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'A System of Logic was first published in 1843 and immediately enjoyed a wide circulation, going through numerous editions. Mill himself made substantial changes in the third edition, published in 1850, and the eighth edition, published in 1872, a year before his death. This book is Mill’s most comprehensive and systematic philosophical work, elaborating his inductive method, which helped to free the empirical sciences from the rigidity of analysis by way of syllogisms. Syllogisms are arguments grounded in general principles, in which two premises are used to deduce a third premise, or conclusion. In A System of Logic, Mill breaks away from this age-old practice and instead proposes the use of a form of logic derived from the principles of the natural sciences. He uses his method to address questions of language and logic, induction, the relativity of knowledge, the structure of the scientific method, the structure of arithmetic and geometry, and the principles of the moral sciences. In effect, Mill provides a solid, scientific methodology for reasoning and for philosophy, derived from science and mathematics.
The introduction discusses the role and purpose of logic in human understanding. Logic is the art and science of reasoning, a means for the pursuit of truth. However, logic is only concerned with making inferences from observed phenomena, not with intuitive truths. Logic does not produce new evidence, but it can determine whether something offered as evidence is valid. Logic judges but does not observe, invent, or discover. Logic serves a purpose in some larger project of inquiry that gives it meaning. Fundamentally, logic is a method of evaluating evidence.'