A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive vs Children's Literature
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
29,813words between them — 1h 59m of it
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is longer — 409,314 words against 379,501 for Children's Literature, a difference of 29,813 words or about 1h 59m of extra reading. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is the harder read, at grade 16.7 against 8.9.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive | Children's Literature | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Mill, John Stuart | Curry, Charles Madison |
| Words | 409,314 | 379,501 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 27h 17m | 25h 18m |
| Unique words | 12,329 | 20,119 |
| Sentences | 11,677 | 16,705 |
| Average sentence length | 35.1 words | 22.7 words |
| Reading grade | 16.7 | 8.9 |
| Reading ease | 37.8 | 71.9 |
| Long words | 16.6% | 6.3% |
Highlighted cells are the larger figure — except reading ease, where higher means easier.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions, same counting rule·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- Both texts are counted the same way, from the same source, with Gutenberg's header and licence footer struck first.
- The gap is stated in words and then in time at 250 words a minute — the rate is printed because a duration without one cannot be checked.
- Difficulty is compared on Flesch–Kincaid grade, which reads sentence and word length only. It cannot see irony or dialect, so treat it as a measure of surface, not of effort.
gap = |409,314 − 379,501| = 29,813 words 29,813 ÷ 250 wpm = 1h 59m of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive or Children's Literature?
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is longer — 409,314 words against 379,501 for Children's Literature, a difference of 29,813 words or about 1h 59m of extra reading. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is the harder read, at grade 16.7 against 8.9.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 27942 and no. 25545 — and from no other source. Neither book’s text is set on this site.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·US public domain·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Word counts and reading levels are computed from a specific public-domain edition and will differ from other editions and from other counting methods — see the method page.
