This was not the only work I did in New Zealand. I also did some work in logic—in fact, I invented for myself something now called “natural deduction”188—and I did much work, and much lecturing, on the logic of scientific discovery, including work in the history of science. This latter work consisted in the main in applications of my logical ideas on discovery to actual discoveries; but I also tried to make clear to myself the immense historical importance of erroneous theories, such as the Parmenidean theory of the full world.
In New Zealand I gave courses of lectures on noninductivist methods of science to the Christchurch branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Medical School in Dunedin. These were initiated by Professor (later Sir John) Eccles. During my last two years at Christchurch I gave lunchtime lectures to the teachers and students of the science departments of Canterbury University College. All this was hard work (today I cannot imagine how I did it) but extremely enjoyable. In later years I have met former participants in these courses the world over, scientists who assured me that I had opened their eyes—and there were some highly successful scientists among them.
I liked New Zealand very much, in spite of the hostility shown by some of the University authorities to my work, and I was ready to stay there for good. Early in 1945 I received an invitation from the University of Sydney. There followed some newspaper criticism in Australia about the appointment of a foreigner, and some questions were asked in Parliament. So I cabled my thanks and declined. Shortly afterwards—the war in Europe was in its last stages—I received a cable, signed by Hayek, offering me a readership at the University of London, tenable at the London School of Economics, and thanking me for sending The Poverty to Economica, of which he was the acting editor. I felt that Hayek had saved my life once more. From that moment I was impatient to leave New Zealand.