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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2009
In his review of Ethical Studies, Henry Sidgwick commended Bradley for his frequently acute and suggestive criticism of psychological and ethical hedonism. Then he said,
Often again, just at the nodes of his argument, [Bradley] lapses provokingly into mere debating-club rhetoric; and his apprehension of the views which he assails is always rather superficial and sometimes even unintelligent. This last defect seems partly due to his limited acquaintance with the whole process of English ethical thought, partly to the contemptuous asperity with which he treats opposing doctrines: for really penetrating criticism, especially in ethics, requires a patient effort of intellectual sympathy which Mr. Bradley has never learned to make, and a tranquillity of temper which he seems incapable of maintaining.
(Sidgwick, 1876, 545)Weaken the stridency, replace the references to ethics with references to logic, and Sidgwick's remarks become an accurate description of many of Bradley's polemical outbursts in The Principles of Logic. Bradley matured a great deal in the seven years between writing Ethical Studies and The Principles of Logic. But even in The Principles of Logic, at just those points where the reader wants explanation, Bradley changes the subject or goes on the attack and tries to silence doubt with ridicule. His rhetoric is marvelous, but it sometimes misses its mark and – to quote Sidgwick again – perhaps exceeds “the canons of good taste” (Sidgwick 1876, 545).
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