the needed instruction and would give the auto-driver a 
 different and better understanding of the desires or orders of the 
 Commissioners ; and the courts would necessarily put a correspond- 
 ingly different interpretation on them. 
 
 (Par. 18, Nov. 30, 1915) Herein, therefore, is probably the 
 remedy; the putting a different and better understanding in the 
 auto-driver by a careful adequate change in the wording of the 
 regulations. 
 
 (Par. 19, Nov. 30, 1915) More than two hundred years ago, 
 a philosopher (John Locke) expressed the following principle: 
 “The last resort a man has recourse to in the conduct of himself, is 
 his understanding ; for though we distinguish the faculties of the 
 mind, and give the supreme command to the will, as to an agent, 
 yet the truth is, the man who is the agent determines himself to 
 this or that voluntary action, upon some precedent knowledge , or 
 appearance of knowledge, in the understanding. No man ever sets 
 himself about anything but upon some view or other which serves 
 him for a reason for what he does ; and whatsoever faculties he em- 
 ploys, the understanding, with such light as it has, well or ill in- 
 formed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his 
 operative powers are directed. The will itself, how absolute and 
 uncontrollable soever it may be thought, never fails in its obedience 
 to the dictates of the understanding.” 
 
 (Par. 2, June 22, 1916) There are many words in the English 
 language, as in probably all other languages, that tend at times, 
 however carefully used, to mislead even reflecting persons who mis- 
 takenly think they fully know their import and meanings. The 
 word “conscience” or “conscientious” is of this class. When we 
 hear that a conscientious, kind-hearted auto-driver— who gave 
 early signal and did not exceed legal speed limits — has killed, dis- 
 abled or injuriously frightened a pedestrian, we are likely to feel 
 that the auto-driver tried, by reasonable or proper or approvable 
 steps, to avoid the calamity or evil, or, the same thing, that he did 
 whatever was easily in his power to do, to avoid the calamity or evil. 
 Or, in other words, we are likely to feel that (1) conscientiousness 
 of an auto-driver and (2) recklessly jeopardizing by an auto-driver 
 the dignity and safety of a lawful pedestrian are incompatible 
 notions and terms. 
 
 2 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 (Par. 3, June 22, 1916) Careful analysis may prove this con- 
 clusion to be a fatal and death-causing fallacy. 
 
 (Par. 4, June 22, 1916) Conscience may, from one point of 
 view, be likened to a time-piece; a watch. The conduct of a con- 
 scientious person that he thinks is likely to result in the weal or woe 
 of another person, is governed by his conscience ; or, the same thing, 
 is governed by the relevant major premises that he has imbibed; 
 practically in the same manner as the keeping of appointments by 
 a punctually inclined man is governed by his watch. Now one per- 
 son’s conscience with regard to a certain line of conduct may dis- 
 agree with any other person’s conscience like their watches may 
 disagree. In fact this psychological principle is crystallized in the 
 expression that we sometimes hear, viz : that a person’s conscience 
 regarding a certain question may be set at the wrong hour. 
 
 (Par. 5, June 22, 1916) Every watch is fallible and occasion- 
 ally needs adequate comparing and setting in accord with a stand- 
 ard. The statement of this truth implies that for a watch there ex- 
 ists a publicly or universally recognized standard with which it is 
 proper to set it in accord. As this standard is adopted or approved 
 by the legislative department and accepted by the executive and 
 judicial departments — when any relevant legal question arises all 
 three departments are likely to act in unison; i. e., the judicial de- 
 partment will agree with and support the executive department in 
 its aims, there being practically no cause for a difference between 
 them in the interpretation of the standard. In this respect the 
 judicial department may be said to fully co-operate with the execu- 
 tive department. 
 
 (Par. 6, June 22, 1916) Like with watches, any individual con- 
 science is fallible, and consequently, with regard to some vital pub- 
 lic interest may be materially erroneous and hence stand in need of 
 adequate comparing and setting with a standard relevant major 
 premise; a standard major premise may be either an author ative 
 statement of a principle or of a precept. If a major premise is 
 framed in the imperative mood it is properly termed a precept; if 
 framed in the declarative mood it is properly termed a principle. 
 
 (Par. 7, June 22, 1916) In the last or final analysis, it will 
 probably be found to be true that every deliberated act, although 
 the deliberation may be instantaneous, is based on (or determined 
 in accordance with) a relevant major premise. This term (major 
 premise) is probably a precise or unambiguous generic name for 
 
 3 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 all conduct (or action) guides. Locke uses the less precise words 
 view, reason and light to stand for practically the same notion. As 
 stated in par. 19 of the letter of Nov. 30, 1915, Locke holds that 
 “No man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or 
 other which serves him for a reason for what he does, and whatso- 
 ever faculties he employs, the understanding with such light as it 
 has, well or ill informed , constantly leads; and by that light, true 
 or false, all his operative powers are directed.” 
 
 (Par. 8, June 22, 1916) Now if the scientific analysis which 
 has been essayed in the three preceding letters is reasonably sound, 
 it is probable that the rhetoric (or wording) of the authoritative 
 statement of the major premises (or relevant clauses), in the 
 Police Regulations, regarding the question of reasonable obliga- 
 tions of the auto-driver and the reasonable right of a lawful pedes- 
 trian to his life and to freedom from bodily injury or injurious 
 mental shock from an auto, is of such a nature as to cause about 
 five per cent of the conscientious auto-drivers to imbibe and to be 
 governed conscientiously by fatally erroneous major premises; 
 which erroneous major premises, unconsciously to them, tend to 
 militate against the dignity and safety of a pedestrian who is law- 
 fully walking on an unguarded street crossing or on an unguarded 
 roadway having no sidewalks ; and thus unfailingly or continually 
 to cause this small class of conscientious auto*-drivers within a 
 stated period, and in violation of every relevant ethical or humane 
 principle (1) to seriously or injuriously intimidate or frighten very 
 many such pedestrians, and (2) to physically injure many such 
 pedestrians, and (3) to deprive of life some such pedestrians. 
 
 2. It is highly probable that no material, ethical or humane im- 
 provement in the rhetoric of the traffic safety legislation of our Na- 
 tion, the most civilized nation in the world, can be attained until 
 those underlying principles evolved in this discussion which may 
 upon scientific investigation be proved to be sound, are generally 
 known and understood, and consequently generally favorably en- 
 tertained in or imbibed by the minds of at least a majority of our 
 citizens. 
 
 3. The Enc. Brit, (quoted in par. 15, Jan. 10, 1920) tells us 
 that “on the Continent and in England there was during two cen- 
 turies a steady flow of literary attacks on the reasonableness of the 
 belief in witchcraft”; a superstitious belief or faith that caused 
 9,500,000 innocent unfortunate persons (par. 12, Jan. 10, 1920) to 
 be legally charged, legally convicted, and publicly executed. The 
 
 4 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 painfulness of the mode of killing those persons made that a greater 
 evil from that point of view than the evil created by the World 
 War.” Nevertheless it took two centuries of educative criticism to 
 excavate a relevant piece of paved-over TRUTH. (Par. 14, Jan. 
 10, 1920). 
 
 4. Following is an extract from Par. 20, Jan. 10, 1920: “Sidg- 
 wick, in his Use of Words in Reasoning, says: * * * Our natural 
 tendency, when our reflective power is inexperienced is to fall un- 
 der the domination of (certain) words — a tendency which may be 
 observed both in the individual and in the human race. This super- 
 stitious attitude towards language shows itself in many forms ; one 
 of these forms is the inclination not to suspect a middle term of 
 ambiguity. The particular case , S, is seen as M” (par. 16, May 2, 
 1916) “and if we accept as true the statement that all M is P, we 
 consider it proven that S is P.” 
 
 5. This is one of the most important truths that has ever been 
 stated. If this truth were generally or widely well known it would 
 be as generally and as widely appreciated and then innumerable 
 dissensions and quarrels between two persons, and between groups 
 of persons, however highly organized those groups may be, could 
 be dignifiedly avoided by logical or scientific discussion and ex- 
 planation. 
 
 The technical (that is precise) language in which it is written 
 gives it a clearness or a precision and a perspicuity that could not 
 be obtained if the author had devoted pages to it by presenting it 
 in language that logically untrained persons are only accustomed 
 to. The S, M and P are to the syllogism in logic what the a, b and x 
 are to the equation (in algebra) and are just as easily understood 
 and as easily used as thought-instruments as are the algebraic 
 literal terms and signs easily understood and used after adequate 
 relevant instruction. 
 
 6. Unfortunately in our present still nonscientific or nonlogical 
 state of public educating and training, that truth is expressed in 
 terms that are no more intelligible to most of us than would be a 
 message from Mars ; whereas, possibly the first significant message 
 from Mars may be in the form, S is M is P. 
 
 Not until after the writer had been in active business occupa- 
 tion, as boy and man, for more than thirty-five years, would Sidg- 
 wick’s statement of that truth have been in the slightest degree in- 
 telligible to him. When he was somewhat over 45 years of age a 
 person incidentally said to him : “Why ! it would not be logical to 
 classify this decision the way you suggest.” 
 
 5 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 7. He had before then heard the words logic and logical as he 
 had before then heard the words apogee and perigee , and he had a 
 book on logic in his book case as he had a book on astronomy in his 
 book case ; but until then had thought the one set of words and the 
 book on logic, were about as little useful in every-day life or in 
 business as the other set of words and the book on astronomy. 
 
 However, the coincidence of hearing the word logical in con- 
 nection with a specific work in hand, viz: classification, that fre- 
 quently perplexed him, and the fact that he felt that he had inade- 
 quate or non-scientific knowledge of that class of work, but was 
 nevertheless busily engaged on it every day, immediately caused 
 him to think of his idle book on logic (Whately’s) ; and he re- 
 examined it that evening with a lively interest. In a few minutes 
 he found to his surprise a chapter headed Classification. He found 
 such profitable reading that he has purchased and read frequently, 
 every treatise on logic that he has been able to find for sale; for 
 each treatise has something useful that is not found in any other. 
 He knows of no other class of books that has been as useful to him 
 during the past 27 years in giving him a knowledge of how to dis- 
 cover and to overcome or guard against natural misleading preju- 
 dices and prepossession or obsessions, and how to detect almost in- 
 stantly time-wasting and mind-confusing irrelevancies or fallacies, 
 that are likely to be generally accepted as relevancies and as truths. 
 
 8. In all of his voluminous reading of newspapers during the 
 past 60 years he has not recollected seeing the teaching or the 
 studying of Logic commended or even mentioned, nor seeing the 
 syllogism favorably mentioned ; nor reading anything about minor 
 premises or major premises; minor term, middle term or major 
 term ; or that any of those things are necessarily implements or in- 
 struments of thinking, or that they have anything to do with test- 
 ing a proposition and proving its TRUTH or discovering or ex- 
 posing its FALSITY. 
 
 9. There is reason, however, to believe that one syllogism was 
 published in the newspapers in 1859 or 1860; at that time the 
 writer was 12 years old and employed as office boy, by Philip Hamil- 
 ton, youngest son of Alexander Hamilton, in his law office. That 
 syllogism was framed by the immortal Abraham Lincoln in his can- 
 didacy for the Presidency. 
 
 The following extract from a treatise on Argumentation and 
 Debate tells us about it : 
 
 6 
 
SUBJECT: Urgent need for legalizing the ethical right of a 
 pedestrian to dignified and safe passage on a roadway having 
 no sidewalks. 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 
 July 1, 1917. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 1. The color of the uniform of the United States Army is ad- 
 vertently so devised as to tend to make its wearer not easily distin- 
 guishable , at a certain distance, from certain ordinary surround- 
 ing objects or background. 
 
 2. There is now reason to v station military forces at such 
 places throughout this great Nation as to cause many soldiers to 
 have occasion to walk during the night as well as during day-time, 
 singly or in couples, along a roadway having no sidewalks. 
 
 3. It is a practice of some ill-informed auto drivers to drive 
 on roadways and even on city streets at a legal speed which, under 
 certain physical conditions of visuality, may be termed “ driving 
 faster than they can see This class of auto driver does this on 
 the gambler’s theory that he will be lucky enough not to encounter 
 a pedestrian who is invisible to him until too late to avoid killing 
 him ; and some drivers do this on a like theory that even if they do 
 kill a pedestrian, they will be lucky enough to escape identifica- 
 tion; or, that in any event they will be accorded the complete re- 
 sponsibility-immunity of the grade-crossing engineer. 
 
 4. Following are relevant instances: 
 
 The cases of the two brothers (Maske) struck down within 
 sight of their home on Christmas night and on Thanksgiving 
 night, respectively; the second one being left lying on the road, 
 badly injured; a fur piece being with remorseful kindness placed 
 near him by the departing driver, to protect him from the cold 
 during the long night. (Par. 12, January 5, 1917.) 
 
 5. The case of Joseph Shadlock, 19 years old, a citizen of 
 Pennsylvania, a soldier of Company B, Sixth Engineer Corps, 
 stationed at the American University grounds, is another in- 
 stance. He was killed on a roadway near Tennallytown at 9 
 
 1 
 
July 1, 1917 
 
 o’clock on Sunday night, June 17, walking arm in arm with a 
 companion. The coroner’s jury attributed only one cause as the 
 cause of the death of this boy; namely: the fact that the driver 
 could not see the two soldiers before him because of a too-bright 
 light of an approaching auto. It very properly recommended that 
 the regulations prohibiting too-bright lights on autos be more 
 strictly enforced. 
 
 6. But in accordance with the uniform policy of authorizing 
 or permitting drivers of autos and street cars to keep up legal 
 speed , however hazardous to pedestrians , it did not make a recom- 
 mendation that a regulation be adopted that a driver must not go 
 faster than he can see; so that he will not strike a pedestrian, 
 possibly obscured by a fog , a mist , or a too-bright light ahead of 
 him. 
 
 7. To run at a dangerous rate towards ground which he can- 
 not see or to run faster than he can see, is exactly analogous to 
 casting heavy weights from a house top without looking over the 
 side to make certain that no person is below. That, to kill a per- 
 son under such circumstances is an act of general malice, is held 
 to be a principle of law from probably before Blackstone’s time. 
 It is a sound ethical potential principle since the beginning of civ- 
 ilization. It became nascent with the first light-bearing swift- 
 moving vehicle. 
 
 8. That this principle of general malice, or responsibility for 
 causing a death, is not and cannot be applied by us to a locomotive 
 engineer, creates a blind-spot upon, and a serious injury to, OUR 
 individual and our collective CONSCIENCE; for WE, and not he, 
 are all ethically responsible in some way for the evil that it befalls 
 him to do. It is not merely a case of conscience set at the wrong 
 hour (par. 4, June 22, 1916), but it is a case in which the hour hand 
 of conscience may be figuratively said to hang limp and motionless 
 or IRRESPONSIVE to any humane power or feeling. 
 
 We read every few days of a case like this : 
 
 “Baltimore, June 23, 1917. A train struck a vehicle near White 
 Hall, Md., containing two men, three women, and one 3-year-old 
 child. The bodies were hurled a hundred feet.” 
 
 9. Sometimes we read of three such groups in one day in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country. Sometimes it is a family group driven 
 by a hired driver : grandfather, grandmother, son, daughter-in-law, 
 and three little grandchildren. All killed or mangled. 
 
 2 
 
July 1 , 1917 
 
 10. We turn from such an item, at the breakfast table, to the 
 stock list and are probably pleased to see that the stock of that rail- 
 road and the tax rate of that county, in both of which we are in- 
 terested, stand at satisfactory figures: and then ask for another 
 cup of coffee. And that is with most of us the end of our feeling 
 or sentiment regarding those fatalities. 
 
 11. The locomotive engineer is held by us to be immune from 
 responsibility because, if he were unwilling to try to run his train 
 on schedule time, we all would compel him to give up that mode of 
 making his living for himself and family; and let some other per- 
 son run it who has no conscientious feeling about it. He looks to 
 us, and finds in our approval, his justification. 
 
 12. The remedial question of the company spending money for 
 safety gates and for an adequate number of watchmen and ade- 
 quate pay for them ; and the question of the company and the State 
 spending money for the elevating of tracks or other roadway reme- 
 dies, are questions that are too difficult for us, and so most of us 
 dismiss them from the mind, and content ourselves with looking, 
 with SILENT approval, on patient but feeble individual efforts, 
 (par. 8, March 31, 1917) here and there, to persuade a company or 
 a community to minimize the evil. 
 
 13. By an analogy, unconsciously and homicidally false , to 
 which the mind that is not scientifically (or logically ) inclined is 
 only too prone, we extend much or nearly all of this responsibility- 
 immunity of the locomotive engineer to the street-car driver be- 
 cause he also runs on a schedule; and by a like analogy also un- 
 consciously and homicidally false, we further extend much of this 
 false responsibility-immunity of the street-car driver to the auto 
 driver because he CAN run as fast as they run. Thus tending to 
 unconsciously view the street car driver who kills a mother in sav- 
 ing three seconds, and the auto driver who is impulsively or eagerly 
 on his way to get his breakfast (par. 12, November 25, 1916) and 
 who in his haste kills a seven-year-old boy — as immune from re- 
 sponsibility for avoidable deaths, as is viewed the locomotive en- 
 gineer of an express train. 
 
 14. And consequently this paves the way for the fallaciously 
 homicidal non sequitur (par. 1, November 25, 1916) reasoning that 
 because we do not hold the street car driver and the auto driver to 
 blame, and as we do not like to feel that WE are to blame, we must 
 of course hold the pedestrian victim to blame; for, we feel that 
 SOMEBODY must be to blame. 
 
 3 
 
July 1, 1917 
 
 15. The following extracts from a Washington paper of this 
 week are relevant to the question which is the subject of this letter : 
 
 “An automobile light does not light the road for a ‘ reasonable 
 distance’ unless it is illuminated for the distance required for stop- 
 ping the vehicle.” 
 
 “Independently of any statute, it is negligence as a matter of 
 law, to drive an automobile along the highway on a dark night at 
 such speed that it cannot he stopped within the distance that ob- 
 jects can be seen ahead of it.” (Fisher vs. O’Brien, 82 P. Kans. 
 317.) 
 
 16. These decisions support the theory implied in par. 19, De- 
 cember 6, 1916, namely: “The woman that was recently killed — 
 crossing a corner diagonally — by an auto, because, as alleged, it 
 was too misty for the driver to see her: (but evidently not too 
 misty for him to run at a deadly legal speed) — would be termed a 
 JAYWALKER. No corresponding term having an appropriate 
 accessory idea has been invented for an auto driver that lawfully 
 kills a pedestrian by driving faster than he can see , if the expres- 
 sion is allowable. If RIDICULE were a proper or dignified means 
 of educating or disciplining, the invention of such a term would 
 evidently be useful or necessary.” 
 
 17. The newspapers stated that that woman was the widow 
 of an officer in the protective service of the Government, a police 
 sergeant, and she left surviving her an only daughter, an invalid, 
 who depended on her mother’s police pension for support. 
 
 18. If the amendment suggested in this letter had been for 
 some reasonable time a part of the regulations before the time that 
 that widowd mother was killed, it is certain that either she would 
 have been legally accorded dignified and safe passage across the 
 street , or that driver would legally have been compelled to provide 
 for the support of that dependent orphaned invalid daughter; in- 
 stead of being exonerated. 
 
 19. In par. 1, September 11, and par. 14, November 30, 1915, 
 is stated the case of an aged citizen who was run down by a con- 
 scientious kind-hearted ill-informed auto driver, an official of an au- 
 tomobile company, of this city, on a roadway having no sidewalks. 
 The auto driver sympathetically and sincerely informed the pedes- 
 trian in answer to an explicit question, that the only way he can 
 thereafter avoid being run down again is “to keep off the road” 
 
 4 
 
July 1, 1917 
 
 20. That pedestrian, — in philosophizing over the incident and 
 reflecting over the uniform BIAS, in favor of the driver, of coro- 
 ner’s jury findings, — while continuing his walk on that roadway 
 and turning around every minute or so to guard against other like 
 ill-informed drivers , sincerely felt that a careful citizen in this 
 highly civilized peaceful community, the capital of the Nation, has 
 not as much chance or show for his life against an ill-informed 
 auto driver on a roadway having no sidewalks, as did the settler of 
 300 years ago have on the then footpath or trail, against the Indian , 
 who likewise viewed him as a trespasser; and that the present 
 citizen when killed, and his surviving family, have no sympathy at 
 all from his fellow citizens of the community ; but on the contrary 
 he is considered to have been CARELESS, NEGLIGENT, IMPRU- 
 DENT, or a JAY-WALKER; and that thus is wiped out in an in- 
 stant, not alone his life, but also a record or reputation of extreme 
 or commendable carefulness during a long life; and that all this 
 evil is in part a result of nigh universal fallacy of nescience iter- 
 antly published for the misinformation and miseducation of the 
 public, of legislators, of police officials, of coroner’s juries, and the 
 courts, and not publicly contradicted (pars. 7 and 8, November 25, 
 1916). Whereas, that settler had the sympathy of his fellowmen 
 and his surviving family had their support. 
 
 21. These two soldiers (par. 5) and the two brothers (par. 4) 
 had no better chance or show for their lives, than had this aged 
 citizen, on the roadway without sidewalks. 
 
 22. While every soldier, and the father and mother of every 
 soldier, must look forward to the possibility of his meeting a vio- 
 lent death, yet they look forward to a noble death; and not to a vio- 
 lent death caused in part by the inadequate rhetoric of a municipal 
 law, and consequently, a violent death from an easily preventable 
 cause; a class of cause that the executive and judicial departments 
 do not feel that they are specifically authorized or directed by the 
 legislative department to do anything about until after the death. 
 The executive department then makes an arrest, if the driver is 
 known, and the judicial department then must by reason of its pe- 
 culiar or limited functions, solicitously see to it that no legal right 
 of the auto driver is violated (par. 5, June 5, 1917). It can do 
 nothing about the purely ethical right of pedestrians, because a ma- 
 terially inadequate safety law is not ethical; for the name of such 
 a safety law declares impliedly that it aims far from its ethical 
 goal (pars. 3, January 5, and 22, March 31, 1917) ; and the judicial 
 
 5 
 
July 1, 1917 
 
 department must decide according to the law and not according to 
 ethics; when the two differ. 
 
 23. In par. 10, September 11, 1915, the following statement 
 is made: It is a well established principle that the best remedy 
 against an evil cannot be discovered, except by accident, until the 
 causes of that evil have been scientifically ascertained. 
 
 24. This principle is in part the writer’s apology for writing 
 this letter: for it will be observed that this letter contains state- 
 ments of causes of the remediable evil under discussion that have 
 not been mentioned in any of the prior letters; thus tending to 
 prove that all the causes had not heretofore been discovered. 
 
 25. In par. 21, September 11, 1916, he made a plea for the 
 protection from auto dangers of the ex-soldiers of the Civil War 
 and in this letter he makes a plea for the protection from auto 
 dangers of soldiers of the present army. This is his additional 
 apology for the writing of this letter. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 JACOB FRECH. 
 
 As has been done with all prior letters on this subject copies of 
 this letter will be transmitted, respectively, to 
 
 The Chief Justice of the United States; 
 
 The Chief Justice of the District Supreme Court; 
 
 The Judge of the Police Court, D. C., 
 
 The United States Attorney, D. C., and 
 
 The Coroner; 
 
 with the permission, and for the reasons, stated in par. 15, April 
 3, 1916. 
 
 6 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 “Whenever the language of an adversary is incomplete, the 
 argument can be more easily refuted if expanded to syllogistic 
 form. Lincoln adopted this method in the debate with Douglas at 
 Galesburg, when he thus placed his finger on the exact point at 
 issue. 
 
 “Now remembering the provision of the Constitution which I 
 have read; affirming that that instrument is the supreme law of 
 the land ; that the judge of every State shall.be bound by it, and any 
 law or constitution of any State to the contrary notwithstanding ; 
 that the right of property in a slave is affirmed in that constitution, 
 is made, formed into, and cannot be separated from it without 
 breaking it; durable as the instrument, part of the instrument, — 
 what follows as a short and even syllogistic argument from it. 
 
 “I think it follows, and I submit to the consideration of men 
 capable of argumenting, whether as I state it, in syllogistic form, 
 the argument has any fault in it? 
 
 “Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy 
 a right distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 “The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
 affirmed in the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 “Therefore, nothing in the constitution or laws of any State can 
 destroy the right of property in a slave. 
 
 “I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument; 
 assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have 
 capacity at all to understand it follows inevitably. 
 
 “There is no fault in it, as I think, but the fault is not in the 
 reasoning, the falsehood, in fact, is a fault in the premises. 
 
 “I believe the right of property in a slave is not distinctly and 
 expressly affirmed in the Constitution. 
 
 “Judge Douglas thinks it is.” 
 
 10. It is probable that in Mr. Lincoln’s time the fact was not 
 known that in a written deductive syllogism of the First Figure in 
 the quantity of extension, having affirmative premises, the conclu- 
 sion can be obtained by dittoing from- the premises without writ- 
 ing one significant word as a part of the conclusion, as is illustrated 
 in par. 16, May 2, 1918. Otherwise he could have known of it, and 
 it would not have been necessary for him to say “so far as I have 
 capacity at all to understand it, the conclusion follows inevitably 
 from these premises” ; he could have said he knows that it does. 
 
 7 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 11. Paragraph 16, May 2, 1916, demonstrates that the con- 
 clusion is in premises of that class, in that it can be obtained by 
 dittoing from them. No mathematical demonstration can convey 
 more certainty with it than does the illustration in par. 16, May 2, 
 1918; and the ones in par. 13 and 19 of this letter. 
 
 12. It is possible that in the 2,000 years since the discovery of 
 the Syllogism, by Aristotle, the thought or statement that this class 
 of syllogism can be presented in dittoable form was not brought to 
 light until it was submitted to the Honorable Commissioners on 
 May 2, 1918. Thousands of pages have been devoted, in the thou- 
 sand or more treatises on Logic to try to convince the student that 
 the conclusion is contained in the premises of a valid syllogism. 
 The ditto method does not require more than one line to demon- 
 strate it to the student. 
 
 13. Reducing Mr. Lincoln’s syllogism from the logical quantity 
 of intension (attribute-form) to the logical quantity of extension 
 (concept-or class-form; i. e. Individual, Species, Genus) it can be 
 presented in dittoable form, as follows: 
 
 Names 
 
 of 
 
 Propositions 
 
 S or 
 
 Case or 
 Individual or 
 Minor Term 
 
 i 
 
 Copula 
 
 M or 
 
 Species or 
 Middle Term 
 
 Copula; 
 
 P or 
 
 Genus or 
 
 Major Term 
 
 Minor 
 
 Premise 
 
 The right of 
 
 property in a slave 
 
 is 
 
 a right distinctly 
 and expressly af- 
 firmed in the Con- 
 stitution of the 
 United States 
 
 
 
 Major 
 
 Premise 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 is 
 
 a right that noth- 
 ing in the Consti- 
 tution or laws of 
 any State can de- 
 stroy. 
 
 Conclusion • 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 14. If the thought stated in par. 18, Nov. 30, 1915, (that the 
 remedy is, a careful adequate change in the wording of the regula- 
 tions) is reasonably true, reasonably logical, reasonably scientific, 
 reasonably humane, then the killings, the injurings and the injuri- 
 ous frightenings caused directly by this class of conscientious law- 
 conforming, auto-drivers, are certainly and avoidably caused indi- 
 rectly by the inadequate rhetoric of the present legislation; and, 
 consequently, as legislation is not self-creative and not self-perpetu- 
 ative, the remediable cause of the evil is to be sought for or to be 
 found by a critical examination of the relevant conscious or un- 
 conscious premises existing in the minds of the proponents and of 
 the authors of the existing legislation and existing in the minds of 
 the proponents for a continuance or a non-change of the existing 
 legislation, and existing in the minds of the persons having legal 
 power or authority to change the regulations. 
 
 8 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 15. Those relevant conscious or unconscious premises prob- 
 ably should for ethical and scientific reasons be ascertained and re- 
 duced to writing, when time permits, after scientific investigation; 
 the resulting syllogisms can then be calmly and scientifically ex- 
 amined , — thus following Lincoln’s example , — in order to see if 
 there is any material fault in the premises. If there is any such 
 fault found in the premises, it would probably be unfair and homi- 
 cidal for society to assume or to contend that premises of that class 
 support the continuance (or non-change) conclusion. 
 
 16. It will be observed that as a syllogism is ordinarily written, 
 and as Lincoln states his, each of the three terms is written twice. 
 In the dittoable presentation each of the terms is written only once, 
 and then dittoed. 
 
 17. If we were educated logically in the syllogism as we are 
 educated grammatically in the Sentence, we would probably long 
 ago have adopted a new species of written compound sentence or 
 proposition, — solely for self-use in solitary or closet reasoning : — a 
 sentence with two affirmative copulae, as “S is M is P” ; to be used 
 whenever we wished to express a complete affirmative extensive 
 syllogism as briefly as possible. This species of sentence makes 
 three affirmations by writing only two affirmations. It is con- 
 vincing as it stands. It expressly says that S is M and that M is P, 
 and by so doing it impliedly says that S is P. The algebraist who 
 writes a< b < c knows from that expression that a< c. An im- 
 plicit assertion is as evident to an experienced reasoner as an ex- 
 plicit assertion. 
 
 18. Inexperienced or untrained reasoners are likely to neglect 
 or to shut their eyes to many of the implicit false or absurd or 
 vicious assertions contained in some of their every-day explicit as- 
 sertions, and in that way they spread falsehoods, absurdities or 
 vice, that they are not aware of, or that they think are an insepa- 
 rable attribute of stating (or speaking) and consequently do not 
 feel that they are answerable for them ; and, also, consequently are 
 self-debarred from feeling Nature’s nigh omnipotent ethical or 
 social deterrent, SHAME (par. 47, May 2, 1918) ; an instinctive, 
 self-acting, DETERRENT EMOTION, that, if not blunted or 
 stiflled by miseducation (or education that tacitly or avowedly 
 ignores the science of frank, honest and sincere thinking and 
 stating) — tends to cause one to shrink, not merely from doing an 
 act forbidden by a wise LAW, but also tends to cause one to shrink 
 from doing any act that contravenes (or is forbidden by) the prin- 
 
 9 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 ciple of COURTESY (graciousness, or comity, or deference, par. 
 40, May 2, 1918), although permitted or countenanced by an un- 
 ethically-worded legal Major Premise; as for instance, mind-threat- 
 ening, body-threatening and life-threatening discourtesy to a pedes- 
 trian; picketing, or peace-breach provoking public ridicule of any 
 person ; invoking the eviction law and evicting lone, aged widows, 
 regardless of inclemency of weather, who had not yet found or se- 
 cured a new home in which they could find shelter ; and the like acts. 
 
 19. It may be useful to add a further reason why Logic ought 
 to be introduced into and openly or frankly, honestly and sincerely 
 taught in our public schools, as soon as opportunity permits : 
 
 Whenever a little child points to something of which it had 
 never seen the like, and asks “Papa! (or Mamma!) What is that”? 
 that child is pointing to a thing whose name is the S or the Minor 
 Term of a potential deductive syllogism planted or sprouting in that 
 child’s mind at that moment; when it is told that thing (S) is an 
 elephant, for instance; that answer, elephant, is the M or Middle 
 Term of that growing or expanding syllogism. The child is now in 
 conscious possession of the Minor Premise (S is M) of that syllo- 
 gism. The metaphorical memory-searcher in the child’s memory 
 box, always on the alert for syllogistic — or thinking-elements, 
 searches for any relevant major premise that it may possibly find 
 stored in the child’s mind. Let us assume that in this instance it 
 has found one (M is P) ; let us also assume that we who read this 
 do not know until we reach the end of this paragraph what relevant 
 major premise was thus found. Now the memory-searcher tells 
 the child by a memory-flash what that relevant major premise is. 
 The child is now conscious of that relevant major premise and con- 
 sequently naturally, instinctively, instantly, draws (or mentally 
 dittoes) the conclusion (S is P) from the two premises. 
 
 In this supposed instance, it acts on that conclusion. In the 
 w T ords of Locke, all its operative powers are directed by the light 
 of the precedent knowledge in its understanding. The father has 
 no knowledge of what has transpired in that child’s mind. We 
 know a little more about that than he does, because we know what 
 we have thus far here written, or read. The child acting on the 
 conclusion, which we are not yet supposed to know, says : “Papa, 
 please give me ten cents”? it gets the money; dashes off and soon 
 comes back with a bag of peanuts and gleefully throws one after 
 another to the elephant. The child had never before seen an ele- 
 phant, and did not know what one looked like ; but long ago it had 
 
 10 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 overheard one boy telling another boy, in a street-car, what sport 
 it is to throw peanuts to an elephant ; the boy did not describe the 
 elephant. The following illustration may be said to give a word- 
 picture from that child’s mind : ' 
 
 Names 
 
 of 
 
 Propositions 
 
 S or 
 
 Case or 
 Individual or 
 Minor Term 
 
 Copula 
 
 M or 
 
 Species or 
 Middle Term 
 
 Copula 
 
 P or 
 
 Genus or 
 
 Major Term 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Minor 
 
 Premise 
 
 This awfully big 
 monster that I am 
 looking at with fear 
 
 is 
 
 an elephant 
 
 
 
 Major 
 
 Premise 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 is 
 
 a friendly anima-l 
 that gives pleasure 
 to children who 
 feed it with pea- 
 nuts. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 20. If any reasonable premises are known to persons who 
 tacitly but carefully withhold from that child and from nearly all 
 other boys and girls the opportunity to acquire, when they get well 
 in their teens, knowledge of the machinery of the mind and how 
 Nature uniformly makes the mind work when it is syllogizing, in- 
 ductively or deductively, i. e., thinking, or trying to discover or to 
 solve any of our daily problems (whether of benefiting ourselves or 
 of risking or saving the lives of others), or to make intellectual or 
 physical discoveries or inventions — it is probably equally reason- 
 able to ask those persons to state frankly, honestly, sincerely and 
 explicitly, for the information of society, — whose intellectual and 
 ethical advancement they are certainly retarding, — the premises 
 on which they base their conclusion that such knowledge ought 
 properly to be so withheld; or that such knowledge should be im- 
 parted to only a small, select class of persons, and then only from 
 certain text-books on logic that are so carefully censored that the 
 students will limit the science to PHYSICS and not be inclined to 
 apply the science to ETHICS, or to certain systems, some of whose 
 propositions are not based on tested or sound premises. 
 
 21. The “Papa (or Mamma) ! What is that”? and the “Why”? 
 and the “What does it do”? and the “What for”? of children is the 
 natural instinctive fluttering of the inductive and deductive meta- 
 phorical wings (par. 22, May 2, 1918) of their still logically acute 
 little minds, before those wings are ruthlessly clipped or fettered ; 
 in most instances for life ; so that, at best, they are content to soar 
 in the lower paralogistically and sophistically and self-contra- 
 dictorily infested strata; largely mistaking emotional operations 
 
 11 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 and results for intellectual operations and results; mistaking par- 
 ticular premises for universal premises ; possibility for probability, 
 and prdbability for certainty ; and thinking that some proposition 
 is necessarily true, notwithstanding its evident illogicality or 
 absurdity, because a great majority of people, whom they know, say 
 that they believe it to be true or never admit that they do not be- 
 lieve it to be true. 
 
 22. It may be well to consider also how much more interesting, 
 instructive and progressive it would be for parents, teachers and 
 professors, if they had such knowledge of logic that they could ob- 
 serve the syllogisms constantly budding and expanding in the minds 
 of their children, scholars and students. It would certainly be more 
 pleasurable and profitable than to observe the budding and ex- 
 panding of flowers, agreeable as that sight is. 
 
 23. It is deemed useful to close this letter with relevant ex- 
 tracts : from “The Laws of Discursive Thought,” being a Text- 
 Book on Formal Logic, 1877, by James McCosh, L.L.D., President 
 of New Jersey College, Princeton, formerly Professor of Logic and 
 Metaphysics, Queen’s College, Belfast: 
 
 “If we look back half a century we find Formal Logic taught in 
 nearly all the colleges of Great Britain and America, but exercising 
 an influence infinitely less than nothing (to use a phrase of Plato’s) . 
 Some of the professors and tutors were expounding it in a dry and 
 technical? manner , which wearied young men of spirit, and bred a 
 distaste for the study ; while others adopted an apologetic tone for 
 occupying even a brief space with so antiquated a department.” 
 “We believe that more than one half of the error in the world pro- 
 ceeds not from mere ignorance, but from inattention and confu- 
 sion, which, finding us ignorant , tends to keep us in ignorance. 
 Logic helps to cure the evil by requiring of us to determine what 
 are the notions , and to place those fully and fairly before the mind. 
 
 “The syllogistic analysis of reasoning, so far as is known, was 
 first unfolded by Aristotle, and constituted the most certain and 
 altogether the greatest discovery ever made in mental science .” 
 
 From “Elements of Logic designed as a Manual of Instruction, 
 1863, by Henry Coppee, A. M., Professor of English Literature in 
 the University of Pennsylvania, and teacher of Logic in the United 
 States Military Academy at West Point: 
 
 12 
 
September 10, 1920 
 
 “There are many persons of quick but erratic minds who rea- 
 son with such dangerous sophistry that the most delicate logical 
 tests alone can expose the fallacy, of which indeed they may not 
 themselves be entirely aware. 
 
 “As such tests have not been within the reach of the multitude , 
 it is thus that men have become, for want of popular knowledge of 
 Logic , at once self -deceivers and deluders of mankind, have estab- 
 lished illogical religious creeds, monstrous social fallacies, false 
 theories of Government, which are immediately made manifest by 
 the simple application of Logic 2* 
 
 24. The possibility that physical, intellectual and ethical ad- 
 vancement of this Nation might result, if any of the principles 
 herein discussed are found to be reasonably sound, is the writer’s 
 apology for intruding upon the valuable time of the Honorable 
 Commissioners. He feels that he is doing, with due deference and 
 loyalty, what every citizen ought to do, to repay his country for its 
 gracious protection. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 JACOB FRECH. 
 
 As has been done with all prior letters on this subject, copies of 
 this letter will be transmitted respectively to 
 
 The Chief Justice of the United States; 
 
 The Chief Justice of the District Supreme Court; 
 
 The Judge of the Police Court; 
 
 The United States Attorney, D. C., and 
 
 The Coroner 
 
 with the permission and for the reasons stated in par. 15, April 
 3, 1916. 
 
 13 
 
SUBJECT: Probable dependence of legalizing the ethical rights 
 of pedestrians on the popularizing the teaching of logic. 
 
 Washington, D. C.,. 
 August 14, 1921. 
 
 The Honorable Commissioners 
 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 1. Adverting to the fourteen letters addressed to the Commis- 
 sioners during the period of five years, September 11, 1915, to 
 September 10, 1920, on the subject of the ethical but not yet legal 
 right of pedestrians to dignified and safe passage on .a street 
 crossing and on a roadway having no sidewalks, attention is 
 respectfully invited to the following extracts from some of those 
 letters : 
 
 (Par. 2, Sept. 10, 1920.) It is highly probable that no material, 
 ethical or humane improvement in the rhetoric of the traffic safety 
 legislation of our Nation, the most civilized Nation in the World, 
 can be attained until those underlying principles evolved in this dis- 
 cussion which may upon scientific investigation be proved to be 
 sound, are generally known and understood, and consequently gen- 
 erally favorably entertained in or imbibed by the minds of at least a 
 majority of our citizens. 
 
 (Par. 3, Sept. 10, 1920.) The Enc. Brit., quoted in par. 15, Jan. 
 10, 1920, tells us that “on the Continent and in England there was 
 during two centuries a steady flow of literary attacks on the rea- 
 sonableness of the belief in witchcraft” ; a superstitious belief or 
 faith that caused 9,500,000 innocent unfortunate persons (par. 12, 
 Jan. 10, 1020) to be legally charged, legally convicted and publicly 
 executed. The painfulness of the mode of killing these persons 
 was a greater evil from that point of view than the evil created 
 by the World War. Nevertheless it took two centuries of educative 
 criticism to excavate a relevant piece of paved-over TRUTH (Par. 
 14, Jan. 10, 1920). 
 
 (Par. 7, Jan. 10, 1920.) While that lamentable destruction 
 of human life was going on in every Christian country, as now 
 
 1 
 
August 14, 1921 
 
 goes on the destruction of pedestrian lives because of a nigh 
 universal false belief , the ill-informed, ill-trained, conscientious 
 public looked on as placidly and nondisapprovingly, as nearly all 
 of us do NOW on the wounding and killing of pedestrians classed 
 by various Coroner’s juries, many newspapers, and other makers 
 of public opinion, as species of 
 
 Careless pedestrian (Par. 1 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) ; 
 Negligent pedestrian (Par. 1 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) ; 
 Imprudent pedestrian (Par. 17 and 18, Mch. 31, 1917) ; 
 Jaywalking pedestrian (Par. 2 to 19, Dec. 6, 1916) ; 
 Newspaper-reading pedestrian (Par. 23, May 2, 1918) ; 
 Dangerous or defiant pedestrian (Par. 13, Jan. 5, 1917) ; 
 that is, they constitute a genus of 
 Ill-deserving, or 
 Reprehensible persons, 
 
 by reason of the aversive acessory ideas in those terms. 
 
 (Par. 8, Jan. 10, 1920.) Some day, possibly, in a future gen- 
 eration, when logic — the science of frank, honest and sincere 
 thinking — shall be adequately taught in the public schools and 
 applied to the realm of Ethics, constituting it a science necessarily 
 limited to conduct between human beings, and towards the lower 
 animals, and serving as an acknowledged goal to legislation, our 
 then better informed and trained makers of public opinion may 
 begin to see that the persons who are being legally wounded and 
 killed by drivers are nearly all species of 
 
 Immature (Par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) ; 
 
 Aged (Par. 17, Mch. 31, 1917) ; 
 
 Inexperienced (Par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) ; 
 
 Timid (Par. 11 to 17, Nov. 25, 1916) ; 
 
 Eye-defective (Par. 21, Jan. 5, 1917) ; 
 
 Ear-defective (Par. 3 to 30, Mch. 31, 1917) ; 
 
 Infirm (Par. 10-c, Jan. 10, 1920) or 
 Invalid persons; 
 
 that is, they constitute a genus of 
 Unfortunate persons, or 
 Outlawed persons, or 
 Doubly-handicapped persons, 
 
 unable to successfully cope against homicidal conditions that the 
 defective rhetoric of the law permits or creates. 
 
 (Par. 9, Jan. 10, 1920.) A number of cases tending to support 
 
 2 
 
August 14, 1921 
 
 this theory have been analyzed in the following designated para- 
 graphs, namely: 
 
 No. 1 of Sept. 11, 1915; 
 
 No. 7 of Nov. 30, 1915 ; 
 
 No. 13 of June 22, 1916; 
 
 No. 6 of Oct. 18, 1916; 
 
 No. 11 to 13 of Nov. 25, 1916; 
 
 No. 2-b and 12, 18 and 21 of Jan. 5, 1917 ; 
 
 No. 17 to 19 of Mch. 31, 1917; 
 
 No. 10, 16 and 37 of June 5, 1917 (cases of President Wilson 
 and Mrs. Wilson). 
 
 (Par. 11, Jan. 10, 1920.) It will probably be conceded that a 
 traffic safety-law should be couched in frank , honest , sincere, and 
 explicit or specific language. 
 
 (A) Such a law would, for the instruction of drivers with 
 regard to human life, have a major premise explicitly speaking of 
 one or more of the species of pedestrians named in par. 8, or would 
 be so worded as to show that it has one or more of that species in 
 contemplation. Our law does not do that. 
 
 (B) It would have one or more major premises coupling the 
 term right of way with the term pedestrian. Our law has no such 
 major premise. 
 
 (C) It would have one or more major premises coupling the 
 term timely-s\owing down or timely -slacking speed when dan- 
 gerously approaching a pedestrian' s path, with the term vehicle 
 or street car. Our law has no such major premise. 
 
 (Par. 18, Jan. 10, 1920.) The probably extreme importance 
 to the physical, intellectual and ethical advancement of this Nation 
 that might necessarily result from a 4 scientific discussion of the 
 question of the ethical but not yet legal right of a pedestrian (say, 
 a mother, par. 7, June 5, 1917), to dignified (par. 15, June 22, 
 1916) and safe passage on a street crossing or on a roadway having 
 no sidewalks, is the apology of the writer for this unavoidably 
 long contribution to such discussion. It being possible that as a 
 logical consequence of the instituting , when popular opinion will 
 permit , a Governmental Department of Science (pars. 23 and 24, 
 May 2, 1918) there would result Governmental initiative and 
 encouragement of the study by our public-school teachers and 
 scholars, and consequently by most of our people and by the teach- 
 ers and scholars in the higher educational institutions, of the 
 
 3 
 
August 1J>, 1921 
 
 science and the art of frank, honest, sincere, humanely purposive, 
 or telic, thinking (par. 41, May 2, 1918). 
 
 (Par. 19, Jan 10, 1920.) Frank, honest and sincere thinking 
 is a prerequisite to frank, honest and sincere stating. Frank, hon- 
 est and sincere stating (veracious stating) to every person or 
 group of persons, that is ethically entitled to a veracious state- 
 ment — where courtesy or modesty, or consideration for the welfare 
 of the addressee (an invalid, for instance) does not enjoin silence 
 or kindly disposed deception — is probably a prerequisite to the earn- 
 ing of the CONFIDENCE, TRUST or SYMPATHETIC feeling of 
 that person, or group of persons; and is, consequently, probably a 
 prerequisite to the establishing and preserving UNIVERSAL 
 ethical or social HARMONY (par. 40, May 2, 1918). 
 
 Such a result would tend to the discovery of major premises 
 to insert in the Police Regulations that would tend to insure to 
 PEDESTRIANS, to human beings, the legal right to dignified and 
 safe passage on a street crossing and on a roadway having no 
 sidewalks. 
 
 (Par. 20, Jan. 10, 1920.) When once the scientific and ethical* 
 ATTITUDE of MIND is formed in any group, it is probable that 
 it would be considered by the majority of that group, to be as 
 unscientific, as unethical, as DISHONORABLE, for any two or 
 more persons to engage in discourteous or vindictive intellectual 
 Or physical combat, as it is now considered to be educative, enter- 
 taining and HONORABLE to engage in scientific, courteous or 
 playful intellectual or physical contests. 
 
 (Par. 12, May 2, 1918.) It is probably as certain as it is 
 remarkable and lamentable that many educated persons have had 
 no opportunity to have knowledge of what the words Middle Term 
 stand for ; and that probably very many educated persons have no 
 adequate knowledge of what the words Middle Term stand 
 for. * * * Probably much of each of the ethical treatises of 
 
 the Nineteenth and earlier centuries is practically valueless or 
 worse because the derived conclusions are drawn from dogmatic 
 premises or from premises containing either an Undistributed 
 Middle Term or an Ambiguous Middle Term or some other viola- 
 tion of the rules of the Syllogism. 
 
 (Par. 10, May 2, 1918.) Logic teaches us that having discov- 
 ered any one principle of nature we can record it in the form of a 
 General Proposition (or TRUTH) and place or file it in the record- 
 body of SCIENCE, thus forming or creating an exhaustless 
 
 4 
 
August lJf, 1921 
 
 TRUTH-TREASURY, upon which we can FOREVER make 
 drafts: each draft being in the form of a MINOR PREMISE of 
 a deductive syllogism; so that whenever we wish, in any certain 
 CASE (phenomenon, object, problem, difficulty, etc.,) to know or 
 to use any subordinate or unobvious individual or specific TRUTH 
 INVOLVED (or inexplicitly contained or embodied) in such a 
 recorded or known general proposition, we can by the exercise of 
 our trained logical powers or ingenuity,' obtain that involved indi- 
 vidual or specific truth by DEDUCTION (or deductive methods) ; 
 by using that general proposition as a MAJOR PREMISE of the 
 necessarily resulting deductive SYLLOGISM. 
 
 2. In order that any intelligent thinking person may be enabled 
 in a few hours to make himself or herself familiar with what has 
 been viewed as a mystery, or the mystery, of Syllogism or HOW 
 we THINK, the writer has placed — upon one page of the accom- 
 panying inclosure, entitled “SisMisP, or the a b c of Thinking,” 
 as nearly as words can do so — a moving picture of typical intel- 
 lectual successive momenta constituting a Thought-Unit. The 
 second page of the inclosure contains what may prove to be useful 
 relevant information. The aim of the inclosure is to convince any 
 person — who is interested in Education and its function in advanc- 
 ing the Nation — that the frank, honest, sincere and adequate 
 teaching of Logic in the public schools, will be of greater impor- 
 tance and utility than any subject now being publicly taught; 
 because it will tend to enhance in value the personal efficiency 
 produced by every one of the other subjects that students are now 
 learning ; it will tend to affix some degree of INITIATIVE to every 
 acquired accomplishment. Compare a person who is an illogical 
 or emotional thinker, with a person who is in any degree a logical, 
 and consequently a calm, thinker. 
 
 3. Objection may naturally arise to the name SisMisP or 
 Sismisp; one reason being that it is not euphonious. Precision 
 (or univocality) and connotativeness are essential in the choice or 
 invention of a term. There is probably no word in the English 
 language that is as precise and as connotative as Sismisp. This 
 one word is a miniature chapter on thinking. Many pages would 
 be required to enumerate the instructive connotation which it 
 suggests. 
 
 For instance: No legislator can make any precept whatever 
 (law, regulation, etc.) or state any principle, for guidance, that is 
 not reducible to the propositional form M is P. No police officer 
 
August lJf. 1921 
 
 can observe anything that comes within his disciplinary province 
 that is not representable by the S, and when he decides to act in 
 the matter, he decides that this S is M. His eyes or ears give him 
 the S and his memory of his instructions, constituting part of his 
 understanding, or knowledge, gives him the M. As more fully 
 explained in par. 25, May 2, 1918, the prosecuting officer or the 
 plaintiff’s attorney looks for the best relevant M that he can find 
 and then tries to convince the jury and the judge that S is M; 
 whereas the attorney for the accused or the defendant aims to 
 prove that the other side has the wrong S or the wrong M, or the 
 like. When the judge sentences any person, his sentence is 
 reducible to the propositional form S is P. If he states also either 
 one of the two premises as a reason why he pronounces the sen- 
 tence, he introduces the M of the syllogism. If he states both 
 premises, he says : S is M and M is P ; therefore S is P ; or S is 
 P because S is M and M is P. 
 
 4. Thinking it possible that the Commissioners may desire to 
 bring the information contained in the inclosure to the attention 
 of scientific bodies and to Educators of the Nation, for an exacting 
 criticism or for their information, the writer has had a large num- 
 ber printed, with that end in view ; and he will be pleased to present 
 to the Commissioners as many copies as they may desire, at any 
 time, or times , for any purpose or use that they may find for them. 
 
 5. Following are additional relevant extracts from prior 
 letters : 
 
 (Par. 14, Sept. 10, 1920.) If the thought stated in par. 18, 
 Nov. 30, 1915, (that the remedy is, a careful adequate change in 
 the wording of the regulations) is reasonably TRUE, reasonably 
 logical, reasonably scientific, reasonably HUMANE, then the kill- 
 ings, the injurings and the injurious frightenings caused directly 
 by this class of conscientious, law-conforming, auto-drivers, are 
 certainly and avoidably caused indirectly by the inadequate 
 rhetoric of the present legislation; and consequently, as legislation 
 is not self-creative and not self-perpetuative, the remediable cause 
 of the evil is to be sought for or to be found by a critical examina- 
 tion of the relevant conscious or unconscious premises existing in 
 the minds of the proponents and of the authors of the existing 
 legislation ; and existing in the minds of the proponents for a con- 
 tinuance or a non-change of the existing legislation, and existing 
 in the minds of the persons having legal power or authority to 
 change the regulations. 
 
 6 
 
August 1U, 1921 
 
 (Par. 15, Sept. 19, 1920.) Those relevant conscious or uncon- 
 scious premises probably should for ethical and scientific reasons 
 be ascertained and reduced to writing, when time permits, after 
 scientific investigation; the resulting syllogisms can then be calmly 
 and scientifically examined — thus following Lincoln’s example 
 (par. 9, Sept. 10, 1920) — in order to see if there is any material 
 fault in the premises. If there is any such fault found in the 
 premises (such as Lincoln pointed out) it would probably be unfair 
 and HOMICIDAL for society to assume or to contend that premises 
 of that class support the continuance (or non-change) conclusion. 
 
 6. The writer’s apology for this letter is the extreme impor- 
 tance to the Nation of a scientific discussion of this subject, if the 
 stated principles are reasonably sound. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 JACOB FRECH. 
 
 As has been done with all prior letters on this subject, copies 
 of this letter and its inclosure will be transmitted, respectively, to 
 The Chief Justice of the United States; 
 
 The Chief Justice of the District Supreme Court; 
 
 The Judge of the Police Court, D. C.; 
 
 The United States Attorney, D. C., and 
 The Coroner, 
 
 with the permission, and for the reasons stated in par. 15, April 
 3, 1916. 
 
 7 
 
PAGE FO UR 
 
 other classes of natural, conventional or legal superordinates of such person. 
 The power is also of use in every class of debate in the legislative, executive, 
 judicial, educational, scientific and other spheres. 
 
 13. When once Applied Logic, (reasoning, thinking) is adequately and 
 frankly, honestly and sincerely, taught by public instruction, then, in a gen- 
 eration or two the power to discover the multitudes of material and homi- 
 cidal fallacies that have for ages been spread and uncriticizingly accepted as 
 venerable truths would thereafter reduce TONS of literature to OUNCES 
 of literature, and YEARS of confusing inutile worrisome-study to HOURS 
 of perspicuous useful clear-minded study, on some subjects ; and tend to the 
 intellectual, ethical and physical advancement of the Nation, and tend nec- 
 essarily to the saving of HUMAN LIFE, and to the increase of SOCIAL 
 HARMONY and HAPPINESS; for all questions of material difference of 
 opinion can by aid of that power be discussed with scientific reasonableness 
 and with a MODESTY AND COURTESY OF AFFIRMATION that rec- 
 ognizes that the mind of every person whose opinions we doubt is no more 
 liable to natural error than our own mind is liable to natural error ; or in other 
 words, that WE, OURSELVES, are or have been naturally liable to err and 
 to exercise unconscious undue selfishness with its attendant unconscious 
 arrogance or other form of discourtesy. 
 
 14. A proposition that is not supportable by two other true propositions 
 is simply a dogmatic proposition, not entitled to be termed a truth; to term 
 it a truth is to sap the foundation of VERACITY, the sole ground of CON- 
 FIDENCE between human beings, which is a prerequisite to SOCIAL 
 HARMONY. 
 
 15. This presentation contains not one new truth. The writer has merely 
 tried to make PERSPICUOUS and COGENT what he has found, a little 
 here and a little there, in his household books, of authors that have lived 
 within the past 2,000 years. 
 
 SOME RELEVANT EXTRACTS, FROM AUTHORS, ADDI- 
 TIONAL TO THOSE GIVEN IN PRIOR LETTERS 
 
 16. Thought stands midway between Things and Words. Logic subjects 
 Language to examination and rectification that it may conform with entire 
 PRECISION to Thought. All Thought that does not found upon Things 
 is ab initio VICIOUS and WORTHLESS. The peculiar concern of Logic is 
 Thought. This is the broad province in which Logic possesses the right of 
 eminent domain; and though particular fields may seem to be parceled out 
 among the sciences, any one of them may be called upon to surrender 
 possession and GIVE an ACCOUNT of the transgression of law at the 
 BAR of LOGIC, which is accordingly with propriety described as the theory 
 of Classification or as the principle of science; i. e. of ALL the sciences. 
 
 Logic lies at the base of ALL scientific INVESTIGATION, record, 
 PROGRESS and final systematic EXPOSITION. John James Tigert, 
 (1856-1906) Logic. 
 
 17. To be logical is to be REASONABLE. The purpose of logic is to 
 indicate the rules of valid inference so as to facilitate the progress of the 
 mind in the pursuit of TRUTH and freedom of ERROR. Logic is a very 
 useful science, it STRENGTHENS the intellectual faculties. It makes it 
 easier to detect the numerous FALLACIES which consciously or uncon- 
 sciously creep into books and speeches. The logical mind is not drawn so 
 irresistibly by an appeal to PREJUDICES, PASSIONS and EMOTIONS. 
 Charles A. Dubray, Introductory Philosophy. 
 
 18. Invention of middle terms seems to depend on natural SAGACITY 
 and acuteness, fortified and improved by exercise. Boyd, Logic. SAGACITY 
 finds out the INTERMEDIATE IDEAS, to discover what connection there 
 is in each link of the chain, whereby the EXTREMES are HELD TO- 
 GETHER. Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding. 
 
 SAGACITY is a certain happy extempore conjecture of the Middle 
 Term. Aristotle, Organon, Posterior Analytics, I, xxxiv. 
 
(The a b c of Thinking) 
 
 
 Perspicuous Exhibit of Successive Typical 
 Intellectual Momenta in Successful Discover- 
 ing, Inventing, Convincing, and Motive Mind- 
 Reading. 
 
 A perspicuous tentative and somewhat incomplete presentation ot a tneory ot how Nature terras to mat-.c me intellect wont wnen it is doing telic (.purposive), in- 
 stantaneous or prolonged, THINKING, (i. e. syllogizing), on any subject whatever; whether the aim is DISCOVERY, INVENTION or CONVICTION. The pre- 
 sentation aims to demonstratively illustrate one phase, (in categorical affirmative form) of the principle of Relativity of Truth; viz.: that if any one proposition whatever 
 is true, at least two other relevant propositions must be true because, metaphorically speaking, every TRUE proposition must have TWO TRUE vouchers or ances- 
 tors and conversely that all propositions that contradict it must be false; also that when a person does any act, or states any conclusion whatever, and veraciously aims to 
 justify the act or the conclusion by the statement of a reason, which functions, say, as a minor premise, he has by that statement divulged, partly or wholly, an im- 
 plied major premise (principle or precept) in his mind that caused or actuated that act or conclusion; and will tend to do so in all like cases, if not modified, although he 
 himself may, by reason of particular ignorance or mental confusion, not have a distinct idea, or even any idea, what major premise governs him in that class of case; 
 and simply FEEL that his act or conclusion, is CONSCIENTIOUS and RIGHTEOUS, whatever its ethical quality may be in the opinion of better-informed persons. 
 
 The presentation also demonstrates that it is impossible for any person who is not familiar with the functions of the three terms and the three propositions of a unit of 
 thinking (a syllogism) to adequately teach a scholar or a student HOW to THINK. Hence the need for popularizing adequate knowledge of syllogism. 
 
 Inclosure to a letter to the Commissioners of 
 the District of Columbia from Jacob Freeh on 
 the subject of probable dependence of the 
 legalizing the ethical rights of pedestrians 
 on the popularizing the teaching of logic. 
 
 
 TERMS and COPULAE 
 
 (with •ynonym*) 
 
 Limited Exhibit 
 
 of the GENESIS of a telic of a syllogism 
 
 THOUGHT (SYLLOGISM) and 
 
 of the typical, progressive, intellectual *'« — 
 
 MOMENTA of a successful act of THINKING — — ^ 
 
 (syllogizing) about ANY subject WHATEVER. 
 
 (Space limitation* prevent cipanalon beyond one MonoaylloglHin.) 
 
 s 
 
 SUBJECT of the Syllogism; 
 SUBJECT of the Minor Premise; 
 
 SUBJECT of the Conclusion; 
 
 THING; CASE; 
 
 IN DIVIDUAL or Subspecies; or So-called 
 Syllogistic 
 
 MINOR (Thing, Notion or) TERM. 
 
 IS 
 
 COPULA 
 
 (Meaning either is, 
 or possesses the 
 relevant logical dif- 
 ference or the rele- 
 vant essential at- 
 tribute of) 
 
 M 
 
 MEDIUM of the Syllogism; 
 
 Predicate of the Minor Premise; 
 
 Subject of the Major Premise; 
 
 Relevant Intermediary Notion or 
 WHAT- WHICH; 
 
 Relevant SPECIES; or So-called Syllogistic 
 MIDDLE (Notion or) TERM. 
 
 IS 
 
 COPULA 
 
 (Meaning either is, or 
 possesses the relevant 
 logical difference or 
 the relevant essential 
 attribute of) 
 
 P 
 
 PREDICATE of the Syllogism; 
 PREDICATE of the Major Premise: 
 PREDICATE of the Conclusion; 
 
 GENUS 
 
 or so-called Syllogistic 
 
 MAJOR (Notion or) TERM. 
 
 CASE 
 
 GENESIS of any telle THOUGHT (SYLLOGISM) whatever. 
 
 A PERCEPTION or apprehension of, or encounter with, a CASE, diffi- 
 culty. concernment, predicament, or SUBJECT of curiosity, wonder, or 
 INTEREST, which spontaneously causes an emotion such as hope or desire, 
 fear or aversion, or oilier specieB of interested feeling. 
 
 W Insert an unambiguous name or description of the case in space (a) 
 
 (») 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 QUESTION 
 
 Seven Typical intellectual MOMENTA. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 possibly 
 
 is 
 
 1 Class relevant to the question now in mind? 
 WHAT 1 '■ e - whether certain action can or ought to be 
 j taken relevant to s certain desirable end: or 
 ( the like ? 
 
 Naturally resulting QUESTION, doubt, problem, or Inquiry for needed 
 information or truth or secret of Nature or solution. 
 
 *> 
 
 QUEST 
 
 for 
 
 MEDIUM 
 
 Nuturaily resulting intellectual IMPULSE or QUEST or fell need for a 
 RELEVANT MEDIUM or standard or metaphorical key, doorway, stepping 
 stone, bridge, tunnel or ladder, etc.; between the two notions, S and 1\; i. e. 
 Quest for the So-called Syllogistic Middle (notion or) Term. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 possibly 
 
 is 
 
 n ,M, T ( Known or recollectable or 1 wuir . 0 
 
 WHAT 1 ascertainable relevant species f WHR H 
 
 Ditto 
 
 — ^ 
 
 (he Ditto 
 
 :* 
 
 CON- 
 
 JECTURE 
 
 Either (1) instantaneous or (2) reflective recollection of previously acquired 
 relevant knowledge or experience, or (3) accidental discovery or (4) delibera- 
 tive, ingenious CONJECTURE, after cogitating say, one minute, hour. week, 
 month, yenr, or lifetime, resulting in conjecturing the needed MIDDLE 
 (notion or) Term. 
 
 'Insert nn unambiguous name of the conjectured Middle Notion in space (b)flf$ 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 a, an l (b) ) 
 
 or - > Ditto 
 
 the 1 \ 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto Ditto 
 
 MINOR 
 
 PREMISE 
 
 Either (I) recollection or (2) inquiry or (3) search of scientific or other 
 records, or (4) careful relevant investigation, observation, or experiment, 
 resulting in determining definitely the needed TRUE copula of the MINOR 
 PREMISE. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 is 
 
 Ditto Ditto 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 QUEST for 
 MAJOR 
 PREMISE 
 
 Naturally resulting intellectual IMPULSE or QUEST for the definite 
 relevant (attribute or) PREDICATE of the Middle (notion or) Term; i. e. 
 QUEST for the needed relevant Mnjor Premise. 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 The or ( DiUo 
 
 Every 1 
 
 is 
 
 WHAT Ditto 
 
 (» 
 
 MAJOR 
 
 PREMISE 
 
 Either (1) recollection or (2) Inquiry or (3) search of scientific or other 
 records, or (4) careful relevant investigation, observation, or experiment, result- 
 ing in ascertaining the needed TRUE or authoritative relevant MAJOR 
 
 PREMISE. 
 
 ^ Insert an unambiguous name of the ascertained Major Notion in space (c)fiT 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 Ditto Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 a, an ) (c) 
 or the) 
 
 T 
 
 CON- 
 
 CLUSION 
 
 The needed solution or reasonable CONCLUSION or discovered Truth or 
 secret of nature, instantly, necessarily disclosed or deduced or inferred 
 (or dittoed) from the two ascertained premises; the conclusion having a degree 
 ol CREDIBILITY or CERTAINTY not grenter than the least certain premise 
 has; and ENTITLED to the degree of ASSENT that is warranted by the 
 premises. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 Ditto 
 
 
 S is M is P 
 
 The sentence recorded in this line of spaces is a new form of proposition 
 or sentence; a double-copulaed compound form, S is M is P, which directly 
 expresses the premises and mediately expresses the conclusion. 
 
 This form of sentence functions os a complete, categorical, universal, 
 affirmative Syllogism of the First Figure In the briefest form. It may facilitate 
 solitary (doaet) or written reasoning. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
PAGE TWO 
 
 1. If the reader desires to ascertain whether the tabular analysis is adapted 
 to any categoric affirmative syllogism with which he is familiar he can test 
 it by writing the name of his subject (S) in space (a) ; the middle term (M) 
 in space (b) ; and the major term (P) in space (c). THESE THREE 
 SPACES ARE THE ONLY SIGNIFICANT VACANT SPACES ON 
 THE PAGE. He need fill in no other spaces as the printer has already 
 filled in the other 23 significant spaces for him; and by so doing he has 
 printed entire the three relevant questions and the minor premise; printed 
 the completory parts of the conjecture and the major premise; and PRINTED 
 ENTIRE THE CONCLUSION. If the reader cannot readily think of a 
 familiar syllogism, and does not wish to use so puerile or dry a one as is likely 
 to be found in any dictionary (gauged for the capacity of an eight-year-old 
 mind), of which probably the three terms are, (a) Socrates; (b) man; (c) 
 mortal or a mortal being; he can try the following three terms which prob- 
 ably were parts of an early vital aviation problem; (a) the density of the 
 human body; (b) a density equal to that of a certain liquid, wa- 
 ter; (c) a density equal to about 800 times the density of air. He 
 will find that the printer has already done much of his work in addition to 
 PRINTING ENTIRE THE CONCLUSION which the aviator was striv- 
 ing to reach. He will also find that if he contends, asserts or admits the 
 truth of the premises he is compelled by the Principle of CONSISTENCY 
 to contend, assert or admit that THAT CONCLUSION PRINTED IN AD- 
 VANCE IS A TRUE CONCLUSION. 
 
 2. Whenever, — regarding any new or strange case (SUBJECT) (S) which 
 is likely to affect our interests, or in which we are interested — we can form 
 a true, satisfactory or pleasing judgment (or proposition), we feel relieved of 
 doubt, or we feel contented, satisfied, or happy; that is our instinct or na- 
 ture. It is observable in the child and in the sage. If the discovered truth 
 portends danger we are put on our guard and feel a quest for means of 
 avoidance. Telic Thinking (syllogizing) is consequently normally, a daily 
 PURSUIT of the Agreeable; (the True, the Good, the Beautiful), and 
 AVOIDANCE of the Disagreeable; (the False, the Bad and the Ugly), ac- 
 cording to the standards instilled into or imbibed by us. 
 
 3. However, we cannot form a true judgment regarding a new or strange 
 case (subject) unless we know, or until we learn of, or discover, a relevant 
 satisfactory or desirable attribute (PREDICATE) (P) of that subject. 
 
 4. Hence, whenever we encounter such a subject, and that is, probably, 
 frequently every hour, we are instinctively put in QUEST of such a predi- 
 cate; i. e., having definitely the S (s- bject) we recollect instantly, or search 
 and research if need be, for the P (piedicate), so that we may be able truth- 
 fully and confidently to feel or say that S (subject) is a certain P (predicate). 
 
 5. When we do not immediately or adequately know that P, we bend 
 every effort of the intellect, and the relevant senses if they can help, to- 
 wards attaining adequate knowledge of that P. 
 
 6. For such a contingency Nature has planted in us, or has allowed us 
 to acquire an instinctive educable feeling of need of, and consequent de- 
 sire for, the aid of a Medium (M) or metaphorical key, doorway, stepping- 
 stone. bridge, tunnel or ladder, etc., between the two notions S and P, to 
 enable us metaphorically to reach or attain that P if possible, and thus affirm 
 or ieel it to be a true or real attribute of S, if Truth (i. e., the canons of 
 Logic) so permit. 
 
 (JVT tTItt'tt?* 116 C 1V s ? wh .y in any such case, every hour, we instinctively 
 bYLL° GIZE or think, willy or mlly, blunderingly, haphazardly or emo- 
 / SOn l-^ h ?, t ! ,ke ,U ie ™ ore intelligent of the lower animals, or method- 
 !^Wfc! ClentlfiC ? lly) j , We do c th! s thinking in natural and strict accordance 
 Z THTHifTwr fu d * deg u e ° f ,™ r se l f -training, or possibly teacher-training, 
 Snly „ K ™<&™,^™ av ? had: and with the degree of intellectual HON- 
 ~f, TY or . DISH °NESTY that our well-disciplined or ill-disciplined desires 
 r *r rS, ° nS . ° r van,t y> or partialities or superstitions or natural prejudices 
 °j obsessions ; Permit us to exercise. For,— a normal syl- 
 Jogishc unit, (termed a monosyllogism) is exactly S is M is P; neither more 
 
 nersn;^m e „ o W ^ r ' S -*- ap0l0 r gy for this tentative, crude, incomplete analytical 
 perspicuous exposition of an act or unit of THINKING, is the hope that 
 
 PAGE THREE 
 
 it may possibly be of service to the Commissioners of the District of Co- 
 lumbia, and to our Federal and State Educational Authorities, University and 
 College Authorities, Professors and Teachers and Pupils, of all classes of 
 schools, and last, but most important, Parents, and Employers and Employees 
 in any branch, in understanding a remarkably well-established and highly 
 lauded, but more remarkably little-taught and much neglected, tacitly dis- 
 torted, partisanized, deflected and enslaved, science and art; the science of 
 Logic and the art of applied Logic, i. e., of frank, honest and sincere THINK- 
 ING, the prerequisite to an enlightened altruistic conscience, to veracity and 
 to sincere courtesy. 
 
 9. The syllogistic form can perspicuously be applied to ASSURING ONE- 
 SELF, or REMINDING A CONTESTANT, that ANY two expressed prop- 
 ositions (enthymeme) of every valid syllogism (argument) imply the third 
 proposition of that syllogism; for instance: 
 
 ( contends ) 
 
 Whoever explicitly - asserts, or 
 ( admits ) 
 
 Thereby impliedly “ 
 
 that S 
 
 because “ 
 
 that 
 
 is 
 
 M 
 
 is 
 
 p 
 
 (major premise) 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( contends f 
 Whoever explicitly - asserts, or 
 ( admits ) 
 
 Thereby impliedly “ 
 
 that S 
 
 because 
 
 is 
 
 M 
 
 is 
 
 p 
 
 (minor premise) 
 
 that “ 
 
 
 
 
 
 j contends 1 
 Whoever explicitly - asserts, or ' 
 
 ) admits ) 
 
 that S 
 
 and that 
 
 is 
 
 M 
 
 is 
 
 p 
 
 
 Thereby impliedly “ 
 
 that “ 
 
 “ 
 
 
 
 “ 
 
 (conclusion) 
 
 10. Very frequently the contender or asserter or admitter is completely 
 unconscious of the import of some one or more of his implied contentions, 
 assertions or admissions, or is completely unconscious of the fact that he 
 has made any implied contentions, assertions or admissions; and when any 
 such implied contention, assertion or admission, is pointed out to him, he is 
 astounded at its import, denies its truth, or its honorableness, or utility, or 
 virtue; and if intellectually honest and of reasonable intelligence, imme- 
 diately or within a reasonable time for reflection, retracts one or both of 
 his contended, asserted or admitted propositions as being, in his now better 
 informed opinion, false, or DISHONORABLE or inutile or VICIOUS, or 
 at least in need of material rhetorico-logical change. If in such case of as- 
 tonishment at its false import he does not make such retraction or change, 
 then he is in a limited chronic confused state of feeling and of VOLITION, 
 in which he cannot see or will not PERMIT himself to see or to admit, a 
 distinction between the truth and the falsity of certain propositions relating 
 to the sphere of that subject; due to strong delusion or a species of hypnotism, 
 or to overwhelming undisciplined self-interestedness which may be as strong, 
 as blind and as irresponsible, as the animal instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 11. It is possible that in many instances the conduct of persons of every 
 degree of intelligence and education is governed by unconsciously enter- 
 tained or unrealized evil-causing major premises which they are ASHAMED 
 of and ready to ABHOR when brought to conscious view by syllogistic an- 
 alysis; and which consequently they will thereupon strive earnestly to get 
 out of their minds and frankly and gladly replace with opposing beneficent 
 relevant major premises that accord with both truth and their humane in- 
 stincts, and thus set a rare honorable example which less well-inforrned 
 persons and our children would feel inclined to follow. 
 
 12. The power of any logically trained person to discover exactly and 
 demonstrably what unexpressed (implied) major premise or minor premise 
 or conclusion, that he himself or any other person has as an active uncon- 
 scious motive or force in his mind, who has expressed himself in an enthy- 
 meme (a nigh universal mode of expression), is one of vast and far-reaching 
 importance, in instances in which some better informed person has authority 
 to apply corrective instruction; as in the case of parents or teachers or any