I. On the mechanical performance of logical inference

It is remarkable that from the earliest times mechanical assistance has been employed in mathematical-computation. The use of pebbles, of the fingers, and of the abacus of the Greeks and Romans may be adduced as examples. Mathematicians have constantly delighted in devising mechanical modes of calculations, as in the case of Napier’s bones, mechanical globes, slide rules, &c. Actual machines for performing difficult calculations have been designed or constructed at various times since the early part of the 17th century, by Pascal, Morland, Leibnitz, Gersten, Babbage, and Scheutz. In logic, on the contrary, we meet with a total absence of any actual mechanism, although logical works abound with expressions implying the need of such aid. The name of Aristotle’s logical treatises, the ‘Organon,' or Instrument, and many definitions of logic, clearly express this idea, which is also distinctly stated by Bacon in the second aphorism of his 'New Organon.’