Ten brilliant essays on logic appear in this collection, the work of one of the world's best-known authorities on the subject, Nobel Prize-winner Bertrand Russell. In these thought-provoking arguments and meditations, Russell challenges the lingering romantic mysticism of the nineteenth century and posits his theory of logical atomism as the means to a balanced and realistic conception of the universe. Russell rejects Henri Bergson's emphasis on intuition rather than rational process as well as Darwin's theory of progressive evolution. Instead, he argues in favor of a scientific method as the sole basis for evaluating relationships between humans and society, and between people and their environment. He further declares that logic is the only sound means of determining the nature of the nonhuman world. These essays are categorized by Russell as "entirely popular" and "somewhat more technical." The former include the well-known title essay, in addition to "A Free Man's Worship" and "The Place of Science in a Liberal Education"; the latter comprise "On the Notion of Cause" and "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description," along with other essays written in the cogent and witty style for which their author is justly famed.
