Volume 1 takes up Peirce's early years. Charles S. Peirce was born in 1839, the son of the leading American mathematician of the time. A summa cum laudeBachelor of Science in Chemistry at the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard University, Peirce called himself a chemist for much of his life even though his scientific pursuits quickly took him far afield. By 1861, at the age of 22, he had defined his object in life. In mathematics and in as wide a range of the sciences as possible he would carry out and publish original research. His investigations in sciences other than logic would in the first place be for the sake of those sciences themselves, but all would be brought to a second focus in logic, including both the logic of mathematics and the logic of science, and eventually including the general theory of signs. Volume 1 presents the seminal writings that laid the groundwork for Peirce's future studies in logic and the sign theory of cognition. It demonstrates that by 1866 Peirce was no longer simply a chemist, but a member of the small international community of professional logicians.