London: Macmillan, 1874. First edition. Two volumes, octavo. Original brown pebble-grain cloth, spines lettered in gilt, housed in a custom black cloth box. Frontispiece of the "reasoning machine" with tissue-guard to volume one, armorial bookplates of Vincent Henry Stanton to front pastedowns. Upper hinges cracked but holding firm, foxing to preliminary and rear leaves, some pencilled marginalia, volume two frequently unopened. Small black mark to foot of lower cover of volume one. An excellent, unrestored, Near Fine copy.

Jevons took six years to complete this work in which he espouses the "hypothetico-deductive model," essentially a system which utilises the Newtonian method of deductive reasoning in combination with experimental verification, a rejection of strict Baconian empiricism. Through his work on the scientific method, Jevons questioned whether logical reasoning could be performed mathematically. This resulted in his idea for the "reasoning machine," depicted in the frontispiece of this work. Recognized as a precursor of twentieth-century computers, the machine is held at Oxford's History of Science Museum.

Provenance: Vincent Henry Stanton (1846-1924), Regis Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University. Near Fine (Item #8221)