This is the final draft before editing.

For an off-print of the published version, please contact

me at: amirouche.moktefi@ttu.ee
How did Lewis Carroll become a logician?

Amirouche Moktefi
Institut de recherches interdisciplinaires sur les sciences et la technologie (Strasbourg)
Laboratoire dhistoire et philosophie des sciences Archives Poincar (Nancy)
7, rue de lUniversit. 67000 Strasbourg (France)

Abstract
Many generally accepted ideas harm an objective appreciation of Carrolls contributions
in logic. To correct these prejudices and misunderstandings, we will essentially discuss
the genesis and the reception of Lewis Carrolls logical work. By focusing on the
connections between logic and Carrolls other literary and mathematical works, we will
answer some questions related to the use which Carroll made of his pseudonym, the
growing interest which he had in logic, and the status he gave it.
Rsum
Plusieurs ides reues empchent une apprciation objective des contributions de Lewis
Carroll la logique. Pour corriger ces ides fausses, nous allons essentiellement discuter
la gense et la rception de luvre logique de Lewis Carroll. En nous focalisant sur les
connections entre la logique et ses autres travaux littraires et mathmatiques, nous
pourrons rpondre quelques questions sur lusage que Lewis Carroll fait de son
pseudonyme, son intrt croissant pour la logique et enfin le statut quil lui accordait.
Lewis Carrolls logical works
Lewis Carroll, the famous author of the Alice books and some other works which
appeal essentially to children, was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. His
mathematical works deal with Geometry, algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry and logic, but the
majority of his books and pamphlets were concerned with Euclidean geometry, on which he
wrote several textbooks. When Lewis Carroll became old, he focused solely on logic. This is
why all his purely logical works were written after 1885. His first book on the subject The
Game of Logic appeared in 18861. The title of the book and its preface are perfectly clear
about Carrolls aims in publishing it. It is presented essentially as a game where, thanks to a
board and counters, the players (one at least, he reminds us) could find it fun to draw
conclusions from a set of premises. But more than a game, Lewis Carroll conceived the book
to popularize logic and thought it could be a source of instruction too:

The 1886 was in fact a private edition. The first public edition was published by MacMillan on 1887.
Reprinted by Dover in 1958.

A second advantage, possessed by this game, is that, besides being an endless source
of amusement (the number of arguments, that may be worked by it, being infinite), it
twill give the Players a little instruction as well. But is there any great harm in that, so
long as you get plenty of amusement? (Preface of the Game of Logic)
The book is divided into four chapters: The first explains briefly the laws of the game,
the second is a collection of problems, the third gives their answers and finally the fourth is a
list of problems without answers. Each copy of the book is accompanied by an envelope
containing a diagram on card, and nine counters, four red and five grey. In order to make his
game accessible to a large public, Lewis Carroll took a special care when writing it. He signed
it with his literary pseudonym to guarantee better publicity. The style is very familiar and
the problems (where we find a variety of fabulous characters) are often funny. However,
despite all this hard work, it is difficult to say that the book knew a large success and it seems
that logic didnt fascinate either children or adults.
Ten years later, Lewis Carroll published his second book on the subject titled more
seriously Symbolic Logic. It was planned to publish it in three parts. However, only part
one subtitled Elementary appeared in 1896 and had three other editions the same year2.
Lewis Carroll introduces again his diagrammatic method but in a more complete and precise
way than The Game of Logic. In his introductions and his preface, he insists on the
importance of logic both as a source of instruction and a mental recreation.
Symbolic Logic. Part 1 contains eight parts called books. Lewis Carroll introduces first
the important logical concepts of things and their attributes (Book I), propositions (Book II).
Then he introduces his biliteral and triliteral diagrams (Books III and IV). The next books
deal with syllogisms (Book V), the method of subscripts (Book VI) and soriteses (Book VII).
Book VIII is a collection of examples with answers and solutions. Finally, an appendix,
addressed to teaching concludes the book.
Though the book seems to have been well received by its reviewers, it didnt obtain a
particular attention from logicians. Rather appreciated for its humorous examples, its
problems were largely reprinted, adapted and imitated in modern logical manuals. Its
scientific content, elementary as Lewis Carroll stated it himself, drew little attention, despite
the fact that it contained many interesting inventions.
More influential are Carrolls two contributions to the philosophical review Mind: A
logical Paradox3 (1894) and particularly What the Tortoise said to Achilles4 (1895). In
effect, these two texts, dealing with hypotheticals, have been largely reprinted, commented
and discussed by logicians and philosophers. Bertrand Russell, for example, discussed both in
his Principles of Mathematics (1905), considering them as Carrolls best contribution to logic.
In 1942, during a radio program with Mark Van Doren and Katherine Anne Porter, Russell
evaluated as following Lewis Carrolls logical work:
I think he was very good at inventing puzzles in pure logic. When he was quite an old
man, he invented two puzzles he published in a learned periodical, Mind, to which he
didnt provide answers. And the providing of answers was a job, at least so I found
it.5 And later on: His works were just what you would expect: comparatively good at
producing puzzles and very ingenious and rather pleasant, but not importantNone of

Dover reprinted the fourth edition in 1958.

Lewis Carroll, A Logical paradox, Mind, vol. 3, N 11, July 1894, pp. 436-438
4
Lewis Carroll, What the Tortoise said to Achilles, Mind, vol. 4, N 14, April 1895, pp. 278-280.
5
Bertrand Russell, A fresh look at empirism (1927-42), volume 10 of the complete works of Bertrand Russell,
edited by John G. Slater with the assistance of Peter Kllner, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 525.
3

his works was important. The best work he ever did in that line was the two puzzles
that I spoke of6
More than his logical textbooks and his two articles in Mind, Carrolls fame among
logicians is curiously essentially due to his fictional works particularly the two Alice tales:
Alices Adventures in Wonderland (1865) et Through the Looking Glass (1872). John Venn
referred to it in his Symbolic Logic (second edition, 1894). Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, W.
V. Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Peter Geach and many others quoted from the Alice books in their
works. Quickly, commentators presented Alice as the work of an unconscious logician
more ingenious than what we found in part 1 of Symbolic Logic.
Lewis Carroll was still working on parts 2 and 3 of his Symbolic Logic, planned to be
sub-titled advanced and transcendental, when he died on January 14th, 1898. Logicians
thought that the manuscripts were lost. Only few believed that the manuscripts and galley
proofs survived. Peter Geach was among them, as testifies his letter to the Times Literary
Supplement, published on December 26th, 1968:
At the time of Lewis Carrolls death, his Symbolic Logic, Part 2, existed in proof; but
apart from small fragment in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, these proofs have
disappeared. It is possible, however, that some complete set of them may exist
somewhere; Lewis Carroll used to send round his work in proof for his friends
comments. It would be a great service to scholarship if this work could be found.7
It was however, only in 1977, that the American philosopher W. W. Bartley III
published large surviving fragments of the second part of Lewis Carrolls symbolic logic8.
The book, which also reproduces part 1, contains the galley proofs discovered by Bartley, and
many other manuscripts, notes and letters on logical matters. Bartleys edition is sometimes
presented as the best presentation of Carrolls logic ever to be produced. Some authors
referred to it as if it was a definitive edition. However, this is far from being true. Though
Bartleys contribution is of course very important, his edition is more a collection of surviving
manuscripts than a real edition of part II.
In an advertisement for part I, Lewis Carroll described briefly the contents of parts II
and III. The former would discuss, among other subjects, propositions of other forms,
trilateral and multilateral propositions, hypotheticals and dilemmas. Except, may be, for
dilemmas, none of these subjects appeared in the volume published by Bartley which, of
course, didnt include anything of the expected contents of part III as announced by Carroll
(Analysis of a proposition into its elements, numerical and geometrical problems, the theory
of inference, the construction of problems, and many other Curiosa Logica). Otherwise,
among the eight books contained by Bartleys reconstitution of Part II, two books ( IX and X)
are in fact extracts from the appendix of part I, and three are exclusively collections of
problems and their solutions (Books XIII, XIV and XXII). The three remaining books are a
collection of puzzles (Book XXI), a book on symbols and logical charts (Book XI written
essentially by the editor) and a presentation of the method of trees (Book XII which is
probably the most interesting book of part II). Finally, this published part II is incomplete and
its books themselves are probably somewhat different from what Lewis Carroll would have
published. Not only the galley proofs published here were sent to friends to be corrected, but
one could note that the books of part II are too long and irregular comparative to the books of
part I. When we remember that Carroll projected to publish later the three parts of his
6

Op. cit., p. 528.

Peter Geach, Symbolic Logic (letter to the editor), Times Literary Supplement, December 26, 1968.
8
W. W. Bartley III, Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., Publishers, New York, 1977.
7

symbolic logic in one volume9, one could suppose he planned to make the chapters somewhat
equilibrated. All this is not to criticize Bartleys editorship. On the contrary, he surely made a
great job. However, we must always remember when using the book that it is not exactly part
II of Symbolic logic, but rather a collection of Carrolls surviving logical papers, including
letters, pamphlets and other manuscripts, among which some were intended for part II.
Lewis Carrolls logical reputation
In his introduction10, Bartley claimed rightly a higher place for Lewis Carroll among
logicians. But his enthusiasm is not shared by everybody. Peter Geach for example, though
recognizing the richness of Carrolls problems and puzzles, accused Bartley of having
absurdly exaggerated Carrolls merits11. Peter Alexander is more severe:
It is not the fault of the Editor, who deserves our thanks, that this book is likely to
disappoint the Carroll-addicts, among whom I count myself, who have an interest in
logic. It reveals Carroll as less inventive, less able to profit from the available
literature and less philosophically acute than the Alice books lead one to expect.12
Some other historians of mathematics were more positive. They expected that this
new publication would correct Lewis Carrolls reputation as a logician for children. For
example, Ivor Grattan-Guinness concluded his review with optimism:
Lewis Carroll subtitled Symbolic Logic A fascinating mental recreation for the
young. I trust that this edition will help stimulate a long overdue re-appraisal of
Carroll as a logician suitable for the attention of the adults, and not just as a puzzlesetter for juvenile minds.13
Though Bartleys edition had been globally well received, it is not certain that it
changed something in Carrolls reputation among both logicians and Carrollian scholars. A
look at Quines review suffices14. It seems that, unfortunately, his writings are still more
appreciated for their pedagogic and humorous aspects than for their scientific contents. This
reputation is essentially due to numerous generally received ideas which harm a correct
appreciation of Lewis Carrolls work as a logician.
One widely admitted idea is that Lewis Carroll was an unconscious logician. In
effect, even when Carrolls works reveal accurate ideas and discoveries, commentators
claimed Carroll not fully conscious of the depth of his works. Braithwaite for example,
wrote that in his contributions to Mind, Lewis Carroll was ploughing deeper than he knew.
9

In a letter to his publisher Macmillan, dated February 1st, 1893, he wrote: My idea is to divide the work into 3
Parts, viz. Elementary, Advanced, and Higher, and to publish them separately, in paper covers (or perhaps
stiff covers, like picture-books), and also the 3 Parts in one volume, in cloth. (Morton N. Cohen and Anita
Gandolfo, Lewis Carroll and the house of Macmillan, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 290).
10
W. W. Bartley III, Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., Publishers, New York, 1977, pp.
1-42. See also: W.W. Bartley III, Lewis Carroll's lost book on logic, Scientific American, vol. 227, N 1, July
1972, pp 39-46.
11
Peter Geach, review of W. W. Bartleys Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, Philosophy, Vol. 53, 1978, pp 123125.
12
Peter Alexander, review of W. W. Bartleys Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, The Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 28, n 113, 1978, p. 350.
13
Ivor Grattan-Guinness, review of W. W. Bartleys Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, Annals of Science, vol. 36,
n 6, 1979, p. 653.
14
Willard Van Orman Quine, review of W. W. Bartleys Lewis Carrolls Symbolic Logic, Times Literary
Supplement, n 3937, 1978, pp. 1018-1019.

His mind was permeated by an admirable logic which he was unable to bring to full
consciousness and explicit criticism15. Another widely accepted idea is that Lewis Carroll
considered logic as a game. Generally, commentators justify this supposition by the fact that
Carroll entitled his first book on the subject: The game of logic. Theodore Maynard, for
example, wrote:
From time to time, he [Lewis Carroll] issued a mathematical treatise or a work on
logic, but none of these would be remembered now except for Lewis Carroll, for as the
titles of some of these works would indicate The Game of Logic and Curiosa
Mathematica his mind was occupied with ingenuities rather than profound
considerations.16
Its true that The Game of Logic was really a game. But this does not mean that for
Carroll, logic was just a game. For example, we know that he worked seriously on many
mathematical subjects like determinants and geometry. That does not prevent him from
writing and publishing many collections of games, puzzles and problems on the same
subjects. The game of logic is a game Carroll invented to popularise a subject he elsewhere
considered serious enough to devote much of his time to it, in the last two decades of his life.
Finally, in a letter to his sister Louisa, he wrote that he regards logic as a work for God
(September 28th, 1896)17. This illustrates the seriousness with which Lewis Carroll wrote his
textbook on Logic.
A last generally accepted idea I want to correct is that Lewis Carrolls logical works
were intended for children. Here also, we just have to remember that Lewis Carroll always
wrote with his readers in mind. Even in his most serious treatises, he wrote in such a way as to
be understood also by a non-scientific public. See for example Euclid and his modern
rivals, a serious book he wrote in the form of a drama in four acts. Lewis Carrolls logical
works are not books for children. Surely, parts are accessible to children, but other parts are
explicitly intended for teachers and specialists. All this is to say that Symbolic Logic,
Carrolls serious treatise of Logic, is often reduced to being just a game for children. This
reputation is of course linked to Lewis Carrolls fame as a child author.
Logic and literature
It would be interesting to compare the reception of Carrolls literary and mathematical
works. This reception is somewhat strange. The mathematical books are nowadays mostly
read as fantasies. In parallel, Carrolls fictions seduce more and more mathematicians and
philosophers. Briefly, we notice a mathematisation of the literary works and literarisation
of the mathematical works. Many scientists (contemporaries and successors of Carroll) quoted
from the Alice books. The first one seems to be John Venn in his Symbolic Logic (second
edition, 1894). Later, Philip E. B. Jourdain annexed to each chapter of his book The
philosophy of Mr. B*rtr*nd R*ss*ll (1918) an extract from Carrolls literary works,
particularly from the Alice books. The view that without his mathematical and logical
avocation, Lewis Carroll would be unable to write the Alice books is today largely accepted.
It was first explained by the logician Peter Alexander in his Logic and the Humour of Lewis
Carroll. He wrote:
15

R. B. Braithwaite, Lewis Carroll as logician, The Mathematical Gazette, vol. 16, N 219, July 1932, pp. 175178.
16
Theodore Maynard, Lewis Carroll: mathematician and Magician, Catholic World, N 135, 1932, p. 195.
17
Morton N. Cohen (ed.), The Letters of Lewis Carroll, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, vol. 2, pp.
1099-1101.

My thesis in this essay will be that if Lewis Carroll had not been a logician as well as
an artist the Alice books would have been much less convincing and aesthetically
satisfying than they are. I shall emphasise that much of the humour has a logical
basis... And Later on: Without Dodgson, the pedantic logician, Carroll the artist
would have been of considerably less importance; there was no discrepancy18
This view is perfectly defendable. However, there is a tendency in the majority of
commentaries to overestimate this scientific part. John Macy for example wrote that:
When the intellectual history of our area, our general block of real time, is written, it
will be found that Lewis Carroll discovered relativity before Einstein was born;
certainly it will be understood that relativity and Alice are inherent in mathematics.19
It has also been written that Alice is a treatise of logic, and that Lewis Carroll, by
writing it, wanted to provide lessons in correct reasoning to his children readers. There is no
evidence for this. It is more convincing to think that there are no such morals in the Alice
books. Remember how, in the tale, Lewis Carroll makes fun of the lessons British children
learn in their schools. One could go further, and say that the success of the book is partly due
to the inexistence of a moral. In a radio program (1942), Bertrand Russell commented on the
Alice book, and said
When I was young, it was the only childrens book that hadnt got a moral. We all
got very tired of the morals in books.20
One should notice this interference between the receptions of Lewis Carrolls works.
On one side, Carrolls literary works, initially intended for children, interest more and more
adults and on the other side, Carrolls logical works, intended for adults, are mostly read as
fantasies where the literary scholars search for the clues to understand the literary works.
Surely Carrolls fame as a childrens author permits a broader diffusion of his other
mathematical books, but at the same time the reception of these serious works had been
influenced by the complete identification of Carroll as and only as the author of the Alice
books. This is why in place of a serious treatise of logic; commentators have seen only a game
intended for children. The problem in all this story is that all these generally accepted ideas
seem to have one principal reason, which is the presumption that, because a given book is
written by Lewis Carroll, it must be fantasist to be interesting.
Martin Gardner presented Lewis Carroll in these words, in his famous column in the
Scientific American:
The reverend Charles L. Dodgson, who wrote immortal fantasy under the pseudonym
of Lewis Carroll, was an undistinguished mathematician who delivered dull lectures at
Oxford and penned equally dull treatises on such topics as geometry and algebraic

18

Peter Alexander, Logic and the Humour of Lewis Carroll, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and
Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, Vol. 6, 1944, p. 551.
19
Cited by: Barbara Elpern Buchalter, The logic of nonsense, The Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 55, 1962, p. 332.
20
Bertrand Russell, A fresh look at empirism (1927-42), volume 10 of the complete works of Bertrand Russell,
edited by John G. Slater with the assistance of Peter Kllner, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 522523.

determinants. Only when he approached mathematics in a less serious mood did his
subject and his way of writing about it take on lasting interest.21
I think that this quotation summarises the general presumption. Everybody searches
for fantasy in Carrolls books, including mathematical books. When its serious, its not
interesting. It is well known that Lewis Carroll was often seen as a dual person. On one side,
we have Charles Dodgson, the dull mathematician, and on the other side, we have Lewis
Carroll, the brilliant fantasist. As wrote Theodore Maynard:
As we cannot understand how that could be, we must regard him as a dual
personality, building up syllogisms or working out mathematical problems with one
lobe of his brain, and with the other contriving delicious fantasies.22
Though this conception is today abandoned, it has engendered another widely accepted
idea which is that Lewis Carroll signed his literary works by his pseudonym, and his
mathematical works by his real name (Charles Dodgson). In fact, the use of a pseudonym by
Lewis Carroll does not have any thing to do with the nature of his writings. For example, the
mathematical book Euclid and his modern rivals signed Charles Dodgson, is written as a
play. We also know that Lewis Carroll signed with his real name the only love poetry he
produced (5 poems between 1859 and 1868). Conversely, he signed with his pseudonym a
collection of mathematical problems entitled A tangled Tale. And of course, he signed with
his pseudonym his logical works.23
The explanation is simply that Carroll signed all his popular works (literary and
mathematical) by his pseudonym. We must remember that except for A tangled tale, and the
logical books, all Carrolls other mathematical works were not popular books. They were
serious treatises and textbooks intended for his students or for teachers and mathematicians.
He signed all theses works by his real name because they are directly connected to his job:
mathematics lecturer. So Lewis Carroll signed his logical works with his pseudonym simply
to guarantee a large public for this work which was not directly linked to his job of teacher.
All this is to say that Lewis Carrolls use of his pseudonym was reserved for the public
area. He signed his letters with his real name Charles Dodgson, even when he wrote to his
child-friends or to his contemporary logicians, though his works were signed Lewis Carroll.
And of course, everybody at Christ Church knew who he was.
On the way to Logic
Let us now turn to our original question: how did Lewis Carroll become a logician?
We should first eliminate the hypothesis that Lewis Carroll wrote his logical works to explore
further the logical intuitions he got in his literary works. As explained above, Alice is not a
21

Martin Gardner, The Games and Puzzles of Lewis Carroll, Scientific American, 202.3, 1960, p. 172.
Theodore Maynard, Lewis Carroll: mathematician and Magician, Catholic World, N 135, 1932, p.193.
23
There is no doubt that Carrolls signatures confounded historians of mathematics. For example, Helena Pycior
thought that Lewis Carroll signed his Euclid and his modern rivals with his pseudonym (see: Helena M. Pycior,
At the intersection of mathematics and humor: Lewis carrolls Alices and symbolical algebra, in Patrick
Brantlinger (dir.), Energy & Entropy: Science and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays from Victorian Studies,
Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1989, p. 134). This is probably due to the Dover Edition on the cover of
which only Lewis Carrolls pseudonym appears. Ernest Coumet thought that, among Carrolls two logical books,
only Symbolic logic was signed with his pseudonym (See: Ernest Coumet, The Game of Logic: A game of
universes, in: Edward Guiliano(ed.), Lewis Carroll Observed. A Collection of Unpublished Photographs,
Drawings, Poetry and New Essays, New York : C. N. Potter, 1976, p. 181).
22

treatise of logic, and Carrolls signature of his logical work with his pseudonym does not
testify such a connection. Of course, it is Lewis Carroll who wrote Alice, however, it is not
surprising to find mathematical and logical jokes in it, exactly as it is not surprising to find a
pilot in Antoine de Saint Exuprys Le petit prince, since Saint Exupry himself was a pilot.
That doesnt mean that Le petit prince is an aviation guide! So, rather than searching for
artificial literary connection, it is more interesting to explore Carrolls other works to
reconstruct his growing interest in logic.
Though Carrolls works in logic appeared after 1885, his interest in logic is older. In a
letter dated December 29th, 1891, and written to and published by his nephew Collingwood
in his biography, he wrote that his interest in logic was forty-years-old:
At present, when you try to give reasons, you are in considerable danger of
propounding fallacies. Instances occur in this little essay of yours; and I hope it wont
offend your amour proper very much, if an old uncle, who has studied Logic for forty
years, makes a few remarks on it.24
In effect, Carrolls diaries confirm his early interest in Logic. In the March 13th, 1855
entry, he included logic in his reading plan: Second Logic, finish Mill and dip into Dugald
Stewart.25 On September 6th, 1855, he records: Wrote part of a treatise on Logic, for the
benefit of Margaret and Annie Wilcox.26 This is the first reference to his own work on logic.
Surely, logic was not his main interest, but it was probably never completely absent. We
must remember that Lewis Carroll was professionally a mathematics lecturer, and that his
teaching concerned essentially geometry.
Naturally, teaching geometry was an issue that greatly concerned him,, since he was a
lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College for more than twenty-five years. His
teaching coincided with a wide debate in British schools and Colleges on the use of Euclids
Elements for teaching geometry. Contrary to what one could suspect, the discussion didnt
revolve around the teaching of Non-Euclidean geometry. Until the mid-nineteenth century,
Euclids book had been the standard textbook for teaching geometry in England. But in the
1860s, a number of mathematics teachers questioned the adequacy of Euclids Elements and
called for it to be replaced by other texts. In Euclid and his modern rivals27, Dodgson
collected together the main textbooks which were intended to supersede Euclid. He
meticulously analysed them. Then, he refuted them and loudly claimed the superiority of
Euclids book for teaching geometry.
As you know, Euclids Elements was perhaps more a textbook of logic than of
geometry. And teaching Euclid was an instrument for training the reasoning faculty. It taught
Logic rather than geometrical techniques. As W. H. Brock wrote:
The more serious argument in favour of Euclid, as Wilson recognized, was formal;
Euclid did not teach geometry but orderly thinking. It was an educational masterpiece
because it concentrated on manipulating things deductively (and not merely symbols
of things, as in algebra). Such mind-training would prove useful in later life and in
science.28
24

Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, first edition 1898. Reprinted by the
Century Co., New York, 1967, p. 299.
25
Wakeling Edward (ed.), Lewis Carroll diaries: the private journals of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis
Carroll), Volume 1, Lewis Carroll Society, 1993, p. 74.
26
Op. cit., p. 129.
27
Charles L. Dodgson, Euclid and his modern rivals, Macmillan, 1879. Dover reprinted it in 1973 and 2004.
28
W. H. Brock, Geometry and the Universities: Euclid and his modern rivals, 1860-1900, History of Education,
vol. 4, 1975, pp. 21-35.

Carrolls work on geometry clearly led him to study and discuss the validity of
arguments. It is surely not a coincidence if for his only two serious contributions to Mind,
both referred to geometrical problems: In a note appended to A logical paradox, Lewis
Carroll gave a geometrical problem as a concrete form of his logical paradox. Also, What
the Tortoise said to Achilles illustrates a logical difficulty by discussing the validity of a
Euclidean argument. So, Francine Abeles is right in claiming that Dodgsons formulation of
formal logic came late in his lie as the culmination of his publications on Euclids geometry
in the 1860s and 1870s.29
There is a second connection of interest to understand Lewis Carrolls interest in logic.
In effect, in his private writings, he usually linked logic with religious thought. As early as
February 2nd, 1857, he recorded in his diaries how correct reasoning is important for religious
belief. Much later, he insisted in many of his letters on the importance of logical
argumentation in sermons. For example, in the letter already quoted to his nephew S. D.
Collingwood, he wrote:
The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to
modern Christianity. When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill
them with miserable doubts.30
Later, he planned to publish a book on religious matters, from a logical point of view. In
a letter to his publisher, he described it as:
an attempt to treat some of the religious difficulties of the day from a logical point
of view, in order to help those, who feel such difficulties, to get their ideas clear, and
to see what are the logical results of the various views held. Venns Hulsean Lectures,
which I have just met with, called Characteristics of Belief31, is very much on those
lines, but deals with only one such difficulty.32
Though he never published such a book, his letters to an agnostic, commented by
Francine Abeles in The mathematical pamphlets of Charles Dodgdson 33 could give an idea of
the kind of questions Lewis Carroll would have discussed in his book.
Conclusion
We should keep in mind that all the above presented generally accepted ideas connected
to Carrolls interest in logic, harm an objective understanding of Lewis Carrolls logic. This is
why we wanted to discuss and correct them here first, before properly exploring Carrolls
writings and conceptions on logic. This is of course another story.

29

Francine Abeles, Lewis Carrolls formal logic, History and philosophy of logic, February 2005, p. 44.
Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, first edition 1898. Reprinted by the
Century Co., New York, 1967, p. 301.
31
John Venn, On Some of the Characteristics of Belief, Scientific and Religious, Macmillan, 1870.
32
Morton N. Cohen and Anita Gandolfo, Lewis Carroll and the house of Macmillan, Cambridge University
Press, 1987, p. 319.
33
Francine Abeles, The Mathematical Pamphlets of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Related Pieces, New York:
Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 1994, pp. 5-8.
30