FROM-THE- LIBRARYOF
TWNITYCOLLEGETORQNTO
A SYSTEM OF LOGIC,
K1TIOCINATIVE AND INDUCTIVE:
BEING A
CONNECTED VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE
AND THE
METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.
BY
JOHN STUART MILL.
EIGHTH EDITION.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1882.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION,
THIS book makes no pretense of giving to the world a new theory of the
intellectual operations. Its claim to attention, if it possess any, is ground-
ed on the fact that it is an attempt, not to supersede, but to embody and
systematize, the best ideas which have been either promulgated on its sub-
ject by speculative writers, or conformed to by accurate thinkers in their
scientific inquiries.
To cement together the detached fragments of a subject, never yet treat-
ed as a whole ; to harmonize the true portions of discordant theories, by
supplying the links of thought necessary to connect them, and by disentan-
gling them from the errors with which they are always more or less inter-
woven, must necessarily require a considerable amount of original specula-
tion. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In
the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very
strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effect-
ed a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or added any
fundamentally new process to the practice of it. The improvement which
remains to be effected in the methods of philosophizing (and the author be-
lieves that they have much need of improvement) can only consist in per-
forming more systematically and accurately operations with which, at least
in their elementary form, the human intellect, in some one or other of its
employments, is already familiar.
In the portion of the work which treats of Ratiocination, the author has
not deemed it necessary to enter into technical details which may be ob-
tained in so perfect a shape from the existing treatises on what is termed
the Logic of the Schools. In the contempt entertained by many modern
philosophers for the syllogistic art, it will be seen that he by no means par-
ticipates ; though the scientific theory on which its defense is usually rest-
ed appears to him erroneous : and the view which he has suggested of the
nature and functions of the Syllogism may, perhaps, afford the means of
conciliating the principles of the art with as much as is well grounded in
the doctrines and objections of its assailants.
The same abstinence from details could not be observed in the First
Book, on Names and Propositions ; because many useful principles and dis-
iv PREFACE.
tinctions which were contained in the old Logic have been gradually omit-
ted from the writings of its later teachers ; and it appeared desirable both
to revive these, and to reform and rationalize the philosophical foundation
on which they stood. The earlier chapters of this preliminary Book will
consequently appear, to some readers, needlessly elementary and scholastic.
But those who know in what darkness the nature of our knowledge, and
of the processes by which it is obtained, is often involved by a confused
apprehension of the import of the different classes of Words and Asser-
tions, will not regard these discussions as either frivolous, or irrelevant to
the topics considered in the later Books.
On the subject of Induction, the task to be performed was that of gener-
alizing the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which
so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sci-
ences, been aggregated to the stock of human knowledge. That this is not
a task free from difficulty may be presumed from the fact that even at a
very recent period, eminent writers (among whom it is sufficient to name
Archbishop Whately, and the author of a celebrated article on Bacon in the
Edinburgh Review] have not scrupled to pronounce it impossible.* The
author has endeavored to combat their theory in the manner in which Di-
ogenes confuted the skeptical reasonings against the possibility of motion ;
remembering that Diogencs's argument would have been equally conclu-
sive, though his individual perambulations might not have extended be-
yond the circuit of his own tub.
Whatever may be the value of what the author has succeeded in effect-
ing on this branch of his subject, it is a duty to acknowledge that for much
of it he has been indebted to several important treatises, partly historical
and partly philosophical, on the generalities and processes of physical sci-
ence, which have been published within the last few years. To these trea-
tises, and to their authors, he has endeavored to do justice in the body of
the work. But as with one of these writers, Dr. Whewell, he has occasion
frequently to express differences of opinion, it is more particularly incum-
bent on him in this place to declare, that without the aid derived from the
* In the Inter editions of Archbishop Whately 's "Logic," he states his meaning to be, not
that "rules" for the ascertainment of truths by inductive investigation can not be laid down,
or that they may not be "of eminent sen-ice," but that they "must always be comparatively
vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular demonstrative theory like
that of the Syllogism." (Book iv., ch. iv., 3.) And he observes, that to devise a system
for this puqxise, capable of being "brought into a scientific form," would be an achievement
which " lie must be more sanguine than scientific who expects." (Book iv., ch. ii., 4.) To
effect this, however, being the express object of the portion of the present work which treats
of Induction, the words in the text are no overstatement of the difference of opinion between
Archbishop Whately and me on the subject.
PREFACE. V
facts and ideas contained in that gentleman's " History of the Inductive
Sciences," the corresponding portion of this work would probably not have
been written.
The concluding Book is an attempt to contribute toward the solution of
a question which the decay of old opinions, and the agitation that disturbs
European society to its inmost depths, render as important in the present
day to the practical interests of human life, as it must at all times be to the
completeness of our speculative knowledge viz. : Whether moral and so-
cial phenomena are really exceptions to the general certainty and uniformi-
ty of the course of nature ; and how far the methods by which so many of
the laws of the physical world have been numbered among truths irrevo-
cably acquired and universally assented to, can be made instrumental to
the formation of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and political
science.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.
SEVERAL criticisms, of a more or less controversial character, on this
work, have appeared since the publication of the second edition ; and Dr.
"VVhewell has lately published a reply to those parts of it in which some of
his opinions were controverted.*
I have carefully reconsidered all the points on which my conclusions
have been assailed. But I have not to announce a change of opinion on
any matter of importance. Such minor oversights as have been detected,
cither by myself or by my critics, I have, in general silently, corrected : but
it is not to be inferred that I agree with the objections which have been
made to a passage, in every instance in which I have altered or canceled it.
I have often done so, merely that it might not remain a stumbling-block,
when the amount of discussion necessary to place the matter in its true
light would have exceeded what was suitable to the occasion.
To several of the arguments which have been urged against me, I have
thought it useful to reply with some degree of minuteness ; not from any
taste for controversy, but because the opportunity was favorable for pla-
cing my own conclusions, and the grounds of them, more clearly and com-
pletely before the reader. Truth on these subjects is militant, and can
only establish itself by means of conflict. The most opposite opinions can
make a plausible show of evidence while each has the statement of its own
case; and it is only possible to ascertain which of them is in the right, af-
ter hearing and comparing what each can say against the other, and what
the other can urge in its defense.
Even the criticisms from which I most dissent have been of great serv-
ice to me, by showing in what places the exposition most needed to be
improved, or the argument strengthened. And I should have been well
pleased if the book had undergone a much greater amount of attack ; as in
that case I should probably have been enabled to improve it still more than
I believe I have now done.
In the subsequent editions, the attempt to improve the work by addi-
tions and corrections, suggested by criticism or by thought, has been con-
* Now forming a chapter in his volume on "The Philosophy of Discovery."
viii PREFACE.
tinucd. The additions and corrections in the present (eighth) edition,
which arc not very considerable, are chiefly such as have been suggested
by Professor Bain's " Logic," a book of great merit and value. Mr. Bain's
view of the science is essentially the same with that taken in the present
treatise, the differences of opinion being few and unimportant compared
with the agreements ; and he has not only enriched the exposition by many
applications and illustrative details, but has appended to it a minute and
very valuable discussion of the logical principles specially applicable to
eacli of the sciences a task for which the encyclopedical character of his
knowledge peculiarly qualified him. I have in several instances made use
of his exposition to improve my own, by adopting, and occasionally by
controverting, matter contained in his treatise.
The longest of the additions belongs to the chapter on Causation, and is
a discussion of the question how far, if at all, the ordinary mode of stating
the law of Cause and Effect requires modification to adapt it to the new
doctrine of the Conservation of Force a point still more fully and elabo-
rately treated in Mr. Bain's work.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
1. A definition at the commencement of a sub-
ject must be provisional IT
2. Is logic the art and science of reasoning ?. IT
3. Or the art and science of the pursuit of
truth ? 18
4. Logic is concerned with inferences, not
with intuitive truths .^. 19
5. Relation of logic to the other sciences 21
C. Its utility, how shown 22
7. Definition of logic stated and illustrated. . 23
BOOK I.
OF NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
CHAPTER I. Of the Necessity of commencing with an
Analysis of Language.
5 1. Theory of names, why a necessary part of
logic 26
2. First step in the analysis of Propositions.. 2T
3. Names must be studied before Things 23
CHAPTER II. Of Names.
51. Names are names of things, not of our ideas 29
2. Words which are not names, but parts of
names 30
3. General and Singular names 32
4. Concrete and Abstract 33
5. Connotative and Non-counotative 34
6. Positive and Negative 41
7. Relative and Absolute 42
8. Uuivocal and Equivocal 44
CHAPTER III. Of the Things denoted by Names.
1. Necessity of an enumeration of Namable
Things. The Categories of Aristotle 45
2. Ambiguity of the most general names 46
3. Feelings, or states of consciousness 48
4. Feelings must be distinguished from their
physical antecedents. Perceptions, what. 49
6. Volitions, and Actions, what 81
6. Substance and Attribute 51
1. Body 52
8. Mind 56
9. Qualities 5T
10. Relations 59
11. Resemblance 60
12. Quantity 62
13. All attributes of bodies are grounded on
states of consciousness 63
14. So also all attributes of mind 64
15. Recapitulation C4
CHAPTER IV. Of Propositions.
5 1. Nature and office of the copula GO
2. Affirmative and Negative propositions 6T
3. Simple and Complex 69
4. Universal, Particular, and Singular 71
CHAPTER V. Of the Import of Propositions.
1. Doctrine that a proposition is the expres-
sion of a relation between two ideas 73
2. that it is the expression of a relation be-
tween the meanings of two names 75
3. that it consists in referring something
to, or excluding something from, a class. 77
4. What it really is 80
5. It asserts (or denies) a sequence, a co-exist-
ence, a simple existence, a causation 81
6. or a resemblance 83
7. Propositions of which the terms are ab-
stract 86
CHAPTER VI. Of Propositions merely Verbal.
1. Essential and Accidental propositions 88
2. All essential propositions are identical
propositions 89
3. Individuals have no essences 91
4. Real propositions, how distinguished from
verbal 92
5. Two modes of representing the import of
a Real proposition 93
CHAPTER VII. Of the Nature of Classification, and
the Five Predicables.
1. Classification, how connected with Naming 94
2. The Predicables, what 95
3. Genus and Species 95
4. Kinds have a real existence in nature 97
5. Differentia 100
6. Differentiae for general purposes, and differ-
entia? for special or technical purposes. . . 101
7. Proprium 103
8. Accidens 104
CHAPTER VIII. Of Definition.
1. A definition, what 105
2. Every name can be defined, whose meaning
is susceptible of analysis 106
3. Complete, how distinguished from incom-
plete definitions 107
4. and from descriptions 108
5. What are called definitions of Things, are
definitions of Names with an implied as-
sumption of the existence of Things cor-
responding to them Ill
6. even when such things do not in reality
exist H6
CONTENTS.
57. Definitionf, though of names only, must be
grounded on knowledge of the corre-
sponding things 117
BOOK II.
OF REASONING.
CHAPTER I. Of Inference, or Reasoning, in general.
5 1. Retrospect of the preceding hook 121
2. Inferences improperly so called 122
3. Inferences proper, distinguished into in-
ductions and ratiocinations 125
CHATTER II. Of Hat iocinat ion, or Syllogism.
51. Analysis of the Syllogism 126
2. The dictum tie. omni not the foundation of
reasoning, but a mere identical proposi-
tion 132
3. What is the really fundamental axiom of
Ratiocination 135
4. The other form of the axiom 137
CHAPTER III. Of the Functions, and Logical Value
of the Syllogism.
{ 1. Is the Syllogism a petitio principii T 139
2. Insufficiency of the common theory 139
3. All inference is from particulars to partic-
ulars 141
4. General propositions are a record of such
inferences, and the rules of the syllogism
are rules for the interpretation of the
record 140
5. The syllogism not the type of reasoning,
but a test of it 148
6. The true type, what 151
7. Relation between Induction and Deduc-
tion 153
8. Objections answered 154
9. Of Formal Logic, and its relation to the
Logic of Truth 15C
CHAPTER IV. Of Trains of Reasoning, and Deduct-
ive Sciences.
51. For what purpose trains of reasoning exist. 153
2. A train of reasoning is a series of induct-
ive inferences 15?
3. from particulars to particulars through
marks of marks ICO
4. Why there are deductive sciences 161
6. Why other sciences still remain experi-
mental 164
6. Experimental sciences may become deduct-
ive by the progress of experiment, 165
7. In what manner this usually takes place. . 166
CHAPTER V. Of Demonstration, and Xecessary
Truth*.
{ 1. The Theorems of geometry are necessary
truths only in the sense of necessarily fol-
lowing from hypotheses 16S
2. Those hypotheses are real facts with some
of their circumstances exaggerated or
omitted 170
3. Some of the first principles of geometry are
axioms, and these are not hypothetical.. 171
4. but are experimental truths 172
PAGE
{ 5. An objection answered 174
C. Dr. Whewell's opinions on axioms exam-
ined 176
CHAPTER VI. The game Subject continued.
5 1. All deductive sciences are inductive 187
2. The propositions of the science of number
are not verbal, but generalizations from
experience 18S
3. In what sense hypothetical 191
4. The characteristic property of demonstra-
tive science is to be hypothetical 192
6. Definition of demonstrative evidence 193
CHAPTER VII. Examination of some Ojnnions op-
posed to the preceding doctrines.
1. Doctrine of the Universal Postulate 193
2. The test of inconceivability does not rep-
resent the aggregate of past experience. . 195
3. nor is implied in every process of
thought 197
4. Objections answered 201
5. Sir W. Hamilton's opinion on the Princi-
ples of Contradiction and Excluded Mid-
dle.... .... 204
BOOK III.
OF INDUCTION.
CHAPTER I. Preliminary Observations on Induc-
tion in general.
{1. Importance of an Inductive Logic 207
2. The logic of science is also that of business
and life 208
CHAPTER II. Of Inductions improperly so called.
5 1. Inductions distinguished from verbal trans-
formations 210
2. from inductions, falsely so called, in math-
ematics 212
3. and from descriptions 213
4. Examination of Dr. Whewell's theory of
Induction 214
6. Further illustration of the preceding re-
marks 221
CHAPTER III. Of the Ground of Induction.
51. Axiom of the uniformity of the course of
nature 2-23
2. Not true in every sense. Induction per
enumerationetn simplicem 226
3. The question of Inductive Logic stated 227
CHAPTEB IV. Of Laws of Nature,
} 1. The general regularity in nature is a tissue
of partial regularities, called laws 229
2. Scientific induction must be grounded on
previous spontaneous inductions 231
3. Are there any inductions fitted to be a test
of all others? 232
CHAPTER V. Of the Law of Universal Causation.
{ 1. The universal law of successive phenomena
is the Law of Causation 234
2. ?'. c., the law that every consequent has
an invariable antecedent 23C
CONTENTS.
XI
PAGE
5 3. The cause of a phenomenon is the assem-
blage of its conditions 23T
4. The distinction of agent and patient illu-
sory 241
5. Case in which the effect consists in giving
a property to an object 243
6. The cause is not the invariable antecedent,
but the unconditional invariable anteced-
ent 244
7. Can a cause be simultaneous with its ef-
fect? 24T
8. Idea of a Permanent Cause, or original nat-
ural agent 248
9. Uniformities of co- existence between ef-
fects of different permanent causes, are
not laws 251
10. Theory of the Conservation of Force 251
11. Doctrine that volition is an efficient cause,
examined 255
CHAPTER VI. Of the Composition of Causes.
J 1. Two modes of the conjunct action of causes,
the mechanical and the chemical 260
2. The composition of causes the general
rule ; the other case exceptional 263
3. Are effects proportional to their causes?.. 270
CHAPTER VII. Of Observation and Experiment.
} 1. The first step of inductive inquiry is a men-
tal analysis of complex phenomena into
their elements 272
2. The next is an actual separation of those
elements 273
3. Advantages of experiment over observa-
tion 274
4. Advantages of observation over experi-
ment 276
CHAPTER VIII. Of the Four Methods of Experi-
mental Inquiry.
1. Method of Agreement 278
2. Method of Difference 280
3. Mutual relation of these two methods 281
4. Joint Method of Agreement and Difference. 283
5. Method of Residues 284
6. Method of Concomitant Variations 285
7. Limitations of this last method 289
CHAPTER IX. Miscellaneous Examples of the Four
Methods.
51. Liebig's theory of metallic poisons 292
2. Theory of induced electricity 294
3. Dr. Wells's theory of dew 296
4. Dr. Brown-St-qnard's theory of cadaveric
rigidity 301
5. Examples of the Method of Residues 305
6. Dr. Whewell's objections to the Four
Methods 307
CUAPTER X. Of Plurality of Causes ; and of the
Intermixture of Effects.
1. One effect may have several causes 311
2. which is the source of a characteristic
imperfection of the Method of Agree-
ment 311
3. Plurality of Causes, how ascertained 314
4. Concurrence of Causes which do not com-
pound their effects 315
5. Difficulties of the investigation, when
causes compound their effects. 317
6. Three modes of investigating the laws of
complex effects 320
7. The method of simple observation inap-
plicable 321
8. The purely experimental method inappli-
cable 322
CHAPTER XL Of the Deductive Method.
1. First stage; ascertainment of the laws of
the separate causes by direct induction. . 325
2. Second stage ; ratiocination from the sim-
ple laws of the complex cases 328
3. Third stage ; verification by specific expe-
rience 329
CHAPTER XII. Of the Explanation of Laics of Ma-
ture.
5 1. Explanation defined 332
2. First mode of explanation, by resolving the
law of a complex effect into the laws of
the concurrent causes and the fact of
their co-existence 332
3. Second mode ; by the detection of an in-
termediate link in the sequence 332
4. Laws are always resolved into laws more
general than themselves 333
5. Third mode ; the subsumption of less gen-
eral laws under a more general one 335
6. What the explanation of a law of nature
amounts to 337
CHAPTER XIII. Miscellaneous Examples of the Ex-
planation of Laws of Mature.
1. The general theories of the sciences 338
2. Examples from chemical speculations 339
3. Example from Dr. Brown - Sequard's re-
searches on the nervous system 340
4. Examples of following newly -discovered
laws into their complex manifestations.. 341
5. Examples of empirical generalizations, af-
terward confirmed and explained deduct-
ively 342
6. Example from mental science 343
7. Tendency of all the sciences to become de-
ductive 344
CHAPTER XIV. Of the Limits to the Explanation
of Laws of Xature; and of Hypotheses.
1. Can all the sequences in nature be resolva-
ble into one law? 345
2. Ultimate laws can not be less numerous
than the distinguishable feelings of our
nature 346
3. In what sense ultimate facts can be ex-
plained 343
4. The proper use of scientific hypotheses 349
5. Their indispensableness 353
6. The two degrees of legitimacy in hypoth-
eses 355
7. Some inquiries apparently hypothetical are
really inductive 359
CHAPTER XV. Of Progressive Effects ; and of the
Continued Action of Causes.
51. How a progressive effect results from the
simple continuance of the cause 361
2. and from the progressiveness of the
cause 3C3
3. Derivative laws generated from a single
ultimate law 365
Xll
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVI. Of Empirical Laws.
1. Definition of an empirical law 366
2. Derivative laws commonly depend on col-
locations 367
3. The collocation? of the permanent causes
are not reducible to any law 3C7
4. Hence empirical laws can not be relied on
beyond the limits of actual experience. . . 3CS
5. Generalizations which rest only on the
Method of Agreement can only be re-
ceived ns empirical laws 3G9
& Signs from which an observed uniformity
of sequence may be presumed to be re-
solvable 3C9
7. Two kinds of empirical laws 371
CHAPTER XVII. Of Chance, and ite Elimination.
{ 1. The proof of empirical laws depends on
the theory of chance 372
2. Chauce defined and characterized 373
3. The elimiu.ition of chance 37C
4. Discovery of residual phenomena by elim-
inating chance 377
5. The doctrine of chances 37S
CHAPTER XVIII. Of the Calculation of Chances.
{ 1. Foundation of the doctrine of chances, as
taught by mathematics 379
2. The doctrine tenable 380
3. On what foundation it really rests 381
4. Its ultimate dependence on causation 3S3
5. Theorem of the doctrine of chances which
relates to the cause of a given event 385
6. How applicable to the elimination of
chancf 386
CHAPTER XIX. Of the Extension af Derivative Laics
to Adjacent Cases.
5 1. Derivative laws, when not casual, arc al-
most always contingent on collocations.. 3SS
2. On what grounds they can be extended to
cases beyond the bounds of actual expe-
rience 389
3. Those cases must be adjacent cases 390
CHAPTER XX. Of Analogy.
{ 1. Various senses of the word analogy 393
2. Nature of analogical evidence 393
3. On what circumstances its value depends. . 39G
CHAPTER XXI. Of the Evidence of the Law of i'ni-
vemal Causation.
1. The law of causality does not rest on an
instinct 397
2. but on an induction by simple enumera-
tion 400
3. In what cases such induction is allowable. 402
4. The universal prevalence of the law of cau-
sality, on what grounds admissible 403
CHAPTER XXII. Of Uniformities of Co-existence
not dependent on Causation.
}1. Uniformities of co-existence which result
from laws of sequence 406
2. The properties of Kinds are uniformities
of co-existence 408
3. Some are derivative, others ultimate 409
4. No universal axiom of co-existence 410
B. The evidence of uniformities of co-exist-
ence, how measured 411
PAGE
{ G. When derivative, their evidence is that of
empirical laws 412
So also when ultimate 413 '
The evidence stronger in proportion as the
law is more general 413
Every distinct Kind must be examined 414
CHAPTER XXIII. Of Approximate Generalizations,
ami Probable Evidence.
{ 1. The inferences called probable, rest on ap-
proximate generalizations 416
2. Approximate generalizations less useful
in c cieuce than in life 416
3. In what cases they may be resorted to 41T
4. In what manner proved 418
5. With what precautions employed 420
6. The two modes of combining probabilities. 421
7. IIow approximate generalizations may be
converted into accurate generalizations
equivalent to them 423
CHAPTER XXIV. Of the Remaining Laics of JVa-
ture.
51. Propositions which assert mere existence. 425
2. Resemblance, considered as a subject of
science 426
3. The axioms and theorems of mathematics
comprise the principal laws of resem-
blance 427
4. and those of order in place, and rest oil
induction by simple enumeration 42S
5. The propositions of arithmetic affirm the
modes of formation of some given num-
ber 429
C. Those of algebra affirm the equivalence
of different modes of formation of num-
bers generally 432
7. The propositions of geometry are laws of
outward nature 433
8. Why geometry is almost entirely deduct-
ive 435
9. Function of mathematical truths in the
other sciences, and limits of that function. 436
CHAPTER XXV. Of the Grounds of Disbelief.
51. Improbability and impossibility 438
2. Examination of Ilume's doctrine of mir-
acles 438
3. The degrees of improbability correspond
to differences in the nature of the gener-
alization with which an assertion con-
flicts 441
4. A fact is not incredible because the charces
are against it 443
5. Are coincidences less credible than other
facts? 444
G. An opinion of Laplace examined 446
BOOK IV.
OF OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO IN-
DUCTION.
CHAPTER I. Of Observation and Description.
51. Observation, how far a subject of logic 449
2. A great part of what seems observation is
really inference 450
CONTENTS.
Xlll
PAGE
3. The description of an observation affirms
more than is contained in the observa-
tion 452
4. namely, an agreement among phenom-
ena ; and the comparison of phenomena
to ascertain such agreements is a prelim-
inary to induction 453
CHAPTEB II. Of A bstraction, or the Formation of
Conceptions.
1. The comparison which is a preliminary to
induction implies general conceptions. . . 455
2. but these need not be pre-existent 456
3. A general conception, originally the result
of a comparison, becomes itself the type
of comparison 45S
4. What is meant by appropriate conceptions. 459
5. and by clear conceptions 461
6. Farther illustration of the subject 462
CHAPTER III. Of Xaming as Subsidiary to Induc-
tion.
1. The fundamental property of names as an
instrument of thought 464
2. Names are not indispensable to induc-
tion 465
3. In what manner subservient to it 465
4. General names not a mere contrivance to
economize the use of language 406
CHAPTER IV. Of the Requisites of a Philosophical
Language, and the Principles of Definition.
1. First requisite of philosophical language,
a steady and determinate meaning for ev-
ery general name 46T
2. Names in common use have often a loose
connotation 467
3. which the logician should fix, with as
little alteration as possible 469
4. Why definition is often a question not of
words but of things 470
5. How the logician should deal with the
transitive applications of words 472
6. Evil consequences of casting off any por-
tion of the customary connotation of
words 476
CHAPTER V. On the Natural History of the Varia-
tions in the Meaning of Terms.
1. How circumstances originally accidental
become incorporated into the meaning of
words 480
2. and sometimes become the whole mean-
ing 481
3. Tendency of words to become generalized. 482
4. and to become specialized 485
CUAPTEK VI. The Principles of Philosophical Lan-
guage farther connulercd.
SI. Second requisite of philosophical language,
a name for every important meaning 487
2. viz., first, an accurate descriptive ter-
minology 487
3. secondly, a name for each of the more
important results of scientific abstrac-
tion 490
4. thirdly, a nomenclature, or system of
the names of Kinds 491
6. Peculiar nature of the connotation of
names which belong to a nomenclature.. 493
TA.UA
5 6. In what cases language may, and may not,
be used mechanically 494
CHAPTER VII. Of Classification, as Subsidiary to
Induction.
1. Classification as here treated of, wherein
different from the classification implied
in naming 497
2. Theory of natural groups 493
3. Are natural groups given by type, or by
definition ? 501
4. Kinds are natural groups 502
5. How the names of Kinds should be con-
structed 505
CHAPTER VIII. Of Classification by Series.
1. Natural groups should be arranged in a
natural series 507
2. The arrangement should follow the de-
grees of the main phenomenon 503
3. which implies the assumption of a type
species 509
4. How the divisions of the series should be
determined 510
5. Zoology affords the completest type of sci-
entific classification 511
BOOK V.
ON FALLACIES.
CUAPTEK I. Of Fallacies in General.
j$l. Theory of fallacies a necessary part of
logic 512
2. Casual mistakes are not fallacies 513
3. The moral sources of erroneous opinion,
how related to the intellectual 513
CHAPTER II. Classification of Fallacies.
51. On what criteria a classification of fallacies
should be grounded 515
2. The five classes of fallacies 516
3. The reference of a fallacy to one or an-
other class is sometimes arbitrary 513
CHAPTER III. Fallacies of Simple Inspection, or
A J*riori Fallacies. ^ ....
1. Character of this class of fallacies 520
2. Natural prejudice of mistaking subjective
laws for objective, exemplified in popular
superstitions 521
3. that things which we think of together
must exist together, and that what is in-
conceivable must be false 523
4. of ascribing objective existence to ab-
abstractions 527
5. Fallacy of the Suflicieut Reason 528
6. Natural prejudice, that the differences in
nature correspond to the distinctions in
language 529
7. Prejudice, that a phenomenon can not have
more than one cause 532
8. that the conditions of a phenomenon
must resemble the phenomenon 533
CHAPTER IV. Fallacies of Observation.
51. Non-observation, and Mai-observation 638
XIV
CONTENTS.
PAOB
52. Non- observation of instances, and non-
observntion of circumstances ............ 638
3. Examples of the former ................... 639
4. and of the latter ........................ 542
6. Mai-observation characterized and exem-
plified ................................... 645
CHAPTER V. Fallacies of Generalization.
} 1. Character of the class ..................... 647
2. Certain kindf of generalization must al-
ways be groundless ...................... 547
3. Attempts to resolve phenomena radically
different into the same .................. 648
4. Fallacy of mistaking empirical for casual
laws ..................................... 519
5. Post hoc, eryo projttfr hoc; and the deduct-
ive fallacy corresponding to it ........... 551
6. Fallacy of False Analogies ............... 553
7. Function of metaphors in reasoning ....... 557
8. How fallacies of generalization grow out
of bad classification ...................... 658
CHAPTER VI. Fallacies of Ratiocination.
{1. Introductory Remarks ....................
2. Fallacies in the conversion and lequipol-
lency of propositions ...................
3. in the syllogistic process ...............
4. Fallacy of changing the premises ..........
CHAPTKR VII. Fallacies of Confusion.
5 1. Fallacy of Ambiguous Terms ..............
2. of Petitio Principii .....................
3. of Iguorulio Eleuchi ....................
BOOK VI.
ON THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCI-
ENCES.
CHAPTER I. Introductory Remarks.
51. The backward state of the Moral Sciences
can only be remedied by applying to them
the methods of Physical Science, duly ex-
tended and generalized 579
2. How far this can be attempted in the pres-
ent work 580
CHAPTER II. Of Liberty and Xeccssity.
Are human actions subject to the law of
causality? 5*1
The doctrine commonly called Philosoph-
ical Nere-sity, in what sense true 5S1
Inappropriateness and pernicious effect of
the term Necessity 5S3
A motive not always the anticipation of a
pleasure or a pain 585
CHAPTER III. That there is, or may be, a Science of
Unman Mature.
{ 1. There may be sciences which are not exact
sciences 5^6
2. To what scientific type the Science of Hu-
man Nature corresponds 5S3
CH \PTKK IV. Of the IAWS of Mind.
' 1. What if meant by Laws of Mind 689
2. Is there a Science of Psychology ? 590
PAGE
{3. The pr'rOpat inve?tigations of Psychology
characterized 691
4. Relation of mental facta to physical con-
ditions 694
tiiAPTKR V. Of Ethology, or th* Science of the For
motion of Character.
1. The Empirical Laws of Human Nature 59
,' 2. are merely approximate generalizations.
The universal laws are those of the for-
mation of character 697
3. The laws of the formation of character can
not be ascertained by observation and
experiment 699
4. but must be studied deductively 601
'5. The principles of Ethology are the axio-
mata media of mental science 603
; 6. Ethology characterized 604
CHAPTER VI. General Considerations on the Social
Science.
5 1. Are Social Phenomena a subject of Sci-
ence ? 606
2. Of what nature the Social Sciecce must
be 607
CHAPTER VII. Of the Chemical or Experimental
Method in the Social Science.
51. Characters of the mode of thinking which
deduces political doctrines from specific
experience 603
2. In the Social Science experiments are im-
possible 610
3. the Method of Difference inapplicable.. 610
4. and the Methods of Agreement, and of
Concomitant Variations, inconclusive 611
5. The Method of Residues also inconclusive,
and presupposes Deduction 612
CHAPTER VIII. Of the Geometrical, or Abstract
Method.
51. Characters of this mode of thinking 614
2. Examples of the Geometrical Method C15
3. The interest-philosophy of the Beuthum
school 616
CHAPTER IX. Of the Phyxical, or Concrete Deductive
Method.
5 1. The Direct and Inverse Deductive Meth-
ods 619
2. Difficulties of the Direct Deductive Meth-
od in the Social Science 621
3. To what extent the different branches of
sociological speculation can be studied
apart. Political Economy characterized. 623
4. Political Ethology, or the science of nation-
al character 626
5. The Empirical Laws of the Social Sci-
ence 623
6. The Verification of the Social Science 629
CHAPTER X. Of the Inverse Deductive, or Historical
Method.
S 1. Diftinction between the general Science of
Society, and special sociological inquiries. 630
2. What is meant by a State of Society ? fi.'U
3. The Progressiveness of Man and Society. . 631
4. The laws of the succession of estates of so-
ciety can only be ascertained by the In-
verse Deductive Method 633
CONTENTS.
XV
PAGE
} 5. Social Static?, or the science of the Co-ex-
istences of Social Phenomena 635
0. Social Dynamics, or the science of the Suc-
cessions of Social Phenomena. 639
7. Outlines of the Historical Method 640
8. Future prospects of Sociological Inquiry. . 642
CHAPTER XI. Additional Elucidations of the Sci-
ence of History.
5 1. The subjection of historical facts to uni-
form laws is verified by statistics 644
2. does not imply the insignificance of
moral causes 646
3. nor the ineflBcacy of the characters of
individuals and of the acts of govern-
ments 647
4. The historical importance of eminent men
PAGE
and of the policy of governments illus-
trated G50
CII.VPTEK XII. Of the Logic of Practice, or Art; in-
cluding Morality and Policy.
5 1. Morality not a Science, but an Art 652
2. Relation between rules of art and the the-
orems of the corresponding science 653
3. What is the proper function of rules of art? 654
4. Art can not be deductive C55
5. Every Art consists of truths of Science, ar-
ranged in the order suitable for some prac-
tical use 055
6. Teleology, or the Doctrine of Ends 656
7. Necessity of an ultimate standard, or first
principle of Teleology 657
8. Conclusion... ... 659
INTRODUCTION.
1. THERE is as great diversity among authors in the modes which they
have adopted of defining logic, as in their treatment of the details of it.
This is what might naturally be expected on any subject on which writers
have availed themselves of the same language as a means of delivering
different ideas. Ethics and jurisprudence are liable to the remark in com-
mon with logic. Almost every writer having taken a different view of
some of the particulars which these branches of knowledge are usually
understood to include; each has so framed his definition as to indicate
beforehand his own peculiar tenets, and sometimes to beg the question in
their favor.
This diversity is not so much an evil to be complained of, as an inevita-
ble and in some degree a proper result of the imperfect state of those
sciences. It is not to be expected that there should be agreement about
the definition of any thing, until there is agreement about the thing itself.
To define, is to select from among all the properties of a thing, those which
shall be understood to be designated and declared by its name ; and the
properties must be well known to us before we can be competent to deter-
mine which of them are fittest to be chosen for this purpose. According-
ly, in the case of so complex an aggregation of particulars as are compre-
hended in any thing which can be called a science, the definition we set
out with is seldom that which a more extensive knowledge of the subject
shows to be the most appropriate. Until we know the particulars them-
selves, we can not fix upon the most correct and compact mode of circum-
scribing them by a general description. It was not until after an extensive
and accurate acquaintance with the details of chemical phenomena, that it
was found possible to frame a rational definition of chemistry ; and the
definition of the science of life and organization is still a matter of dispute.
So long as the sciences are imperfect, the definitions must partake of their
imperfection ; and if the former are progressive, the latter ought to be so
too. As much, therefore, as is to be expected from a definition placed at
the commencement of a subject, is that it should define the scope of our
inquiries : and the definition which I am about to offer of the science of
logic, pretends to nothing more than to be a statement of the question
which I have put to myself, and which this book is an attempt to resolve.
The reader is at liberty to object to it as a definition of logic ; but it is at
all events a correct definition of the subject of this volume.
2. Logic has often been called the Art of Reasoning. A writer* who
has done more than any other person to restore this study to the rank from
which it had fallen ia the estimation of the cultivated class in our own
country, has adopted the above definition with an amendment ; he has de-
* Archbishop Whately.
2 '
18 INTRODUCTION.
fined Logic to bo the Science, as well as the Art, of reasoning; meaning
by the former term, the analysis of the mental process which takes place
whenever we reason, and by the latter, the rules, grounded on that analy-
sis, for conducting the process correctly. There can be no doubt as to the
propriety of the emendation. A right understanding of the mental process
itself, of the conditions it depends on, and the steps of which it consists,
is the only basis on which a system of rules, fitted for the direction of the
process, can possibly be founded. Art necessarily presupposes knowledge ;
art, in any but its infant state, presupposes scientific knowledge : and if ev-
ery art does not bear the name of a science, it is only because several sci-
ences are often necessary to form the groundwork of a single art. So com-
plicated are the conditions which govern our practical agency, that to ena-
ble one thing to be done, it is often requisite to know the nature and prop-
erties of many things.
Logic, then, comprises the science of reasoning, as well as an art, found-
ed on that science. But the word Reasoning, again, like inost other scien-
tific terms in popular use, abounds in ambiguities. In one of its accepta-
tions, it means syllogi/ing ; or the mode of inference which may be called
(with sufficient accuracy for the present purpose) concluding from generals
to particulars. In another of its senses, to reason is simply to infer any
assertion, from assertions already admitted : and in this sense induction is
as much entitled to be called reasoning as the demonstrations of geometry.
Writers on logic have generally preferred the former acceptation of the
term : the latter, and more extensive signification is that in which I mean
to use it. I do this by virtue of the right I claim for every author, to give
whatever provisional definition he pleases of his own subject. But suffi-
cient reasons will, I believe, unfold themselves as we advance, why this
should be not only the provisional but the final definition. It involves, at
all events, no arbitrary change in the meaning of the word ; for, with the
general usage of the English language, the wider signification, I believe,
accords better than the more restricted one.
3. But reasoning, even in the widest sense of which the word is sus-
ceptible, does not seem to comprehend all that is included, either in the
best, or even in the most current, conception of the scope and province of
our science. The employment of the word Logic to denote the theory of
Argumentation, is derived from the Aristotelian, or, as they are commonly
termed, the scholastic, logicians. Yet even with them, in their systematic
treatises, Argumentation was the subject only of the third part: the two
former treated of Terms, and of Propositions ; under one or other of which
heads were also included Definition and Division. By some, indeed, these
previous topics were professedly introduced only on account of their con-
nection with reasoning, and as a preparation for the doctrine and rules of
the syllogism. Yet they were treated with greater minuteness, and dwelt
on at greater length, than was required for that purpose alone. More re-
cent writers on logic have generally understood the term as it was employ-
ed by the able author of the Port Royal Logic; viz., as equivalent to the
Art of Thinking. Nor is this acceptation confined to books, and scientific
inquiries. Even in ordinary conversation, the ideas connected with the
word Logic include at least precision of language, and accuracy of classifi-
cation : and we perhaps oftener hear persons speak of a logical arrange-
ment, or of expressions logically defined, than of conclusions logically de-
duced from premises. Again, a man is often called a great logician, or a
DEFINITION AND PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 19
man of powerful logic, not for the accuracy of his deductions, but for the
extent of his command over premises ; because the general propositions
required for explaining a difficulty or refuting ,a sophism, copiously and
promptly occur to him : because, in short, his knowledge, besides 'beino-
ample, is well under his command for argumentative use. Whether, ^here-
fore, we conform to the practice of those who have made the subject their
particular study, or to that of popular writers and common discourse, the
province of logic will include several operations of the intellect not usually
considered to fall within the meaning of the terms Reasoning and Argu-
mentation.
These various operations might be brought within the compass of the
science, and the additional advantage be obtained of a very simple defini-
tion, if, by an extension of the term, sanctioned by high authorities, we
were to define logic as the science which treats of the operations of the hu-
man understanding in the pursuit of truth. For to this ultimate end, nam-
ing, classification, definition, and all other operations over which logic has
ever claimed jurisdiction, are essentially subsidiary. They may all be re-
garded as contrivances for enabling a person to know the truths which are
needful to him, and to know them at the precise moment at which they are
needful. Other purposes, indeed, are also served by these operations ; for
instance, that of imparting our knowledge to others. But, viewed with re-
gard to this purpose, they have never been considered as within the prov-
ince of the logician. The sole object of Logic is the guidance of one's own
thoughts: the communication of those thoughts to others falls under the
consideration of Rhetoric, in the large sense in which that art was con-
ceived by the ancients ; or of the still more extensive art of Education.
Logic takes cognizance of our intellectual operations only as they conduce
to our own knowledge, and to our command over that knowledge for our
own uses. If there were but one rational being in the universe, that being
might be a perfect logician ; and the science and art of logic would be the
same for that one person as for the whole human race.
4. But, if the definition which we formerly examined included too lit-
tle, that which is now suggested has the opposite fault of including too
much.
Truths are known to us in two ways : some are known directly, and of
themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are
the subject of Intuition, or Consciousness ;* the latter, of Inference. The
truths known by intuition are the original premises from which all others
are inferred. Our assent to the conclusion being grounded on the truth of
the premises, we never could arrive at any knowledge by reasoning, unless
something could be known antecedently to all reasoning.
Examples of truths known to us by immediate consciousness, are our
own bodily sensations and mental feelings. I know directly, and of my
own knowledge, that I was vexed yesterday, or that I am hungry to-day.
Examples of truths Avhich we know only by way of inference, are occur-
rences which took place while we were absent, the events recorded in his-
tory, or the theorems of mathematics. The two former we infer from the
testimony adduced, or from the traces of those past occurrences which still
* I use these terms indiscriminately, because, for the purpose in view, there is no need for
making any distinction between them. But metaphysicians usually restrict the name Intui-
tion to the direct knowledge we are supposed to have of things external to our minds, and
Consciousness to our knowledge of our own mental phenomena.
JO INTRODUCTION.
exist ; the latter, from the premises laid clown in books of geometry, under
the title of definitions and axioms. "Whatever we are capable of knowing
must belong to the one class or to the other ; must be in the number of the
primitive data, or of the conclusions which can be drawn from these.
With the original data, or ultimate premises of our knowledge; with
their number or nature, the mode in which they are obtained, or the tests
by which they may be distinguished ; logic, in a direct way at least, has,
iii the sense in which I conceive the science, nothing to do. These ques-
tions are partly not a subject of science at all, partly that of a very differ-
ent science.
Whatever is known to us by consciousness is known beyond possibility
of question. What one sees or feels, whether bodily or mentally, one can
not but be sure that one sees or feels. No science is required for the pur-
pose of establishing such truths ; no rules of art can render our knowledge
of them more certain than it is in itself. There is no logic for this portion
of our knowledge.
Hut we may fancy that we see or feel what we in reality infer. A truth,
or supposed truth, which is really the result of a very rapid inference, may
seem to be apprehended intuitively. It has long been agreed by thinkers of
the most opposite schools, that this mistake is actually made in so familiar
an instance as that of the eyesight. There is nothing of which we appear
to ourselves to be more directly conscious than the distance of an object
from us. Yet it has long been ascertained, that what is perceived by the
eye, is at most nothing more than a variously colored surface; that when
we fancy we see distance, all we really see is certain variations of apparent
size, and degrees of faintness of color; that our estimate of the object's
distance from us is the result partly of a rapid inference from the muscular
sensations accompanying the adjustment of the focal distance of the eye to
objects unequally remote from us, and partly of a comparison (made with
so much rapidity that we are unconscious of making it) between the size
and color of the object as they appear at the time, and the size and color
of the same or of similar objects as they appeared when close at hand, or
when their degree of remoteness was known by other evidence. The per-
ception of distance by the eye, which seems so like intuition, is thus, in re-
ality, an inference grounded on experience ; an inference, too, which we
learn to make ; and which we make with more and more correctness as our
experience increases; though in familiar cases it takes place so rapidly as
to appear exactly on a par with those perceptions of sight which are really
intuitive, our perceptions of color.*
Of the science, therefore, which expounds the operations of the human
understanding in the pursuit of truth, one essential part is the inquiry :
What are the facts which are the objects of intuition or consciousness, and
what are those which we merely infer? But this inquiry has never been
considered a portion of logic. Its place is in another and a perfectly dis-
tinct department of science, to which the name metaphysics more particu-
larly belongs: that portion of mental philosophy which attempts to deter-
mine what part of the furniture of the mind belongs to it originally, and
* This important theory 1ms of late been called in question by a writer of deserved reputa-
tion, Mr. Samuel Hailey ; but I do not conceive that the grounds on which it has been ad-
mitted as an established doctrine for a century past, have been at all shaken by that gentle-
man's objections. I have elsewhere said what appeared to me necessary in reply to his argu-
ments. (Westminster Review for October. Ib42 ; reprinted in " Dissertations and Discus-
sions," vol. ii.)
DEFINITION AND PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 21
what part is constructed out of materials furnished to it from without. To
this science appertain the great and much debated questions of the exist-
ence of matter ; the existence of spirit, and of a distinction between it and
matter ; the reality of time and space, as things without the mind, and
distinguishable from the objects which are said to exist in them. For
in the present state of the discussion on these topics, it is almost uni-
versally allowed that the existence of matter or of spirit, of space or of
time, is in its nature unsusceptible of being proved ; and that if any tiling
is known of them, it must be by immediate intuition. To the same science
belong the inquiries into the nature of Conception, Perception, Memory,
and Belief ; all of which are operations of the understanding in the pursuit
of truth ; but with which, as phenomena of the mind, or with the possibili-
ty which may or may not exist of analyzing any of them into simpler phe-
nomena, the logician as such has no concern. To this science must also be
referred the following, and all analogous questions : To what extent our in-
tellectual faculties and our emotions are innate to what extent the result
of association : Whether God and duty are realities, the existence of which
is manifest to us a priori by the constitution of our rational faculty; or
whether our ideas of them are acquired notions, the origin of which we
are able to trace and explain ; and the reality of the objects themselves a
question not of consciousness or intuition, but of evidence and reasoning.
The province of logic must be restricted to that portion of our knowl-
edge which consists of inferences from truths previously known ; whether
those antecedent data be general propositions, or particular obsei'vations
and perceptions. Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of
Proof, or Evidence. In so far as belief professes to be founded on proof,
the office of logic is to supply a test for ascertaining whether or not the be-
lief is well grounded. With the claims which any proposition has to be-
lief on the evidence of consciousness that is, without evidence in the
proper sense of the word logic has nothing to do.
5. By far the greatest portion of our knowledge, whether of general
truths or of particular facts, being avowedly matter of inference, nearly the
whole, not only of science, but of human conduct, is amenable to the au-
thority of logic. To draw inferences has been said to be the great business
of life. Every one has daily, hourly, and momentary need of ascertaining
facts which he has not directly observed ; not from any general purpose of
adding to his stock of knowledge, but because the facts themselves are of
importance to his interests or to his occupations. The business of the
magistrate, of the military commander, of the navigator, of the physician,
of the agriculturist, is merely to judge of evidence, and to act accordingly.
They all have to ascertain certain facts, in order that they may afterward
apply certain rules, either devised by themselves or prescribed for their
guidance by others ; and as they do this well or ill, so they discharge well
or ill the duties of their several callings. It is the only occupation in which
the mind never ceases to be engaged ; and is the subject, not of logic, but
of knowledge in general.
Logic, however, is not the same thing with knowledge, though the field
of logic is co-extensive with the field of knowledge. Logic is the com-
mon judge and arbiter of all particular investigations. It does not under-
take to find evidence, but to determine whether it lias been found. Logic
neither observes, nor invents, nor discovers; but judges. It is no part of
the business of logic to inform the surgeon what appearances are found to
22 INTRODUCTION.
accompany .1 violent death. This he must learn from his own experience
and observation, or from that of others, his predecessors in his peculiar
pursuit. Kut logic sits in judgment on the sufficiency of that observation
and experience to justify his rules, and on the sufficiency of his rules to
justify his conduct. It does not give him proofs, but teaches him what
makes them proofs, and how he is to judge of them. It does not teach
that any particular fact proves any other, but points out to what conditions
all facts must conform, in order that they may prove other facts. To de-
cide whether any given fact fulfills these conditions, or whether facts can
be found which fulfill them in a given case, belongs exclusively to the par-
ticular art or science, or to our knowledge of the particular subject.
It is in this sense that logic is, what it was so expressively called by the
schoolmen and by Bacon, <(rs urtium; the science of science itself. All
science consists of data and conclusions from those data, of proofs and what
they prove : now logic points out what relations must subsist between data
and whatever can be concluded from them, between proof and every thing
which it can prove. If there be any such indispensable relations, and if
these can be precisely determined, every particular branch of science, as
well as every individual in the guidance of his conduct, is bound to con-
form to those relations, under the penalty of making false inferences of
drawing conclusions which are not grounded in the realities of things.
Whatever has at any time been concluded justly, whatever knowledge has
been acquired otherwise than by immediate intuition, depended on the ob-
servance of the laws which it is the province of logic to investigate. If
the conclusions are just, and the knowledge real, those laws, whether known
or not, have been observed.
0. We need not, therefore, seek any further for a solution of the ques-
tion, so often agitated, respecting the utility of logic. If a science of logic
exists, or is capable of existing, it must be useful. If there be rules to
which every mind consciously or unconsciously conforms in every instance
in which it infers rightly, there seems little necessity for discussing whether
a person is more likely to observe those rules, when he knows the rules, than
when he is unacquainted with them.
A science may undoubtedly be brought to a certain, not inconsiderable,
stage of advancement, without the application of any other logic to it than
what all persons, who are said to have a sound understanding, acquire em-
pirically in the course of their studies. Mankind judged of evidence, and
often correctly, before logic was a science, or they never could have made
it one. And they executed great mechanical works before they understood
the laws of mechanics. But there are limits both to what mechanicians can
do without principles of mechanics, and to what thinkers can do without
principles of logic. A few individuals, by extraordinary genius, or by the
accidental acquisition of a good set of intellectual habits, may work with-
out principles in the same way, or nearly the same way, in which they
would have worked if they had" been in possession of principles. But the
bulk of mankind require either to understand the theory of what they are
doing, or to have rules laid down for them by those who have understood
the theory. In the progress of science from its easiest to its more difficult
problems, each great step in advance has usually had either as its precur-
sor, or as its accompaniment and necessary condition, a corresponding im-
provement in the notions and principles of logic received among the most
advanced thinkers. And if several of the more difficult sciences are still
DEFINITION AND PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 23
in so defective a state ; if not only so little is proved, but disputation has
not terminated even about the little which seemed to be so; the reason
perhaps is, that men's logical notions have not yet acquired the decree of
extension, or of accuracy, requisite for the estimation of the evidence prop-
er to those particular departments of knowledge.
1. Logic, then, is the science of the operations of the understanding
which are subservient to the estimation of evidence: both the process it-
self of advancing from known truths to unknown, and all other intellectual
operations in so far as auxiliary to this. It includes, therefore, the opera-
tion of Naming ; for language is an instrument of thought, as well as a
means of communicating our thoughts. It includes, also, Definition, and
Classification. For, the use of these operations (putting all other minds
than one's own out of consideration) is to serve not only for keeping our
evidences and the conclusions from them permanent and readily accessible
in the memory, but for so marshaling the facts which we may at any time
be engaged in investigating, as to enable us to perceive more clearly what
evidence there is, and to judge with fewer chances of error whether it be
sufficient. These, therefore, are operations specially instrumental to the
estimation of evidence, and, as such, are within the province of Logic.
There are other more elementary processes, concerned in all thinking, such
as Conception, Memory, and the like ; but of these it is not necessary that
Logic should take any peculiar cognizance, since they have no special
connection with the problem of Evidence, further than that, like all other
problems addressed to the understanding, it presupposes them.
Our object, then, will be, to attempt a correct analysis of the intellectual
process called Reasoning or Inference, and of such other mental operations
as are intended to facilitate this : as well as, on the foundation of this anal-
ysis, and pari passu with it, to bring together or frame a set of rules or
canons for testing the sufficiency of any given evidence to prove any given
proposition.
With respect to the first part of this undertaking, I do not attempt to
decompose the mental operations in question into their ultimate elements.
It is enough if the analysis as far as it goes is correct, and if it goes far
enough for the practical purposes of logic considered as an art. The sep-
aration of a complicated phenomenon into its component parts is not like
a connected and interdependent chain of proof. If one link of an argu-
ment breaks, the whole drops to the ground; but one step toward an anal-
ysis holds good and has an independent value, though we should never be
able to make a second. The results which have been obtained by analytical
chemistry are not the less valuable, though it should be discovered that
all which we now call simple substances are really compounds. All other
things are at any rate compounded of those elements: whether the ele-
ments themselves admit of decomposition, is an important inquiry, but
does not affect the certainty of the science up to that point.
I shall, accordingly, attempt to analyze the process of inference, and the
processes subordinate to inference, so far only as may be requisite for as-
certaining the difference between a correct and an incorrect performance
of those processes. The reason for thus limiting our design, is evident.
It has been said by objectors to logic, that we do not learn to use our
muscles by studying their anatomy. The fact is not quite fairly stated;
for if the action of any of our muscles were vitiated by local weakness, or
other physical defect, a knowledge of their anatomy might be very neccs-
24 INTRODUCTION.
sary for effecting a cave. But we should be justly liable to the criticism
involved in this objection, were we, in a treatise on logic, to carry the anal-
ysis of the reasoning process beyond the point at which any inaccuracy
which may have crept into it must become visible. In learning bodily
exercises (to carry on the same illustration) we do, and must, analyze the
bodily motions so far as is necessary for distinguishing those which ought
to be performed from those which ought not. To a similar extent, and no
further, it is necessary that the logician should analyze the mental processes
with which Logic is concerned. Logic has no interest in carrying the anal-
ysis beyond the point at which it becomes apparent whether the operations
have iii any individual case been rightly or wrongly performed : in the
same manner as the science of music teaches us to discriminate between
musical notes, and to know the combinations of which they are susceptible,
but not what number of vibrations in a second correspond to each ; which,
though useful to be known, is useful for totally different purposes. The
extension of Logic as a Science is determined by its necessities as an Art :
whatever it does not need for its practical ends, it leaves to the larger
science which may be said to correspond, not to any particular art, but to
art in general ; the science which deals with the constitution of the human
faculties; and to which, in the part of our mental nature which concerns
Logic, as well as in all other parts, it belongs to decide what are ultimate
facts, ami what are resolvable into other facts. And I believe it will be
found that most of the conclusions arrived at in this work have no neces-
sary connection with any particular views respecting the ulterior analysis.
Logic is common ground on which the partisans of Hartley and of Reid,
of Locke and of Kant, may meet and join hands. Particular and detached
opinions of all these thinkers will no doubt occasionally be controverted,
since all of them were logicians as well as metaphysicians ; but the field on
which their principal battles have been fought, lies beyond the boundaries
of our science.
It can not, indeed, be pretended that logical principles can be altogether
irrelevant to those more abstruse discussions; nor is it possible but that
the view we are led to take of the problem which logic proposes, must
have a tendency favorable to the adoption of some one opinion, on these
controverted subjects, rather than another. For metaphysics, in endeavor-
ing to solve its own peculiar problem, must employ means, the validity of
which falls under the cognizance of logic. It proceeds, no doubt, as far as
possible, merely by a closer and more attentive interrogation of our con-
sciousness, or more properly speaking, of our memory; and so far is not
amenable to logic. But wherever this method is insufficient to attain the
end of its inquiries, it must proceed, like other sciences, by means of evi-
dence. Now, the moment this science begins to draw inferences from evi-
dence, logic becomes the sovereign judge whether its inferences arc well
grounded, or what other inferences would be so.
This, however, constitutes no nearer or other relation between logic and
metaphysics, than that which exists between logic and every other science.
And I can conscientiously affirm that no one proposition laid down in this
work has been adopted for the sake of establishing, or with any reference
to its fitness for being employed in establishing, preconceived opinions in
any department of knowledge or of inquiry on which the speculative world
is still undecided.*
* The view taken in the text, of the definition ami purpose of Logic, stands in marked op-
position to that of the school of philosophy which, in this country, is represented hy the writ-
DEFINITION AND PROVINCE OF LOGIC. 25
ings of Sir William Hamilton and of his numerous pupils. Logic, as this school conceives it,
is "the Science of the Formal Laws of Thought;" a definition framed for the express pur-
pose of excluding, as irrelevant to Logic, whatever relates to Belief and Disbelief, or to the
pursuit of truth as such, and restricting the science to that very limited portion of its total
province, which has reference to the conditions, not of Truth, but of Consistency. What I
have thought it useful to say in opposition to this limitation of the field of Logic, has been
said at some length in a separate work, first published in 18G5, and entitled "An Examina-
tion of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions dis-
cussed in his Writings." For the purposes of the present Treatise, I am content that the jus-
tification of the larger extension which I give to the domain of the science, should rest on the
sequel of the Treatise itself. Some remarks on the relation which the Logic of Consistency
bears to the Logic of Truth, and on the place which that particular part occupies in the whole
to which it belongs, will be found in the present volume (Book II., chap, iii., 9).
BOOK I.
OF NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
"La scolastiquc, qui proiluisit dans la logique, comme dans la morale, et dans une partie
de la inctaphysiqiu* une snbtilite, une precision d'ide'es, dont 1'habitude inconnne aux anciens,
n contribue' plus qu'on ne croit au progres de la bonne philosophic.'' CONUORCKT, Vie de
Turqot.
"To tlie schoolmen tlie vulgar languages are principally indebted for what precision and
analytic subtlety they possess." SIK W. HAMILTON*, Discussions in Philosophy.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE NECESSITY OF COMMENCING WITH AX ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE.
1. IT is so much tlie established practice of writei'S on logic to com-
mence their treatises by a few general observations (in most cases, it is
true, rather meagre) on Terms and their varieties, that it will, perhaps,
scarcely be required from me, in merely following the common usage, to be
as particular in assigning my reasons, as it is usually expected that those
should be who deviate from it.
The practice, indeed, is recommended by considerations far too obvious
to require a formal justification. Logic is a portion of the Art of Think-
ing : Language is evidently, and by the admission of all philosophers, one
of the principal instruments or helps of thought; and any imperfection in
the instrument, or in the mode of employing it, is confessedly liable, still
more than in almost any other art, to confuse and impede the process, and
destroy all ground of confidence in the result. For a mind not previously
versed in the meaning and right use of the various kinds of words, to at-
tempt the study of methods of philosophizing, would be as if some one
should attempt to become an astronomical observer, having never learned to
adjust the focal distance of his optical instruments so as to see distinctly.
Since Reasoning, or Inference, the principal subject of logic, is an opera-
tion which usually takes place by means of words, and in complicated cases
can take place in no other way; those who have not a thorough insight
into the signification and purposes of words, will be under chances, amount-
ing almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly. And logi-
cians have generally felt that unless, in the very first stage, they removed
this source of error; unless they taught their pupil to put away the glasses
which distort the object, and to use those which are adapted to his pur-
pose in such a manner as to assist, not perplex, his vision; he would not be
in a condition to practice the remaining part of their discipline with any
prospect of advantage. Therefore it is that an inquiry into language, so
far as is needful to guard against the errors to which it gives rise, lias at
all times been deemed a necessary preliminary to the study of logic.
NECESSITY OF AN ANALYSIS OF NAMES. 27
But there is another reason, of a still more fundamental nature, why the
import of words should be the earliest subject of the logician's considera-
tion : because without it he can not examine into the import of Proposi-
tions. Now this is a subject which stands on the very threshold of the
science of logic.
The object of logic, as defined in the Introductory Chapter, is to ascer-
tain how we come by that portion of our knowledge (much the greatest
portion) which is not intuitive : and by what criterion we can, in matters
not self-evident, distinguish between things proved and things not proved,
between what is worthy and what is unworthy of belief. Of the various
questions which present themselves to our inquiring faculties, some receive
an answer from direct consciousness, others, if resolved at all, can only be
resolved by means of evidence. Logic is concerned with these last. But
before inquiring into the mode of resolving questions, it is necessary to in-
quire what are those which offer themselves ; what questions are conceiva-
ble; what inquiries are there, to which mankind have either obtained, or
been able to imagine it possible that they should obtain, an answer. This
point is best ascertained by a survey and analysis of Propositions.
2. The answer to every question which it is possible to frame, must
be contained in a Proposition, or Assertion. Whatever can be an object
of belief, or even of disbelief, must, when put into words, assume the form
of a proposition. All truth and all error lie in propositions. What, by
a convenient misapplication of an abstract term, we call a Truth, means
simply a True Proposition ; and errors are false propositions. To know
the import of all possible propositions would be to know all questions
which can be raised, all matters which are susceptible of being either be-
lieved or disbelieved. How many kinds of inquiries can be propound-
ed; how many kinds of judgments can be made; and how many kinds
of propositions it is possible to frame with a meaning, are but different
forms of one and the same question. Since, then, the objects of all Be-
lief and of all Inquiry express themselves in propositions, a sufficient scru-'
tiny of Propositions and of their varieties will apprise us what questions
mankind have actually asked of themselves, and what, in the nature of an-
swers to those questions, they have actually thought they had grounds to
believe.
Now the first glance at a proposition shows that it is formed by putting
together two names. A proposition, according to the common simple defi-
nition, which is sufficient for our purpose is, discourse, in which something
is affirmed or denied of something. Thus, in the proposition, Gold is yel-
low, the quality yellow is affirmed of the substance gold. In the proposi-
tion, Franklin was not born in England, the fact expressed by the words
born in England is denied of the man Franklin.
Every proposition consists of three parts : the Subject, the Predicate,
and the'Copula. The predicate is the name denoting that which is affirmed
or denied. The subject is the name denoting the person or thing which
something is affirmed or denied of. The copula is the sign denoting that
there is an affirmation or denial, and thereby enabling the hearer or reader
to distinguish a proposition from any other kind of discourse. Thus, in the
the word is, which serves as the connecting mark between the subject and
28 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
predicate, to show that one of them is affirmed of the other, is called the
Copula.
Dismissing, for the present, the copula, of which more will be said here-
after, every proposition, then, consists of at least two names brings to-
gether two names, in a particular manner. This is already a first step to-
ward what we are in quest of. It appears from this, that for an act of be-
lief, one object is not sufficient ; the simplest act of belief supposes, and has
something to do with,f0 objects two names, to say the least; and (since
the names must be names of something) two namable things. A large
class of thinkers would cut the matter short by saying, two ideas. They
would say, that the subject and predicate are both of them names of ideas;
the idea of gold, for instance, and the idea of yellow; and that what takes
place (or part of what takes place) in the act of belief consists in bring-
ing (as it is often expressed) one of these ideas under the other. But this
we are not yet in a condition to say : whether such be the correct mode
of describing the phenomenon, is an after consideration. The result with
which for the present we must be contented, is, that in every act of belief
tiro objects are in some manner taken cognizance of; that there can be no
belief claimed, or question propounded, which does not embrace two dis-
tinct (either material or intellectual) subjects of thought; each of them
capable, or not, of being conceived by itself, but incapable of being believed
by itself.
I may say, for instance, " the sun." The word has a meaning, and sug-
gests that meaning to the mind of any one who is listening to me. But
suppose I ask him, Whether it is true: whether he believes it? He can
give no answer. There is as yet nothing to believe, or to disbelieve. Now,
however, let me make, of all possible assertions respecting the sun, the one
which involves the least of reference to any object besides itself; let me
say, " the sun exists." Here, at once, is something which a person can say
he believes. . But here, instead of only one, we find two distinct objects of
conception : the sun is one object ; existence is another. Let it not be said
'that this second conception, existence, is involved in the first; for the sun
may be conceived as no longer existing. "The sun" does not convey all
the meaning that is conveyed by "the sun exists:" "my father" does not
include all the meaning of " my father exists," for he may be dead ; " a
round square" does not include the meaning of "a round square exists,"
for it does not and can not exist. When I say " the sun," " my father," or
a " round square," I do not call upon the hearer for any belief or disbelief,
nor can either the one or the other be afforded me ; but if I say, " the sun
exists," "my father exists," or "a round square exists," I call for belief;
and should, in the first of the three instances, meet with it; in the second,
with belief or disbelief, as the case might be ; in the third, with disbelief.
3. This first step in the analysis of the object of belief, which, though
so obvious, will be found to be not unimportant, is the only one which we
shall find it practicable to make without a preliminary survey of language.
If we attempt to proceed further in the same path, that is, to analy/e any
further the import of Propositions ; we find forced upon us, as a subject of
previous consideration, the import of Names. For every proposition con-
sists of two names; and every proposition affirms or denies one of these
names, of the other. Now what we do, what passes in our mind, when we
affirm or deny two names of one another, must depend on what they are
names of; since it is with reference to that, and not to the mere names
NAMES. 29
themselves, that we make the affirmation or denial. Here, therefore, we
find a new reason why the signification of names, and the relation general-
ly between names and the things signified by them, must occupy the pre-
liminary stage of the inquiry we are engaged in.
It may be objected that the meaning of names can guide us at most only
to the opinions, possibly the foolish and groundless opinions, which man-
kind have formed concerning things, and that as the object of philosophy
is truth, not opinion, the philosopher should dismiss words and look into
things themselves, to ascertain what questions can be asked and answered
in regard to them. This advice (which no one has it in his power to fol-
low) is in reality an exhortation to discard the whole fruits of the labors of
his predecessors, and conduct himself as if he were the first person who
had ever turned an inquiring eye upon nature. What does any one's per-
sonal knowledge of Things amount to, after subtracting all which he has
acquired by means of the words of other people ? Even after he has learn-
ed as much as people usually do learn from others, will the notions of
things contained in his individual mind afford as sufficient a basis for a
catalogue raisonne as the notions which are in the minds of all mankind ?
In any enumeration and classification of Things, which does not set out
from their names, no varieties of things will of course be comprehended
but those recognized by the particular inquirer ; and it Avill still remain to
be established, by a subsequent examination of names, that the enumera-
tion has omitted nothing which ought to have been included. But if we
o o
begin with names, and use them as our clue to the things, we bring at once
before us all the distinctions which have been recognized, not by a single
inquirer, but by all inquirers taken together. It doubtless may, and I be-
lieve it will, be found, that mankind have multiplied the varieties unneces-
sarily, and have imagined distinctions among things, where there were only
distinctions in the manner of naming them. But we are not entitled to as-
sume this in the commencement. We must begin by recognizing the dis-
tinctions made by ordinary language. If some of these appear, on a close
examination, not to be fundamental, the enumeration of the different kinds
of realities may be abridged accordingly. But to impose upon the facts in
the first instance the yoke of a theory, while the grounds of the theory are
reserved for discussion in a subsequent stage, is not a course which a logi-
cian can reasonably adopt.
CHAPTER II.
OF NAMES.
1. "A NAME," says Hobbes,* " is a word taken at pleasure to serve for
a mark which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had
before, and which being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign of
what thought the speaker hadf before in his mind." This simple defini-
tion of a name, as a word (or set of words) serving the double purpose of
a mark to recall to ourselves the likeness of a former thought, and a sign
* Computation or Loqic, chap. ii.
t In the original "had, or had not." These last words, as involving a subtlety foreign to
our present purpose, I have forborne to quote.
30 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
to make it known to others, appears unexceptionable. Names, indeed, do
much more than this ; but whatever else they do, grows out of, and is the
result of this: as will appear in its proper place.
Are names more properly said to be the names of things, or of our ideas
of things? The first is the expression in common use; the last is that of
some metaphysicians, who conceived that in adopting it they were intro-
ducing a highly important distinction. The eminent thinker, just quoted,
seems to countenance the latter opinion. "But seeing," he continues,
" names ordered in speech (as is defined) are signs of our conceptions, it
is manifest they are not signs of the things themselves ; for that the sound
of this word stone should be the sign of a stone, can not be understood in
any sense but this, that he that hears it collects that he that pronounces it
thinks of a stone."
If it be merely meant that the conception alone, and not the thing itself,
is recalled by the name, or imparted to the hearer, this of course can not
be denied. Nevertheless, there seems good reason for adhering to the
common usage, and calling (as indeed Ilobbes himself does in other places)
the word sun the name of the sun, and not the name of our idea of the
sun. For names are not intended only to make the hearer conceive what
we conceive, but also to inform him what we believe. Now, when I use a
name for the purpose of expressing a belief, it is a belief concerning the
thing itself, not concerning my idea of it. When I say, "the sun is the
cause of day," I do not mean that my idea of the sun causes or excites in
me the idea of day ; or in other words, that thinking of the sun makes me
think of day. I mean, that a certain physical fact, which is called the sun's
presence (and which, in the ultimate analysis, resolves itself into sensations,
not ideas) causes another physical fact, which is called day. It seems prop-
er to consider a word as the name of that which we intend to be under-
stood by it when we use it ; of that which any fact that we assert of it is
to be understood of; that, in short, concerning which, when we employ the
word, we intend to give information. Names, therefore, shall always be
spoken of in this work as the names of things themselves, and not merely
of our ideas of things.
But the question now arises, of what things? and to answer this it is
necessary to take into consideration the different kinds of names.
2. It is usual, before examining the various classes into which names
are commonly divided, to begin by distinguishing from names of every
description, those words which are not names, but only parts of names.
Among such are reckoned particles, as of, to, truly, often ; th<; inflected
cases of nouns substantive, as me, him, John's; and even adjectives, as
large, heavy. These words do not express things of which any thing can
be affirmed or denied. We can not say, Heavy fell, or A heavy fell; Truly,
or A truly, was asserted ; Of, or An of, was in the room. Unless, indeed,
we are speaking of the mere words themselves, as when we say, Truly is
an English word, or, Heavy is an adjective. In that case they are complete
names viz., names of those particular sounds, or of those particular col-
lections of written characters. This employment of a word to denote the
mere letters and syllables of which it is composed, was termed by the
schoolmen the suppositio mater ialis of the word. In any other sense we
can not introduce one of these words into the subject of a proposition,
unless in combination with other words ; as, A heavy body fell, A truly
important fact was asserted, A member of parliament was in the room.
NAMES. 31
An adjective, however, is capable of standing by itself as the predicate
of a proposition; as when we say, Snow is white; and occasionally oven
as the subject, for we may say, White is an agreeable color. The adjec-
tive is often said to be so used by a grammatical ellipsis : Snow is white
instead of Snow is a white object ; White is an agreeable color, instead of'
A white color, or, The color white, is agreeable. The Greeks and Romans
were allowed, by the rules of their language, to employ this ellipsis uni-
versally in the subject as well as in the predicate of a proposition. In
English this can not, generally speaking, be done. We may say, The earth
is round ; but we can not say, Round is easily moved ; we must say, A
round object. This distinction, however, is rather grammatical than "log-
ical. Since there is no difference of meaning between round, and a round
object, it is only custom which prescribes that on any given occasion one
shall be used, and not the other. We shall, therefore, without scruple,
speak of adjectives as names, whether in their own right, or as representa-
tive of the more circuitous forms of expression above exemplified. The
other classes of subsidiary words have no title whatever to be considered
as names. An adverb, or an accusative case, can not under any circum-
stances (except when their mere letters and syllables are spoken of) figure
as one of the terms of a proposition.
Words which are not capable of being used as names, but only as parts
of names, were called by some of the schoolmen Syncategorematic terms :
from avv, with, and (,-ar?jyopew, to predicate, because it was only with some
other word that they could be predicated. A word which could be used
either as the subject or predicate of a proposition without being accom-
panied by any other word, was termed by the same authorities a Cate-
gorematic term. A combination of one or more Categorematic, and one
or more Syncategorematic words, as A heavy body, or A court of justice,
they sometimes called a mixed term ; but this seems a needless multiplica-
tion of technical expressions. A mixed term is, in the only useful sense of
the word, Categorematic. It belongs to the class of what have been called
many-worded names.
For, as one word is frequently not a name, but only part of a name, so
a number of words often compose one single name, and no more. These
words, " The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined
for the residence of the Abyssinian princes," form in the estimation of the
logician only one name ; one Categorematic term. A mode of determining
whether any set of words makes only one name, or more than one, is by
predicating something of it, and observing whether, by this predication, we
make only one assertion or several. Thus, when we say, John Nokes, who
was the mayor of the town, died yesterday by this predication we make
but one assertion ; whence it appears that " John Nokes, who was the
mayor of the town," is no more than one name. It is true that in this
proposition, besides the assertion that John Nokes died yesterday, there
is included another assertion, namely, that John Nokes was mayor of the
town. But this last assertion was already made : we did not make it by
adding the predicate, ''died yesterday." Suppose, however, that the words
had been, John Nokes and the mayor of the town, they would have formed
two names instead of one. For when we say, John Nokes and the mayor
of the town died yesterday, we make two assertions : one, that John Nokes
died yesterday ; the other, that the mayor of the town died yesterday.
It being needless to illustrate at any greater length the subject of many-
worded names, we proceed to the distinctions which have been established
32 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
among names, not according to the words they are composed of, but ac-
cording to their signification.
o o
3. All names are names of something, real or imaginary ; but all things
have not names appropriated to them individually. For some individual
objects we require, and consequently have, separate distinguishing names ;
there is a name for every person, and for every remarkable place. Other
objects, of which we have not occasion to speak so frequently, we do not
designate by a name of their own ; but when the necessity arises for nam-
ing them, we do so by putting together several words, each of which, by
itself, might be and is used for an indefinite number of other objects; as
when I say, this stone: "this" and "stone" being, each of them, names
that may be used of many other objects besides the particular one meant,
though "the only object of which they can both be used at the given mo-
ment, consistently with their signification, may be the one of which I wish
to speak.
Were this the sole purpose for which names, that are common to more
things than one, could be employed ; if they only served, by mutually lim-
iting each other, to afford a designation for such individual objects as have
no names of their own : they could only be ranked among contrivances for
economizing the use of language. But it is evident that this is not their
sole function. It is by their means that we are enabled to assert general
propositions ; to affirm or deny any predicate of an indefinite number of
things at once. The distinction, therefore, between general names, and in-
dividual or singular names, is fundamental ; and may be considered as the
first grand division of names.
A general name is familiarly defined, a name which is capable of being
truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things.
An individual or singular name is a name which is only capable of being
truly affirmed, in the same sense, of one thing.
Thus, man is capable of being truly affirmed of John, George, Mary, and
other persons without assignable limit; and it is affirmed of all of them in
the same sense ; for the word man expresses certain qualities, and when we
predicate it of those persons, we assert that they all possess those qualities.
But tTohn is only capable of being truly affirmed of one single person, at
least in the same sense. For, though there are many persons who bear
that name, it is not conferred upon them to indicate any qualities, or any
thing which belongs to them in common ; and can not be said to be affirm-
ed of them in any sense at all, consequently not in the same sense. "The
king who succeeded William the Conqueror," is also an individual name.
For, that there can not be more than one person of whom it can be truly
affirmed, is implied in the meaning of the words. Even " the king," when
the occasion or the context defines the individual of whom it is to be un-
derstood, may justly be regarded as an individual name.
It is not unusual, by way of explaining what is meant by a general name,
to say that it is the name of a class. But this, though a convenient mode
of expression for some purposes, is objectionable as a definition, since it
explains the clearer of two things by the more obscure. It would be more
logical to reverse the proposition, and turn it into a definition of the word
class: "A class is the indefinite multitude of individuals denoted by a gen-
eral name."
It is necessary to distinguish general from collective names. A general
name is one which can be predicated of each individual of a multitude; a
NAMES.
33
collective name can not be predicated of each separately, but only of all
taken together. "The 76th regiment of foot in the British army," which
is a collective name, is not a general but an individual name; for "though it
can be predicated of a multitude of individual soldiers taken jointly, it can
not be predicated of them severally. We may say, Jones is a soldier, and
Thompson is a soldier, and Smith is a soldier, but we can not say, Jones is
the 76th regiment, and Thompson is the 76th regiment, and Smith is the
76th regiment. We can only say, Jones, and Thompson, and Smith, and
Brown, and so forth (enumerating all the soldiers), are the 76th regiment.
"The 76th regiment" is a collective name, but not a general one: "a
regiment" is both a collective and a general name. General with respect
to all individual regiments, of each of which separately it can be affirmed :
collective with respect to the individual soldiers of whom any regiment is
composed.
4. The second general division of names is into concrete and abstract.
A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name is
a name which stands for an attribute of a thing. Thus John, the sea, this
table, are names of things. White, also, is a name of a thing, or rather of
things. Whiteness, again, is the name of a quality or attribute of those
things. Man is a name of many things; humanity is a name of an attri-
bute of those things. Old is a name of things : old age is a name of one
of their attributes.
I have used the words concrete and abstract in the sense annexed to
them by the schoolmen, who, notwithstanding the imperfections of their
philosophy, were unrivaled in the construction of technical language, and
whose definitions, in logic at least, though they never went more than a lit-
tle way into the subject, have seldom, I think, been altered but to be spoil-
ed. A practice, however, has grown up in more modern times, which, if
not introduced by Locke, has gained currency chiefly from his example, of
applying the expression "abstract name" to all names which are the result
of abstraction or generalization, and consequently to all general names, in-
stead of confining it to the names of attributes. The metaphysicians of the
Condillac school whose admiration of Locke, passing over the profound-
est speculations of that truly original genius, usually fastens with peculiar
eagerness upon his weakest points have gone on imitating him in this
abuse of language, until there is now some difficulty in restoring the word
to its original signification. A more wanton alteration in the meaning of a
word is rarely to be met with ; for the expression general name, the exact
equivalent of which exists in all languages I am acquainted with, was al-
ready available for the purpose to which abstract has been misappropri-
ated, while the misappropriation leaves that important class of words, the
names of attributes, without any compact distinctive appellation. The old
acceptation, however, has not gone so completely out of use as to deprive
those who still adhere to it of all chance of being understood. By abstract,
then, I shall always, in Logic proper, mean the opposite of concrete; by an
abstract name, the name of an attribute ; by a concrete name, the name of
an object.
Do abstract names belong to the class of general, or to that of singular
names? Some of them are certainly general. I mean those which are
names not of one single and definite attribute, but of a class of attributes.
Such is the word color, which is a name common to whiteness, redness,
etc. Such is even the word whiteness, in respect of the different shades of
3
34 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
whiteness to which it is applied in common: the word magnitude, in re-
spect of the various degrees of magnitude and the various dimensions of
space ; the word weight, in respect of the various degrees of weight. Such
also is the word attribute itself, the common name of all particular attri-
butes. But when only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in
kind, is designated by" the name; as visibleness; tangibleness ; equality;
squareness; milk-whiteness; then the name can hardly be considered gen-
eral; for though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the at-
tribute itself is always conceived as one, not many.* To avoid needless lo-
gomachies, the best "course would probably be to consider these names as
neither general nor individual, and to place them in a class apart.
It may be objected to our definition of an abstract name, that not only
the names which we have called abstract, but adjectives, which we have
placed in the concrete class, are names of attributes; that white, for exam-
ple, is as much the name of the color as whiteness is. But (as before re-
marked) a word ought to be considered as the name of that which we intend
to be understood by it when we put it to its principal use, that is, when we
employ it in predication. When we say snow is white, milk is white, linen
is white, we do not mean it to be understood that snow, or linen, or milk,
is a color. We mean that they are things having the color. The reverse
is the case with the word whiteness ; what we affirm to be whiteness is not
snow, but the color of snow. Whiteness, therefore, is the. name of the col-
or exclusively: white is a name of all things whatever having the color; a
name, not of the quality whiteness, but of every white object. It is true,
this name was given to all those various objects on account of the quality;
and we may therefore say, without impropriety, that the quality forms part
of its signification ; but a name can only be said to stand for, or to be a
name of, the things of which it can be predicated. We shall presently see
that all names which can be said to have any signification, all names by ap-
plying which to an individual we give any information respecting that in-
dividual, may be said to imply an attribute of some sort; but they are not
names of the attribute ; it has its own proper abstract name.
5. This leads to the consideration of a third great division of names,
into connotfitice and non-connotutice, the latter sometimes, but improperly,
called absolute. This is one of the most important distinctions which we
shall have occasion to point out, and one of those which go deepest into
the nature of language.
A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only, or an attri-
bute only. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies
an attribute. By a subject is here meant any thing which possesses attri-
butes. Thus John, or London, or England, are names which signify a sub-
ject only. Whiteness, length, virtue, signify an attribute only. None of
these names, therefore, are connotative. But white, long, virtuous, are con-
notative. The word white, denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the
foam of the sea, etc., and implies, or in the language of the schoolmen, con-
notes,} the attribute whiteness. The word white is not predicated of the
attribute, but of the subjects, snow, etc. ; but when we predicate it of
them, we convey the meaning that the attribute whiteness belongs to them.
The same may be said of the other words above cited. Virtuous, for ex-
* Vide infra, note at the end of 3, book ii., chap. ii.
t Notare, to mark ; connotare, to mark along with ; to mark one thing with or in addition
to another.
NAMES.
35
ample, is the name of a class, which includes Socrates, Howard, the Man of
Ross, and an undefinable number of other individuals, past, present, and to
come. These individuals, collectively and severally, can alone be said with
propriety to be denoted by the word : of them alone can it properly be said
to be a name. But it is a name applied to all of them in consequence of
an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute
which has received the name of virtue. It is applied to all beings that are
considered to possess this attribute; and to none which are not so con-
sidered.
All concrete general names are connotative. The word man, for exam-
ple, denotes Peter, Jane, John, and an indefinite number of other individu-
als, of whom, taken as a class, it is the name. But it is applied to them,
because they possess, and to signify that they possess, certain attributes.
These seem to be, corporeity, animal life, rationality, and a certain exter-
nal form, which for distinction we call the human. Every existing thing,
which possessed all these attributes, would be called a man ; and any thing
which possessed none of them, or only one, or two, or even three of them
without the fourth, would not be so called. For example, if in the interior
of Africa there were to be discovered a race of animals possessing reason
equal to that of human beings, but with the form of an elephant, they
would not be called men. Swift's Houyhnhnms would not be so called.
Or if such newly-discovered beings possessed the form of man without any
vestige of reason, it is probable that some other name than that of man
would be found for them. How it happens that there can be any doubt
about the matter, will appear hereafter. The word man, therefore, signi-
fies all these attributes, and all subjects which possess these attributes.
But it can be predicated only of the subjects. What we call men, are the
subjects, the individual Stiles and Nokes ; not the qualities by which their
humanity is constituted. The name, thei'efore, is said to signify the sub-
jects directly, the attributes indirectly ; it denotes the subjects, and im-
plies, or involves, or indicates, or as we shall say henceforth connotes, the
attributes. It is a connotative name.
Connotative names have hence been also called denominative, because
the subject which they denote is denominated by, or receives a name from
the attribute which they connote. Snow, and other objects, receive the
name white, because they possess the attribute which is called whiteness ;
Peter, James, and others receive the name man because they possess the
attributes which are considered to constitute humanity. The attribute, or
attributes, may therefore be said to denominate those objects, or to give
them a common name.*
It has been seen that all concrete general names are connotative. Even
abstract names, though the names only of attributes, may in some instances
be justly considered as connotative; for attributes themselves may have
attributes ascribed to them ; and a word which denotes attributes may con-
note an attribute of those attributes. Of this description, for example, is
such a word as fault; equivalent to bad or hurtful quality. This word is
a name common to many attributes, and connotes hurtfulness, an attribute
* Archbishop Whately, who, in the later editions of his Elements of Logic, aided in reviving
the important distinction treated of in the text, proposes the term "Attributive" as a substi-
tute for "Connotative" (p. 22, 9th edit.)- The expression is, in itself, appropriate; but as
it has not the advantage of being connected with any verb, of so markedly distinctive a char-
acter as " to connote," it is not, I think, fitted to supply the place of the word Connotative in
scientific use.
36 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
of those various attributes. When, for example, we say that slowness, in
a horse, is a fault, we do not mean that the slow movement, the actual
change of place of the slow horse, is a bad thin*;, but that the property or
peculiarity of the horse, from which it derives that name, the quality of be-
ing a slow mover, is an undesirable peculiarity.
In regard to those concrete names which are not general but individual,
a distinction must be made.
Proper names are not connotative : they denote the individuals who are
called by them ; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belong-
ing to those individuals. When we name a child by the name Paul, or a
dog by the name Caisar, these names are simply marks used to enable those
individuals to be made subjects of discourse. It may be said, indeed, that
we must have had some reason for giving them those names rather than
any others ; and this is true ; but the name, once given, is independent
of the reason. A man may have been named John, because that was the
name of his father; a town may have been named Dartmouth, because it is
situated at the mouth of the Dart. But it is no part of the signification of
the word John, that the father of the person so called bore the same name ;
nor even of the word Dartmouth, to be situated at the mouth of the Dart.
If sand should choke up the mouth of the river, or an earthquake change
its course, and remove it to a distance from the town, the name of the
town would not necessarily be changed. That fact, therefore, can form no
part of the signification of the word ; for otherwise, when the fact confess-
edly ceased to be true, no one would any longer think of applying the
name. Proper names are attached to the objects themselves, and are not
dependent on the continuance of any attribute of the object.
But there is another kind of names, which, although they are individual
names that is, predicable only of one object are really connotative. For,
though we may give to an individual a name utterly unmeaning, which we
call a proper name a word which answers the purpose of showing what
thing it is we are talking about, but not of telling any thing about it; yet
a name peculiar to an individual is not necessarily of this description. It
may be significant of some attribute, or some union of attributes, which,
being possessed by no object but one, determines the name exclusively to
that individual. "The sun" is a name of this description; "God," when
used by a monotheist, is another. These, however, are scarcely examples
of what we are now attempting to illustrate, being, in strictness of lan-
guage, general, not individual names : for, however they may be in, fact
predicable only of one object, there is nothing in the meaning of the words
themselves which implies this: and, accordingly, when we are imagining
and not affirming, we may speak of many suns; and the majority of man-
kind have believed, and still believe, that there are many gods. But it is
easy to produce words which are real instances of connotative individual
names. It may be part of the meaning of the connotative name itself, that
there can exist but one individual possessing the attribute which it con-
notes : as, for instance, " the only son of John Stiles ;" " the first emperor
of Rome." Or the attribute connoted may be a connection with some de-
terminate event, and the connection may be of such a kind as only one in-
dividual could have; or may at least be such as only one individual actually
had ; and this may be implied in the form of the expression. "The father
of Socrates" is an example of the one kind (since Socrates could not have
had two fathers) ; "the author of the Iliad," "the murderer of Henri Qua-
tre," of the second. For, though it is conceivable that more persons than
NAMES. 37
one might have participated in the authorship of the Iliad, or in the mur-
der of Henri Quatre, the employment of the article the implies that, in fact,
this was not the case. What is here done by the word the, is done in oth-
er cases by the context : thus, " Caesar's army " is an individual name, if it
appears from the context that the army meant is that which Caesar com-
manded in a particular battle. The still more general expressions, "the
Roman army," or " the Christian army," may be individualized in a similar
manner. Another case of frequent occurrence has already been noticed ;
it is the following : The name, being a many-worded one, may consist, in
the first place, of a general name, capable therefore in itself of being affirm-
ed of more things than one, but which is, in the second place, so limited by
other words joined with it, that the entire expression can only be predi-
cated of one object, consistently with the meaning of the general term.
This is exemplified in such an instance as the following : " the present
prime minister of England." Prime Minister of England is a general
name ; the attributes which it connotes may be possessed by an indefinite
number of persons: in succession however, not simultaneously; since the
meaning of the name itself imports (among other things) that there can be
only one such person at a time. This being the case, and the application
of the name being afterward limited by the article and the word present, to
such individuals as possess the attributes at one indivisible point of time,
it becomes applicable only to one individual. And as this appears from
the meaning of the name, without any extrinsic proof, it is strictly an indi-
vidual name.
From the preceding observations it will easily be collected, that when-
ever the names given to objects convey any information that is, whenever
they have properly any meaning the meaning resides not in what they de-
note, but in what they connote. The only names of objects which connote
nothing are proper names ; and these have, strictly speaking, no significa-
tion.*
If, like the robber in the Arabian Nights, we make a mark with chalk on
a house to enable us to know it again, the mark has a purpose, but it has
not properly any meaning. The chalk does not declare any thing about
the house ; it does not mean, This is such a person's house, or This is a
house which contains booty. The object of making the mark is merely
distinction. I say to myself, All these houses are so nearly alike that if I
lose sight of them I shall not again be able to distinguish that which I am
now looking at, from any of the others ; I must therefore contrive to make
the appearance of this one house unlike that of the others, that I may here-
after know when I see the mark not indeed any attribute of the house
but simply that it is the same house which I am now looking at. Mor-
giana chalked all the other houses in a similar manner, and defeated the
scheme : how ? simply by obliterating the difference of appearance between
that house and the others. The chalk was still there, but it no longer
served the purpose of a distinctive mark.
* A writer who entitles his book Philosophy ; or, the Science of Truth, charges me in his
very first page (referring at the foot of it to this passage) with asserting that general names
have properly no signification. And he repeats this statement many times in the course of
his volume, with comments, not at all flattering, thereon. It is well to be now and then re-
minded to how great a length perverse misquotation (for, strange as it appears, I do not be-
lieve that the writer is dishonest) can sometimes go. It is a warning to readers when they
see an author accused, with volume and page referred to, and the apparent guarantee of invert-
ed commas, of maintaining something more than commonly absurd, not to give implicit cre-
dence to the assertion without verifying the reference.
38 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
When we impose .1 proper name, we perform an operation in some de-
gree analogous to what the robber intended in chalking the house. We
put a mark, not indeed upon the object itself, but, so to speak, upon the
idea of the object. A proper name is but an unmeaning mark which we
connect in our minds with the idea of the object, in order that whenever
the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, we may think of that
individual object. Not being attached to the thing itself, it does not, like
the chalk, enable us to distinguish the object when we see it; but it ena-
bles us to distinguish it when it is spoken of, either in the records of our
own experience, or in the discourse of others; to know that what we find
asserted in any proposition of which it is the subject, is asserted of the in-
dividual thing with which we were previously acquainted.
When we predicate of any thing its proper name; when we say, point-
ing to a man, this is Brown or .Smith, or pointing to a city, that it is York,
we do not, merely by so doing, convey to the reader any information about
them, except that those are their names. By enabling him to identify the
individuals, we may connect them with information previously possessed
by him ; by saying, This is York, we may tell him that it contains the Min-
ster. But this is in virtue of what he has previously heard concerning
York; not by any thing implied in the name. It is otherwise when ob-
jects are spoken of by connotative names. When we say, The town is
built of marble, we give the hearer what may be entirely new information,
and this merely by the signification of the many-worded connotative name,
" built of marble." Such names are not signs of the mere objects, invented
because we have occasion to think and speak of those objects individually;
but signs which accompany an attribute; a kind of livery in which the
attribute clothes all objects which are recognized as possessing it. They
are not mere marks, but more, that is to say, significant marks; and the
connotation is what constitutes their significance.
As a proper name is said to be the name of the one individual which it
is predicated of, so (as well from the importance of adhering to analogy, as
for the other reasons formerly assigned) a connotative name ought to be
considered a name of all the various individuals which it is predicable of,
or in other words denotes, and not of what it connotes. But by learning
what things it is a name of, we do not learn the meaning of the name: for
to the same thing we may, with equal propriety, apply many names, not
equivalent in meaning. Thus, I call a certain man by the name Sophronis-
cus : I call him by another name, The father of Socrates. Both these are
names of the same individual, but their meaning is altogether different;
they are applied to that individual for two different purposes: the one,
merely to distinguish him from other persons who are spoken of; the other
to indicate a fact relating to him, the fact that Socrates was his son. I
further apply to him these other expressions: a man, a (rreek, an Athenian,
a sculptor, an old man, an honest man, a brave man. All these are, or may
be, names of Sophroniscus, not indeed of him alone, but of him and each
of an indefinite number of other human beings. Each of these names is
applied to Sophroniscus for a different reason, and by each whoever under-
stands its meaning is apprised of a distinct fact or number of facts con-
cerning him; but those who knew nothing about the names except that
they were applicable to Sophroniscus, would be altogether ignorant of their
meaning. It is even possible that I might know every single individual of
whom a given name could be with truth affirmed, and yet could not. be said
to know the meaning of the name. A child knows who are its brothers
NAMES.
39
and sisters, long before it has any definite conception of the nature of the
facts which are involved in the signification of those words.
In some cases it is not easy to decide precisely how much a particular
word does or does not connote ; that is, we do not exactly know (the case
not having arisen) what degree of difference in the object would occasion
a difference in the name. Thus, it is clear that the word man, besides
animal life and rationality, connotes also a certain external form ; but it
would be impossible to say precisely what form ; that is, to decide how
great a deviation from the form ordinarily found in the beings whom we are
accustomed to call men, would suffice in a newly-discovered race to make
us refuse them the name of man. Rationality, also, being a quality which
admits of degrees, it has never been settled what is the lowest degree of
that quality which would entitle any creature to be considered a human
being. In all such cases, the meaning of the general name is so far un-
settled and vague; mankind have not come to any positive agreement
about the matter. When we come to treat of Classification, we shall have
occasion to show under what conditions this vagueness may exist without
practical inconvenience; and cases will appear in which the ends of lan-
guage are better promoted by it than by complete precision ; in order that,
in natural history for instance, individuals or species of no very marked
character may be ranged with those more strongly characterized individuals
or species to which, in all their properties taken together, they bear the
nearest resemblance.
But this partial uncertainty in the connotation of names can only be
free from mischief when guarded by strict precautions. One of the chief
sources, indeed, of lax habits of thought, is the custom of using connotative
terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more pre-
cise notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing
what objects they are used to denote. It is in this manner that we all ac-
quire, and inevitably so, our first knowledge of our vernacular language.
A child learns the meaning of the words man, or ichite, by hearing them ""
applied to a variety of individual objects, and finding out, by a process of
generalization and analysis which he could not himself describe, what those
different objects have in common. In the case of these two words the
process is so easy as to require no assistance from culture; the objects
called human beings, and the objects called white, differing from all others
by qualities of a peculiarly definite and obvious character. But in many
other cases, objects bear a general resemblance to one another, which leads
to their being familiarly classed together under a common name, while,
without more analytic habits than the generality of mankind possess, it is
not immediately apparent what are the particular attributes, upon the pos-
session of which in common by them all, their general resemblance depends.
When this is the case, people use the name without any recognized con-
notation, that is, without any precise meaning ; they talk, and consequently
think, vaguely, and remain contented to attach only the same degree of
significance to their own words, which a child three years old attaches to
the words brother and sister. The child at least is seldom puzzled by the
starting up of new individuals, on whom he is ignorant whether or not to
confer the title ; because there is usually an authority close at hand com-
petent to solve all doubts. But a similar resource does not exist in the
generality of cases ; and new objects are continually presenting themselves
to men, women, and children, which they are called upon to class proprio
motu. They, accordingly, do this on no other principle than that of super-
40 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
ficinl similarity, giving to each new object the name of that familiar object,
the idea of which it most readily recalls, or which, on a cursory inspection,
it seems to them most to resemble: as an unknown substance found in the
ground will be called, according to its texture, earth, sand, or a stone. In
this manner, names creep on from subject to subject, until all traces of
a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the word comes to denote
a number of things not only independently of any common attribute,
but which have actually no attribute in common ; or none but what is
shared by other things to which the name is capriciously refused.* Even
scientific writers have aided in this perversion of general language from
its purpose; sometimes because, like the vulgar, they knew no better;
and sometimes in deference to that aversion to admit new words, which
induces mankind, on all subjects not considered technical, to attempt to
make the original stock of names serve with but little augmentation to
express a constantly increasing number of objects and distinctions, and,
consequently, to express them in a manner progressively more and more
imperfect.
To what a degree this loose mode of classing and denominating objects
has rendered the vocabulary of mental and moral philosophy unfit for the
purposes of accurate thinking, is best known to whoever has most medi-
tated on the present condition of those branches of knowledge. Since,
however, the introduction of a new technical language as the vehicle of
speculations on subjects belonging to the domain of daily discussion, is ex-
tremely dith'cult to effect, and would not be free from inconvenience even
if effected, the problem for the philosopher, and one of the most difficult
which he has to resolve, is, in retaining the existing phraseology, how best
to alleviate its imperfections. This can only be accomplished by giving to
every general concrete name which there is frequent occasion to predicate,
a definite and fixed connotation ; in order that it may be known what attri-
butes, when we call an object by that name, we really mean to predicate of
the object. And the question of most nicety is, how to give this fixed con-
notation to a name, with the least possible change in the objects which the
name is habitually employed to denote; with the least possible disarrange-
ment, either by adding or subtraction, of the group of objects which, in
however imperfect a manner, it serves to circumscribe and hold together ;
and with the least vitiation of the truth of any propositions which are com-
monly received as true.
This desirable purpose, of giving a fixed connotation where it is want-
ing, is the end aimed at whenever any one attempts to give a definition of
a general name already in use ; every definition of a connotative name be-
ing an attempt either merely to declare, or to declare and analyze, the con-
notation of the name. And the fact, that no questions which have arisen
in the moral sciences have been subjects of keener controversy than the
* "Take the familiar term Stone. It is applied to mineral and rocky materials, to the
kernels of fruit, to the accumulations in the gall-Madder and in the kidney ; while it is re-
fused to polished minerals (called gems), to rocks that have the cleavage suited for roofing
(slates), and to baked clay (bricks). It occurs in the designation of the magnetic oxide of
iron (loadstone), and not in speaking of other metallic ores. Such a term is wholly unfit for
accurate reasoning, unless hedged round on every occasion by other phrases; as building
stone, precious stone, gall-stone, etc. Moreover, the methods of definition are battled for
want of sufficient community to ground upon. There is no quality uniformly present in the
cases where it is applied, and uniformly absent where it is not applied; hence the dcfiner
would have to employ largely the license of striking off existing applications, and taking in
new ones." UAIN, Logic, ii., 172.
NAMES.
41
definitions of almost all the leading expressions, is a proof how reat an
extent the evil to which we have adverted has attained.
Names with indeterminate connotation are not to be confounded with
names which have more than one connotation, that is to say, ambiguous
words. A word may have several meanings, but all of them fixed and rec-
ognized ones ; as the word post, for example, or the word box, the various
senses of which it would be endless to enumerate. And the paucity of ex-
isting names, in comparison with the demand for them, may often render
it advisable and even necessary to retain a name in this multiplicity of ac-
ceptations, distinguishing these so clearly as to prevent their being con-
founded with one another. Such a word may be considered as two or
more names, accidentally written and spoken alike.*
6. The fourth principal division of names, is into positive and nega-
tive. Positive, as man, tree, good; negative, as not-man, not-tree, not-good.
To every positive concrete name, a corresponding negative one might be
framed. After giving a name to any one thing, or to any plurality of
things, we might create a second name which should be a name of all things
whatever, except that particular thing or things. These negative names
are employed whenever we have occasion to speak collectively of all things
other than some thing or class of things. When the positive name is con-
notative, the corresponding negative name is connotative likewise; but in a
* Before quitting the subject of connotative names, it is proper to observe, that the first
writer who, in our times, has adopted from the schoolmen the word to connote, Mr. James
Mill, in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, employs it in a signification dif-
ferent from that in which it is here used. He uses the word in a sense co-extensive witli its
etymology, applying it to every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one thing
(which is consequently termed its signification), includes also a tacit reference to some other
thing. In the case considered in the text, that of concrete general names, his language and
mine are the converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signification of the name
to lie in the attribute, he speaks of the word as noting the attribute, and connoting the things
possessing the attribute. And he describes abstract names as being properly concrete names
with their connotation dropped; whereas, in my view, it is the t/enotation which would be
said to be dropped, what was previously connoted becoming the whole signification.
In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an authority, and one which
I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned. I have been
influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner
in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are involved in its signi-
fication. This necessity can scarcely be felt in its full force by any one who has not found by
experience how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on the philosophy of language
without such a word. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that some of the most prevalent of
the errors with which logic has been infected, and a large part of the cloudiness and confusion
of ideas which have enveloped it, would, in all probability, have been avoided, if a term had
been in common use to express exactly what I have signified by the term to connote. And
the schoolmen, to whom we are indebted for the greater part of our logical language, gave us
this also, and in this very sense. For though some of their general expressions countenance
the use of the word in the more extensive and vague acceptation in which it is taken by Mr.
Mill, yet when they had to define it specifically as a technical term, and to fix its meaning as
such, with that admirable precision which always characterizes their definitions, they clearly
explained that nothing was said to be connoted except forms, which word may generally, in
their writings, be understood as synonymous with attributes.
Now, if the word to connote, so well suited to the purpose to which they applied it, be di-
verted from that purpose by being taken to fulfill another, for which it does not seem to me to
be at all required ; I am unable to find any expression to replace it, but such as are commonly
employed in a sense so much more general, that it would be useless attempting to associate
them peculiarly with this precise idea. Such are the words, to involve, to imply, etc. By
employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for which alone the name is needed,
namely, to distinguish this particular kind of involving and implying from all other kinds, and
to assure to it the degree of habitual attention which its importance demands.
42 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
peculiar way, connoting not the presence but the absence of an attribute.
Thus, not-white denotes all things whatever except white things; and con-
notes the attribute of not possessing whiteness. For the non-possession of
any given attribute is also an attribute, and may receive a name as such;
and "thus negative concrete names may obtain negative abstract names to
correspond to them.*
Names which are positive in form are often negative in reality, and oth
ers are really positive though their form is negative. The word inconven-
ient, for example, does not express the mere absence of convenience; it ex-
presses a positive attribute that of being the cause of discomfort or an-
noyance. So the word -unpleasant, notwithstanding its negative form, does
not connote the mere absence of pleasantness, but a less degree of what is
signified by the word painful, which, it is hardly necessary to say, is posi-
tive. Idle, on the other hand, is a word which, though positive in form,
expresses nothing but what would be signified either by the phrase not
working, or by the phrase not dis})osed to work- and sober, either by not
drunk or by not drunken.
There is a class of names called privative. A privative name is equiva-
lent in its signification to a positive and a negative name taken together;
being the name of something which has once had a particular attribute, or
for some other reason might have been expected to have it, but which has
it not. Such is the word blind, which is not equivalent to not seeing, or to
not capable of seeing, for it would not, except by a poetical or rhetorical
figure, be applied to stocks and stones. A thing is not usually said to be
blind, unless the class to which it is most familiarly referred, or to which
it is referred on the particular occasion, be chiefiy composed of things
which can see, as in the case of a blind man, or a blind horse ; or unless it
is supposed for any reason that it ought to see ; as in saying of a man, that
he rushed blindly into an abyss, or of philosophers or the clergy that the
greater part of them are blind guides. The names called privative, there-
fore, connote two things ; the absence of certain attributes, and the pres-
ence of others, from which the presence also of the former might naturally
have been expected.
7. The fifth leading division of names is into relative and absolute, or
let us rather say, relative and non-relative; for the word absolute is put
upon much too hard duty in metaphysics, not to be willingly spared when
its services can be dispensed with. It resembles the word civil in the lan-
guage of jurisprudence, which stands for the opposite of criminal, the op-
posite of ecclesiastical, the opposite of military, the opposite of political
in short, the opposite of any positive word which wants a negative.
Relative names are such as father, son; ruler, subject; like; equal; un-
like; unequal; longer, shorter ; cause, effect. Their characteristic property
is, that they are always given in pairs. Every relative name which is pred-
icated of an object, supposes another object (or objects), of which we may
predicate either that same name or another relative name which is said to
be the correlative of the former. Thus, when we call any person a son, we
* Professor Bain (Logic, i., >(!) thinks that negative names are not names of all things
whatever except those denoted by the correlative positive name, but only for all things of some
particular class: not-white, for instance, he deems not to be a name for every thing in nature
except white things, but only for every colored thing other than white. In this case, however,
as in all others, the test of what a name denotes is what it can he predicated of: and we can
certainly predicate of a sound, or a smell, that it is not white. The affirmation and the nega-
tion of the .same attribute can not but divide the whole h'eld of predication between them.
NAMES.
43
suppose other persons who must be called parents. "When we call any event
a cause, we suppose another event which is an effect. When we" say of
any distance that it is longer, we suppose another distance which is shorter.
When we say of any object that it is like, we mean that it is like some
other object, which is also said to be like the first. In this last case both
objects receive the same name; the relative term is its own correlative.
It is evident that these words, when concrete, are, like other concrete
general names, connotative; they denote a subject, and connote an attri-
bute; and each of them has, or might have, a corresponding abstract name,
to denote the attribute connoted by the concrete. Thus the concrete like
has its abstract likeness; the concretes, father and son, have, or might have,
the abstracts, paternity, and filiety, or sonship. The concrete name con-
notes an attribute, and the abstract name which answers to it denotes that
attribute. But of what nature is the attribute? Wherein consists the
peculiarity in the connotation of a relative name ?
The attribute signified by a relative name, say some, is a relation; and
this they give, if not as a sufficient explanation, at least as the only one at-
tainable. If they are asked, What then is a relation ? they do not profess
to be able to tell. It is generally regarded as something peculiarly recondite
and mysterious. I can not, however, perceive in what respect it is more
so than any other attribute ; indeed, it appears to me to be so in a some-
what less degree. I conceive rather, that it is by examining into the sig-
nification of relative names, or, in other words, into the nature of the at-
tribute which they connote, that a clear insight may best be obtained into
the nature of all attributes : of all that is meant by an attribute.
It is obvious, in fact, that if we take any two correlative names, father
and son for instance, though the objects Quoted by the names are differ-
ent, they both, in a certain sense, connote the same thing. They can not,
indeed, be said to connote the same attribute: to be a father, is not the
same thing as to be a son. But when we call one man a father, another a
son, what we mean to affirm is a set of facts, which are exactly the same in
both cases. To predicate of A that he is the father of B, and of B that he
is the son of A, is to assert one and the same fact in different words. The
two propositions are exactly equivalent : neither of them asserts more or
asserts less than the other. The paternity of A and the filiety of B are
not two facts, but two modes of expressing the same fact. That fact, when
analysed, consists of a series of physical events or phenomena, in which
both A and B are parties concerned, and from which they both derive
names. What those names really connote, is this series of events : that is
the meaning, and the whole meaning, which either of them is intended to
convey. The series of events may be said to constitute the relation ; the
schoolmen called it the foundation of the relation, fundamentum relationis.
In this manner any fact, or series of focts, in which two different objects
are implicated, and which is therefore predicable of both of them, may be
either considered as constituting an attribute of the one, or an attribute of
the other. According as we consider it in the former, or in the latter as-
pect, it is connoted by the one or the other of the two correlative names.
Father connotes the fact, regarded as constituting an attribute of A ; son
connotes the same fact, as constituting an attribute of B. It may evident-
ly be regarded with equal propriety in either light. And all that appears
necessary to account for the existence of relative names, is, that whenever
there is a fact in which two individuals are concerned, an attribute ground-
ed on that fact may be ascribed to either of these individuals.
44 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
A name, therefore, is said to be relative, when, over and above the object
which it denotes, it implies in its signification the existence of another ob-
ject, also deriving a denomination from the. same fact which is the ground
of the first name. Or (to express the same meaning in other words) a
name is relative, when, being the name of one thing, its signification can
not be explained but by mentioning another. Or we may state it thus
when the name can not be employed in discourse so as to have a meaning,
unless the name of some other thing than what it is itself the name of, be
either expressed or understood. These definitions are all, at bottom, equiva-
lent, being modes of variously expressing this one distinctive circumstance
that every other attribute of an object might, without any contradiction,
be conceived still to exist if no object besides that one had ever existed;*
but those of its attributes which are expressed by relative names, would on
that supposition be swept away.
8. Names have been further distinguished into univocal and (Kquivocal:
these, however, are not two kinds of names, but two different modes of
employing names. A name is nnivocal, or applied univocally, with respect
to all things of which it can be predicated in the same sense / it is a?quiv-
ocal, or applied aequivocally, as respects those things of which it is predi-
cated in different senses. It is scarcely necessary to give instances of a
fact so familiar as the double meaning of a word. In reality, as has been
already observed, an equivocal or ambiguous word is not one name, but
two names, accidentally coinciding in sound. File meaning a steel instru-
ment, and t /irYtf meaning a line of soldiers, have no more title to be consid-
ed one word, because written alike, than grease and Greece have, because
they are pronounced alike. They are one sound, appropriated to form two
different words.
An intermediate case is that of a name used analogically or metaphor-
ically; that is, a name which is predicated of two things, not univocally,
or exactly in the same signification, but in significations somewhat similar,
and which being derived one from the other, one of them may be consid-
ered the primary, and the other a secondary signification. As when we
speak of a brilliant light and a brilliant achievement. The word is not
applied in the same sense to the light and to the achievement ; but having
been applied to the light in its original sense, that of brightness to the eye,
it is transferred to the achievement in a derivative signification, supposed
to be somewhat like the primitive one. The word, however, is just as
properly two names instead of one, in this case, as in that of the most per-
fect ambiguity. And one of the commonest forms of fallacious reasoning
arising from ambiguity, is that of arguing from a metaphorical expression,
as if it were literal; that is, as if a word, when applied metaphorically,
were the same name as when taken in its original sense : which will be
seen more particularly in its place.
* Or ratlier, all objects except itself and the percipient mind ; for, as we shall see hereafter,
to ascribe any attribute to an object, necessarily implies a mind to perceive it.
The simple and clear explanation jiiven in the text, of relation and relative names, a subject
so long the opprobrium of metaphysics, was given (as far as I know) for the first time, by Mr.
James Mill, in his Analysis of the 1'heuomena. of the Human Miud.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 45
CHAPTER III.
OF THE THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES.
1. LOOKING back now to the commencement of our inquiry, let us at-
tempt to measure how far it has advanced. Logic, we found, is the Theory
of Proof. But proof supposes something provable, which must be a Prop-
osition or Assertion; since nothing but a Proposition can be an object of
belief, or therefore of proof. A Proposition is, discourse which affirms or
denies something of some other thing. This is one step : there must, it
seems, be two things concerned in every act of belief. But what are these
Things? They can be no other than those signified by the two names,
which being joined together by a copula constitute the Proposition. If,
therefore, we knew what all names signify, we should know every thing
which, in the existing state of human knowledge, is capable either of being
made a subject of affirmation or denial, or of being itself affirmed or de-
nied of a subject. We have accordingly, in the preceding chapter, re-
viewed the various kinds of Names, in order to ascertain what is signified
by each of them. And we have now carried this survey far enough to be
able to take an account of its results, and to exhibit an enumeration of all
kinds of Things which are capable of being made predicates, or of having
any thing predicated of them : after which to determine the import of
Predication, that is, of Propositions, can be no arduous task.
The necessity of an enumeration of Existences, as the basis of Logic, did
not escape the attention of the schoolmen, and of their master Aristotle,
the most comprehensive, if not also the most sagacious, of the ancient phi-
losophers. The Categories, or Predicaments the former a Greek word,
the latter its literal translation in the Latin language were believed to be
an enumeration of all things capable of being named ; an enumeration by
the summa genera, i. e., the most extensive classes into which things could
be distributed ; which, therefore, were so many highest Predicates, one or
other of which was supposed capable of being affirmed with truth of every
namable thing whatsoever. The following are the classes into which, ac-
cording to this school of philosophy, Things in general might be reduced :
Ovcia, Substantia.
Tioabv, Quantitas.
TLot6v, Qualitas.
Hp6f TI, Relatio.
Tloielv, Actio.
Passio.
Ubi.
Quando.
Situs.
Habitus.
The imperfections of this classification are too obvious to require, and
its merits are not sufficient to reward, a minute examination. It is a mere
catalogue of the distinctions rudely marked out by the language of familiar
life, with little or no attempt to penetrate, by philosophic analysis, to the
rationale even of those common distinctions. Such an analysis, however
46 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
superficially conducted, would have shown the enumeration to be both re-
dundant and defective. Some objects are omitted, and others repeated
several times under different heads. It is like a division of animals into
men, quadrupeds, horses, asses, and ponies. That, for instance, could not
be a very comprehensive view of the nature of Relation which could ex-
clude action, passivity, and local situation from that category. The same
observation applies to the categories Quando (or position in time), and Ubi
(or position in space) ; while the distinction between the latter and Situs
is merely verbal. The incongruity of erecting into a summum yemis the
class which forms the tenth category is manifest. On the other hand, the
enumeration takes no notice of any thing besides substances and attributes.
In what category are we to place sensations, or any other feelings and
states of mind ; as hope, joy, fear; sound, smell, taste; pain, pleasure;
thought, judgment, conception, and the like? Probably all these would
have been placed by the Aristotelian school in the categories of actio and
passio; and the relation of such of them as are active, to their objects, and
of such of them as are passive, to their causes, would rightly be so placed ;
but the things themselves, the feelings or states of mind, wrongly. Feel-
ings, or states of consciousness, are assuredly to be accounted among reali-
ties, but they can not be reckoned either among substances or attributes.*
2. Before recommencing, under better auspices, the attempt made with
such imperfect success by the early logicians, we must take notice of an
unfortunate ambiguity in all the concrete names which correspond to the
most general of all abstract terms, the word Existence. When we have
occasion for a name which shall be capable of denoting whatever exists,
as contradistinguished from non-entity or Nothing, there is hardly a word
applicable to the purpose which is not also, and even more familiarly, taken
in a sense in which it denotes only substances. But substances are not all
that exists ; attributes, if such things are to be spoken of, must be said to
exist; feelings certainly exist. Yet when we speak of an object, or of a
* On the preceding passage Professor Hain remarks (Logic, i.. 265): " The Categories do not
seem to have been intended as a classification of Namahle Things, in the sense of 'an enu-
meration of all kinds of Tilings which are capable of being made predicates, or of having any
thing predicated of them.' They seem to have been rather intended as a generalization
of predicates ; an analysis of the final import of predication. Viewed in this light, they
are not open to the objections offered by Mr. Mill. The proper question to ask is not In
what Category are we to place sensations or other feelings or states of mind ? but, Under
what Categories can we predicate regarding states of mind? Take, for example. Hope.
When we say that it is a state of mind, we predicate Substance : we may also describe how
great it is (Quantity), what is the quality of it, pleasurable or painful (Quality), what it has
reference to (Relation). Aristotle seems to have framed the Categories on the plan Here is
an individual ; what is the final analysis of all that we can predicate about him?''
This is doubtless a true statement of the leading idea in the classification. The Category
O'uaia was certainly understood by Aristotle to be a general name for all possible answers to
the question Quid sit ? when asked respecting a concrete individual ; as the other Categories
are names comprehending all possible answers to the questions Quantum sit? Quale sit? etc.
In Aristotle's conception, therefore, the Categories may not have been a classification of
Things; but they were soon converted into one by his Scholastic followers, who certainly re-
garded and treated them as a classification of Things, and carried them out as such, dividing
down the Category Substance as a naturalist might do, into the different classes of physical
or metaphysical objects as distinguished from attributes, and the other Categories into the
principal varieties of quantity, quality, relation, etc. It is, therefore, a just subject of com-
plaint against them, that they had no Category of Feeling. Feeling is assuredly predicable as
a summum genus, of every particular kind of feeling, for instance, as in Mr. Haiti's example, of
Hope : but it can not be brought within any of the Categories as interpreted either by Aristo-
tle or by his followers.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 47
thing, we are almost always supposed to mean a substance. There seems
a kind of contradiction in using such an expression as that one thing is
merely an attribute of another thing. And the announcement of a Classi-
fication of Things would, I believe, prepare most readers for an enumera-
tion like those in natural history, beginning with the great divisions of an-
imal, vegetable, and mineral, and subdividing them into classes and orders.
If, rejecting the word Thing, we endeavor to find another of a more general
import, or at least more exclusively confined to that general import, a word
denoting all that exists, and connoting only simple existence; no word
might be presumed fitter for such a purpose than being: originally the
present participle of a verb which in one of its meanings is exactly equiv-
alent to the verb exists ; and therefore suitable, even by its grammatical
formation, to be the concrete of the abstract existence. But this word,
strange as the fact may appear, is still more completely spoiled for the
purpose which it seemed expressly made for, than the word Thing. Being
is, by custom, exactly synonymous with substance ; except that it is free
from a slight taint of a second ambiguity; being implied impartially to
matter and to mind, while substance, though originally and in strictness
applicable to both, is apt to suggest in preference the idea of matter. At-
tributes are never called Beings; nor are feelings. A Being is that which
excites feelings, and which possesses attributes. The soul is called a Be-
ing ; God and angels are called Beings ; but if we were to say, extension,
color, wisdom, virtue, are beings, we should perhaps be suspected of think-
ing with some of the ancients, that the cardinal virtues are animals; or, at
the least, of holding with the Platonic school the doctrine of self-existent
Ideas, or with the followers of Epicurus that of Sensible Forms, which de-
tach themselves in every direction from bodies, and by coming in contact
with our organs, cause our perceptions. We should be supposed, in short,
to believe that Attributes are Substances.
In consequence of this perversion of the word Being, philosophers look-
ing about for something to supply its place, laid their hands upon the word
Entity, a piece of barbarous Latin, invented by the schoolmen to be used
as an abstract name, in which class its grammatical form would seem to
place it: but being seized by logicians in distress to stop a leak in their
terminology, it has ever since been used as a concrete name. The kindred
word essence, born at the same time and of the same parents, scarcely un-
derwent a more complete transformation when, from being the abstract
of the verb to be, it came to denote something sufficiently concrete to be
inclosed in a glass bottle. The word Entity, since it settled down into a
concrete name, has retained its universality of signification somewhat less
impaired than any of the names before mentioned. Yet the same gradual
decay to which, after a certain age, all the language of psychology seems
liable, has been at work even here. If you call virtue an entity, you are
indeed somewhat less strongly suspected of believing it to be a substance
than if you called it a being; but you are by no means free from the sus-
picion. Every word which was originally intended to connote mere ex-
istence, seems, after a time, to enlarge its connotation to separate existence,
or existence freed from the condition of belonging to a substance; which
condition being precisely what constitutes an attribute, attributes are grad-
ually shut out ; and along with them feelings, which in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred have no other name than "that of the attribute which is
grounded on them. Strange that when the greatest embarrassment felt by
all who have any considerable number of thoughts to express, is to find a
48 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
sufficient variety of precise words fitted to express them, there should be
no practice to which even scientific thinkers are more addicted than that
of taking valuable words to express ideas which are sufficiently expressed
by other words already appropriated to them.
" When it is impossible to obtain good tools, the next best tiling is to un-
derstand thoroughly the defects of those we have. I have therefore warn-
ed the reader of the ambiguity of the names which, for want of better, I
am necessitated to employ. It must now be the writer's endeavor so to
employ them as in no case to leave the meaning doubtful or obscure. No
one of the above terms being altogether unambiguous, I shall not confine
myself to any one, but shall employ on each occasion the word which seems
least likely in the particular case to lead to misunderstanding; nor do I
pretend to use either these or any other words with a rigorous adherence
to one single sense. To do so would often leave us without a word to ex-
press what is signified by a known word in some one or other of its senses :
unless authors had an unlimited license to coin new words, together with
(what it would be more difficult to assume) unlimited power of making
readers understand them. Nor would it be wise in a writer, on a subject
involving so much of abstraction, to deny himself the advantage derived
from even an improper use of a term, when, by means of it, some familial-
association is called up which brings the meaning home to the mind, as it
were by a flash.
The difficulty both to the writer and reader, of the attempt Avhich must
be made to use vague words so as to convey a precise meaning, is not
wholly a matter of regret. It is not unfitting that logical treatises should
afford an example of that, to facilitate which is among the most important
uses of loijic. Philosophical language will for a long time, and popular
language still longer, retain so much of vagueness and ambiguity, that logic
would be of little value if it did not, among its other advantages, exercise
the understanding in doing its work neatly and correctly with these im-
perfect tools.
After this preamble it is time to proceed to our enumeration. We shall
commence with Feelings, the simplest class of namable things; the term
Feeling being of course understood in its most enlarged sense.
I. FEELIXGS, OR STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
3. A Feeling and a State of consciousness are, in the language of phi-
losophy, equivalent expressions : every thing is a feeling of which the mind
is conscious; every thing which it feels, or, in other words, which forms a
part of its own sentient existence. In popular language Feeling is not al-
ways synonymous with State of Consciousness; being often taken more
peculiarly for those states which are conceived as belonging to the sensi-
tive, or to the emotional, phasis of our nature, and sometimes, with a still
narrower restriction, to the emotional alone, as distinguished from what
are conceived as belonging to the percipient or to the intellectual phasis.
But this is an admitted departure from correctness of language; just as,
by a popular perversion the exact converse of this, the word Mind is with-
drawn from its rightful generality of signification, and restricted to the
intellect. The still greater perversion by which Feeling is sometimes con-
fined not only to bodily sensations, but to the sensations of a single sense,
that of touch, needs not be more particularly adverted to.
Feeling, in the proper sense of the term, is a genus, of which Sensation,
Emotion, and Thought, are subordinate species. Under the word Thought
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 49
is here to be included whatever we are internally conscious of when we are
said to think ; from the consciousness we have when we think of a red col-
or without having it before our eyes, to the most recondite thoughts of a
philosopher or poet. Be it remembered, however, that by a thought is to
be understood what passes in the mind itself, and not any object external
to the mind, which the person is commonly said to be thinking of. He may
be thinking of the sun, or of God, but the sun and God are not thoughts;
his mental image, however, of the sun, and his idea of God, are thoughts ;
states of his mind, not of the objects themselves ; and so also is his belief
of the existence of the sun, or of God ; or his disbelief, if the case be so.
Even imaginary objects (which are said to exist only in our ideas) are to be
distinguished from our ideas of them. I may think of a hobgoblin, as I mav
think of the loaf which was eaten yesterday, or of the flower which will
bloom to-morrow. But the hobgoblin which never existed is not the same
thing with my idea of a hobgoblin, any more than the loaf which once ex-
isted is the same thing with my idea of a loaf, or the flower which does not
yet exist, but which will exist, is the same with my idea of a flower. They
are all, not thoughts, but objects of thought; though at the present time all
the objects are alike non-existent.
In like manner, a Sensation is to be carefully distinguished from the ob-
ject which causes the sensation; our sensation of white from a white object:
nor is it less to be distinguished from the attribute whiteness, which we
ascribe to the object in consequence of its exciting the sensation. Unfor-
tunately for clearness and due discrimination in considering these subjects,
our sensations seldom receive separate names. We have a name for the
objects which produce in us a certain sensation : the word white. We
have a name for the quality in those objects, to which we ascribe the sen-
sation : the name ichiteness. But when we speak of the sensation itself
(as we have not occasion to do this often except in our scientific specula-
tions), language, which adapts itself for the most part only to the common
uses of life, has provided us with no single-worded or immediate designa-
tion ; we must employ a circumlocution, and say, The sensation of white,
or The sensation of whiteness; we must denominate the sensation either
from the object, or from the attribute, by which it is excited. Yet the
sensation, though it never does, might very well be conceived to exist, with-
out any thing whatever to excite it. We can conceive it as arising spon-
taneously in the mind. But if it so arose, we should have no name to de-
note it which would not be a misnomer. In the case of our sensations of
hearing we are better provided ; we have the word Sound, and a whole
vocabulary of words to denote the various kinds of sounds. For as we
are often conscious of these sensations in the absence of any perceptible
object, we can more easily conceive having them in the absence of any
object whatever. We need only shut our eyes and listen to music, to have
a conception of a universe with nothing in it except sounds, and ourselves
hearing them: and what is easily conceived separately, easily obtains a
separate name. But in general our names of sensations denote indiscrim-
inately the sensation and the attribute. Thus, color stands for the sensa-
tions of white, red, etc., but also for the quality in the colored object. We
talk of the colors of things as among their properties.
4. In the case of sensations, another distinction has also to be kept in
view, which is often confounded, and never without mischievous conse-
quences. This is, the distinction between the sensation itself, and the state
4
50 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
of the bodily organs which precedes the sensation, and which constitutes
the physical agency by which it is produced. One of the sources of con-
fusion on this subject is the division commonly made of feelings into Bodily
and Mental. Philosophically speaking, there is no foundation at all for this
distinction: even sensations are states of the sentient mind, not states of
the body, as distinguished from it. What I am conscious of when I see
the color blue, is a feeling of blue color, which is one thing; the picture on
my retina, or the phenomenon of hitherto mysterious nature which takes
place in my optic nerve or in my brain, is another thing, of which I am
not at all conscious, and which scientific investigation alone could have ap-
prised me of. These are states of my body ; but the sensation of blue,
which is the consequence of these states of body, is not a state of body:
that which perceives and is conscious is called Mind. When sensations
are called bodily feelings, it is only as being the class of feelings which are
immediately occasioned by bodily states ; whereas the other kinds of feel-
ings, thoughts, for instance, or emotions, are immediately excited not by
any thing acting upon the bodily organs, but by sensations, or by previous
thoughts. This, however, is a distinction not in our feelings, but in the
agency which produces our feelings: all of them when actually produced
are states of mind.
Besides the affection of our bodily organs from without, and the sensa-
tion thereby produced in our minds, many writers admit a third link in the
chain of phenomena, which they call a Perception, and which consists in
the recognition of an external object as the exciting cause of the sensation.
This perception, they say, is an act of the mind, proceeding from its own
spontaneous activity ; while in a sensation the mind is passive, being mere-
ly acted upon by the outward object. And according to some metaphysi
cians, it is by an act of the mind, similar to perception, except in not being
preceded by any sensation, that the existence of God, the soul, and other
hyperphysical objects, is recognized.
These acts of what is termed perception, whatever be the conclusion ul-
timately come to respecting their nature, must, I conceive, take their place
among the varieties of feelings or states of mind. In so classing them,
I have not the smallest intention of declaring or insinuating any theory
as to the law of mind in which these mental processes may be supposed
to originate, or the conditions under which they may be legitimate or the
reverse. Far less do I mean (as Dr. Whewell seems to suppose must be
meant in an analogous case*) to indicate that as they are "merely states of
mind," it is superfluous to inquire into their distinguishing peculiarities.
I abstain from the inquiry as irrelevant to the science of logic. In these
so called perceptions, or direct recognitions by the mind, of objects, wheth-
er physical or spiritual, which are external to itself, I can see only cases of
belief; but of belief which claims to be intuitive, or independent of exter-
nal evidence. When a stone lies before me, I am conscious of certain sen-
sations which I receive from it; but if I say that these sensations come to
me from an external object which I perceive, the meaning of these words
is, that receiving the sensations, I intuitively believe that an external cause
of those sensations exists. The laws of intuitive belief, and the conditions
under which it is legitimate, are a subject which, as we have already so
often remarked, belongs not to logic, but to the science of the ultimate laws
of the human mind.
* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i., p. 40.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 51
To the same region of speculation belongs all that can be said respecting
the distinction which the German metaphysicians and their French and
English followers so elaborately draw between the acts of the mind and its
merely passive states; between what it receives from, and what it gives to
the crude materials of its experience. I am aware that with reference to
the view which those writers take of the primary elements of thought and
knowledge, this distinction is fundamental. But for the present purpose,
which is to examine, not the original groundwork of our knowledge, but
how we come by that portion of it which is not original ; the difference be-
tween active and passive states of mind is of secondary importance. For
us, they all are states of mind, they all are feelings ; by which, let it lie.
said once more, I mean to imply nothing of passivity, but simply that they
are psychological facts, facts which take place in the mind, and are to be
carefully distinguished from the external or physical facts with which they
may be connected either as effects or as causes.
5. Among active states of mind, there is, however, one species which
merits particular attention, because it forms a principal part of the conno-
tation of some important classes of names. I mean volitions, or acts of
the will. When we speak of sentient beings by relative names, a large
portion of the connotation of the name usually consists of the actions of
those beings; actions past, present, and possible or probable future. Take,
for instance, the words Sovereign and Subject. What meaning do these
words convey, but that of innumerable actions, done or to be done by the
sovereign and the subjects, to or in regard to one another reciprocally ?
So with the words physician and patient, leader and follower, tutor and
pupil. In many cases the words also connote actions which would be
done under certain contingencies by persons other than those denoted : as
the words mortgagor and mortgagee, obligor and obligee, and many other
words expressive of legal relation, which connote what a court of justice
would do to enforce the legal obligation if not fulfilled. There are also
words which connote actions previously done by persons other than those
denoted either by the name itself or by its correlative ; as the word brother.
From these instances, it may be seen how large a portion of the connota-
tion of names consists of actions. Now what is an action ? Not one thing,
but a series of two things : the state of mind called a volition, followed by
an effect. The volition or intention to produce the effect, is one thing;
the effect produced in consequence of the intention, is another thing ; the
two together constitute the action. I form the purpose of instantly mov-
ing my arm ; that is a state of my mind : my arm (not being tied or par-
alytic) moves in obedience to my purpose ; that is a physical fact, conse-
quent on a state of mind. The intention, followed by the fact, or (if we
prefer the expression) the fact when preceded and caused by the intention,
is called the action of moving my arm.
6. Of the first leading division of namable things, viz., Feelings or
States of Consciousness, we began by recognizing three subdivisions ; Sen-
sations, Thoughts, and Emotions. The first two of these we have illustrated
at considerable length ; the third, Emotions, not being perplexed by similar
ambiguities, does not require similar exemplification. And, finally, we have
found it necessary to add to these three a fourth species, commonly known
by the name Volitions. We shall now proceed to the two remaining class-
es of namable things; all things which are regarded as external to the
5-2 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
mind being considered as belonging either to the class of Substances or to
that of Attributes.
II. SUBSTANCES.
Logicians have endeavored to define Substance and Attribute ; but their
definitions are not so much attempts to draw a distinction between the
things themselves, as instructions what difference it is customary to make
in the grammatical structure of the sentence, according as we are speak-
ing of substances or of attributes. Such definitions are rather lessons of
English, or of Greek, Latin, or German, than of mental philosophy. An
attribute, say the school logicians, must be the attribute of something ;
color, for example, must be the color of something; goodness must be the
goodness of something; and if this something should cease to exist, or
should cease to be connected with the attribute, the existence of the attri-
bute would be at an end. A substance, on the contrary, is self-existent; in
speaking about it, we need not put of after its name. A stone is not the
stone of any thing; the moon is not the moon of any thing, but simply the
moon. Unless, indeed, the name which we choose to give to the substance
be a relative name ; if so, it must be followed either by of, or by some
other particle, implying, as that preposition does, a reference to something
else: but then the other characteristic peculiarity of an attribute would
fail ; the something might be destroyed, and the substance might still sub-
sist. Thus, a father must be the father of something, and so far resembles
an attribute, in being referred to something besides himself: if there were
no child, there would be no father: but this, when we look into the matter,
only means that we should not call him father. The man called father
might still exist though there were no child, as he existed before there was
a child ; and there would be no contradiction in supposing him to exist,
though the whole universe except himself were destroyed. But destroy
all white substances, and where would be the attribute whiteness? White-
ness, without any white thing, is a contradiction in terms.
This is the nearest approach to a solution of the difficulty, that will be
found in the common treatises on logic. It will scarcely be thought to be
a satisfactory one. If an attribute is distinguished from a substance by
being the attribute of something, it seems highly necessary to understand
what is meant by of; a particle which needs explanation too much itself,
to be placed in front of the explanation of any thing else. And as for the
self-existence of substance, it is very true that a substance may be con-
ceived to exist without any other substance, but so also may an attribute
without any other attribute : and we can no more imagine a substance
without attributes than we can imagine attributes without a substance.
Metaphysicians, however, have probed the question deeper, and given an
account of Substance considerably more satisfactory than this. Substances
are usually distinguished as Bodies or Minds. Of each of these, philoso-
phers have at length provided us with a definition which seems unexcep-
tionable.
7. A body, according to the received doctrine of modern metaphysi-
cians, may be defined, the external cause to which we ascribe our sensa-
tions. When I see and touch a piece of gold, I am conscious of a sensa-
tion of yellow color, and sensations of hardness and weight ; and by vary-
ing the mode of handling, I may add to these sensations many others com-
pletely distinct from them. The sensations are all of which I aui directly
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 53
conscious ; but I consider them as produced by something not only exist-
ing independently of my will, but external to my bodily organs and to my
mind. This external something I call a body.
It may be asked, how come we to ascribe our sensations to any extei'-
nal cause? And is there sufficient ground for so ascribing them? It is
known, that there are metaphysicians who have raised a controversy on
the point; maintaining that we are not warranted in referring our sensa-
tions to a cause such as we understand by the word Body, or to any ex-
ternal cause whatever. Though we have no concern here with this con-
troversy, nor with the metaphysical niceties on which it turns, one of the
best ways of showing what is meant by Substance is, to consider what po-
sition it is necessary to take up, in order to maintain its existence against
opponents.
It is certain, then, that a part of our notion of a body consists of the
notion of a number of sensations of our own, or of other sentient beings,
habitually occurring simultaneously. My conception of the table at which
I am writing is compounded of its visible form and size, which are com-
plex sensations of sight; its tangible form and size, which are complex
sensations of our organs of touch and of our muscles ; its weight, which
is also a sensation of touch and of the muscles ; its color, which is a sensa-
tion of sight ; its hardness, which is a sensation of the muscles ; its com-
position, which is another word for all the varieties of sensation which we
receive under various circumstances from the wood of which it is made,
and so forth. All or most of these various sensations frequently are, and,
as we learn by experience, always might be, experienced simultaneously, or
in many different orders of succession at our own choice: and hence the
thought of any one of them makes us think of the others, and the whole
becomes mentally amalgamated into one mixed state of consciousness,
which, in the language of the school of Locke and Hartley, is termed a
Complex Idea.
Now, there are philosophers who have argued as follows : If we con-
ceive an orange to be divested of its natural color without acquiring any
new one; to lose its softness without becoming hard, its roundness without
becoming square or pentagonal, or of any other regular or irregular figure
whatever ; to be deprived of size, of weight, of taste, of smell ; to lose all
its mechanical and all its chemical properties, and acquire no new ones ; to
become, in short, invisible, intangible, imperceptible not only by all our
senses, but by the senses of all other sentient beings, real or possible;
nothing, say these thinkers, would remain. For of what nature, they ask,
could be the residuum? and by what token could it manifest its presence?
To the unreflecting its existence seems to rest on the evidence of the senses.
But to the senses nothing is apparent except the sensations. We know,
indeed, that these sensations are bound together by some law; they do not
come together at random, but according to a systematic order, which is
part of the order established in the universe. When we experience one of
these sensations, we usually experience the others also, or know that we
have it in our power to experience them. But a fixed law of connection,
making the sensations occur together, does not, say these philosophers,
necessarily require what is called a substratum to support them. Tho con-
ception of a substratum is but one of many possible forms in which that
connection presents itself to our imagination ; a mode of, as it were, real-
izing the idea. If there be such a substratum, suppose it at this instant
miraculously annihilated, and let the sensations continue to occur in the
54 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
same order, and how would the substratum l>e missed? By what signs
should we be able to discover that its existence had terminated? Should
we not have as much reason to believe that it still existed as we now have?
And if we should not then be warranted in believing it, how can we be so
now? A body, therefore, according to these metaphysicians, is not any
thing intrinsically different from the sensations which the body is said to
produce in us; it is, in short, a set of sensations, or rather, of possibilities
of sensation, joined together according to a fixed law.
The controversies to which these speculations have given rise, and the
doctrines which have been developed in the attempt to find a conclusive
answer to them, have been fruitful of important consequences to the Science
of Mind. The sensations (it was answered) which we are conscious of, and
which we receive, not at random, but joined together in a certain uniform
manner, imply not only a law or laws of connection, but a cause external to
our mind, which cause, by its own laws, determines the laws according to
which the sensations are connected and experienced. The schoolmen used
to call this external cause by the name we have already employed, a sub-
stratuni and its attributes (as they expressed themselves) inhered, literally
stuck, in it. To this substratum the name Matter is usually given in phil-
osophical discussions. It was soon, however, acknowledged by all who re-
flected on the subject, that the existence of matter can not be proved by ex-
trinsic evidence. The answer, therefore, now usually made to Berkeley and
his followers, is, that the belief is intuitive; that mankind, in all ages, have
felt themselves compelled, by a necessity of their nature, to refer their sen-
sations to an external cause: that even those who deny it in theory, yield
to the necessity in practice, and both in speech, thought, and feeling, do,
equally with the vulgar, acknowledge their sensations to be the effects of
something external to them: this knowledge, therefore, it is affirmed, is as
evidently intuitive as our knowledge of our sensations themselves is intui-
tive. And here the question merges in the fundamental problem of meta-
physics properly so called: to which science we leave it.
But although the extreme doctrine of the Idealist metaphysicians, that
objects are nothing but our sensations and the laws which connect them,
has not been generally adopted by subsequent thinkers ; the point of most
real importance is one on which those metaphysicians are now very gen-
erally considered to have made out their ease: vi/., that all ice know of ob-
jects is the sensations which they give us, and the order of the occurrence
of those sensations. Kant himself, on this point, is as explicit as Berke-
ley or Locke. However firmly convinced that there exists a universe of
"Tilings in themselves," totally distinct from the universe of phenomena,
or of things as they appear to our senses; and even when bringing into
use a technical expression (Noumenori) to denote what the thing is in it-
self, as contrasted with the representation of it in our minds ; he allows
that this representation (the matter of which, he says, consists of our sen-
sations, though the form is given by the laws of the mind itself) is all we
know of the object: and that the real nature of the Thing is, and by the
constitution of our faculties ever must remain, at least in the present state
of existence, an impenetrable mystery to us. "Of things absolutely or in
themselves," says Sir William Hamilton,* "be they external, be they in-
ternal, we know nothing, or know them only as incognizable; and become
aware of their incomprehensible existence, only as this is indirectly and
* Discussions on Philosophy, etc. Appendix I., pp. 643, G44.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 55
accidentally revealed to us, through certain qualities related to our faculties
of knowledge, and which qualities, again, we can not think as uncondition-
al, irrelative, existent in and of ourselves. All that we know is therefore
phenomenal phenomenal of the unknown."* The same doctrine is laid
down in the clearest and strongest terms by M. Cousin, whose observations
on the subject are the more worthy of attention, as, in consequence of the
ultra-German and ontological character of his philosophy in other respects,
they may be regarded as the admissions of an opponent.f
There is not the slightest reason for believing that what we call the sen-
sible qualities of the object are a type of any thing inherent in itself, or
bear any affinity to its own nature. A cause does not, as such, resemble
its effects ; an east wind is not like the feeling of cold, nor heat like the
steam of boiling water. Why then should matter resemble our sensations?
Why should the inmost nature of fire or water resemble the impressions
made by those objects upon our senses ?J Or on what principle are we
* It is to be regretted that Sir William Hamilton, though he often strenuously insists on
this doctrine, and though, in the passage quoted, he states it with a comprehensiveness and
force which leave nothing to be desired, did not consistently adhere to his own doctrine, but
maintained along with it opinions with which it is utterly irreconcilable. See the third and
other chapters of An Examination of Sir William Hamilton s Philosophy.
t "Nous savons qu'il existe quelque chose liors de nous, parceque nous ne pouvons expli-
quer nos perceptions sans les rattacher a des causes distinctes de nous merries ; nous savons
de plus que ces causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d'ailleurs 1'essence, produisent les eft'ets
les plus variables, les plus divers, et meme les plus contraires, selon qu'elles rencontrent telle
nature ou telle disposition du sujet. Mais savons-noiis quelque chose de plus ? et meme, vu
le caractere inde'termine des causes que nous concevons dans les corps, y a-t-il quelque chose
de plus a savoir? Y a-t-il lieu de nous enquerir si nous percevons les choses telles qu'elles
sorit ? Non e'videmment Je ne dis pas que le probleme est insoluble, je dis
qu'il est absurde et enferme une contradiction. Nous ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en
el/es-memes, et la raison nous defend de chercher a le connaitre : mais il est bien evident a
priori, qu'el/es ne sont pas en elles-memes ce qu'elles sont par rapport a nous, puisque la pre-
sence du sujet modih'e ne'cessairement leur action. Supprimez tout sujet sentant, il est certain
que ces causes agiraient encore puisqu'elles continueraient d'exister; mais elles agiraient au-
trement ; elles seraient encore des qualites et des proprie'te's, mais qui ne ressembleraient a
riende ce que nous connaissons. Le feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des proprie'tes que nous
lui connaissons: que serait-il? C'est ce que nous ne saurons jamais. C'est d'ailleurs peut-
etre un probleme qui ne repugne pas seulement a la nature de notre esprit, mais a 1'essence mume
des choses. Quand meme en eff'et on supprimerait par le pense'e tons les sujets sentants, il
faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne manifesterait ses proprie'te's autrement qu'en rela-
tion avec un sujet quelconque, et dans ce cas ses proprie'te's ne seraient encore que relatives:
en sorte qu'il me parait fort raisonnable d'admettre que les proprie'te's de'termiiiees des corps
n'existent pas inde'pendamment d'un sujet quelconque, et que quand on demande si les pro-
priete's de la matiere sont telles que nous les percevons, il faudrait voir auparavant si elles sont
en tant que de'terminees, et dans quel sens il est vrai de dire qu'elles sont." Cours d'Histoire
de la Philoso/ihie Morale au I8me siecle, 8me Ie9on.
t An attempt, indeed, has been made by Reid and others, to establish that although some
of the properties we ascribe to objects exist only in our sensations, others exist in the things
themselves, being such as can not possibly be copies of any impression upon the senses ; and
they ask, from what sensations our notions of extension and figure have been derived? The
gauntlet thrown down by Reid was taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers of anal-
ysis than had previously been applied to the notions of extension and figure, pointed out that
the sensations from which those notions are derived, are sensations of touch, combined with
sensations of a class previously too little adverted to by metaphysicians, those which have their
seat in our muscular frame. His analysis, which was adopted and followed up by James Mill,
has been further and greatly improved upon in Professor Bain's profound work. The Senses
and the Intellect, and in the chapters on ''Perception " of a work of eminent analytic power,
Mr. Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology.
On this point M. Cousin may again be cited in favor of the better doctrine. M. Cousin
recognizes, in opposition to Reid, the essential subjectivity of our conceptions of what are called
the primary qualities of matter, as extension, solidity, etc., equally with those of color, heat,
and the remainder of the so-called secondary qualities. Cours, ut supra, Ume Ie9on.
50 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
authorized to deduce from the effects, any thing concerning the cause, ex~
ccpt that it is a cause adequate to produce those effects? It may, there-
fore, safely be laid down as a truth both obvious iu itself, and admitted by
all whom'it is at present necessary to take into consideration, that, of the
outward world, we know and can know absolutely nothing, except the sen-
sations which we experience from it.*
8. l>ody having now been defined the external cause, and (according
to the more reasonable opinion) the unknown external cause, to which we
refer our sensations; it remains to frame a definition of Mind. Xor, after
the preceding observations, will this be difficult. For, as our conception
of a bodv is that of an unknown exciting cause of sensations, so our con-
ception of a mind is that of an unknown recipient or percipient, of them ;
and not of them alone, but of all our other feelings. As body is under-
stood to be the mysterious something which excites the mind to feel, so
mind is the mysterious something which feels and thinks. It is unneces-
sary to give in the case of mind, as we gave in the case of matter, a par-
ticular statement of the skeptical system by which its existence as a Thing
in itself, distinct from the series of what are denominated its states, is call-
ed in question, lint it is necessary to remark, that on the inmost nature
(whatever be meant by inmost nature) of the thinking principle, as well
as on the inmost nature of matter, we are, and with our faculties must al-
ways remain, entirely in the dark. All which we are aware of, even in our
own minds, is (in the words of James Mill) a certain "thread of conscious-
ness;" a series of feelings, that is, of sensations, thoughts, emotions, and
volitions, more or less numerous and complicated. There is a something
I call Myself, or, by another form of expression, rny mind, which I consider
as distinct from these sensations, thoughts, etc. ; a something which I con-
ceive to be not the thoughts, but the being that has the thoughts, and
* This doctrine, which is the most complete form of the philosophical theory known as the
Relativity of Human Knowledge, lias, since the recent revival in this country of an active in-
terest in metaphysical speculation, been the subject of a greatly increased amount of discussion
and co-itrovers\ ; and dissentients have manifested themselves in considerably greater number
than ! hail any knowledge of when the passage in the text was written. The doctrine has
been attacked from two sides. Some thinkers, among whom are the late Professor Ferrier,
in his Institutes of Metaphysic, and Professor John Grote, in his Exploratio Philosophica, ap-
pear to deny ; altogether the reality of Noumena, or Tilings in themselves of an unknowable
substratum or support for the sensations which we experience, and which, according to the
theory, constitute all our knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, that in
Professor (Irote's case at least, the denial of Noumena is only apparent, and that he does not
essentially differ from the other class of objectors, including Mr. Hailey in his valuable Let-
ters (,n ike riiilsphy of the Human Mind, and (in spite of the striking passage quoted in
the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who contend for a direct knowledge by the human mind
of more than the sensations of certain attributes or properties as they exist not in us, but
in the Tilings themselves.
With the first of these opinions, that which denies Noumena, I have, as a metaphysician,
no quarrel ; but, whether it be true or false, it is irrelevant to Logic. And since all the forms
of language are in contradiction to it, nothing but confusion could result from its unnecessary
introduction into a treatise, every essential doctrine of which could stand equally well with
the opposite and accredited opinion. The other and rival doctrine, that of a direct perception
or intuitive knowledge of the outward object as it is in itself, considered as distinct from the
sensations we receive from it, is of far greater practical moment. But even this question,
depending on the nature and laws of Intuitive Knowledge;, is not within the province of Logic.
For the grounds of my own opinion concerning it, I must content myself with referring to a
work already mentioned An Examination of S(V \Villiam Hamilton's P/iiloso/>hy ; several
chapters of which are devotjd to a full discussion of the questions and theories relating to
the supposed direct perception of external objects.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 57
which I can conceive as existing forever in a state of quiescence, without
any thoughts at all. But what this being is, though it is myself, I have no
knowledge, other than the series of its states of consciousness. As bodies
manifest themselves to me only through the sensations of which I regard
them as the causes, so the thinking principle, or mind, in my own nature,
makes itself known to me only by the feelings of which it is conscious. I
know nothing about myself, save my capacities of feeling or being con-
scious (including, of course, thinking and willing) : and were I to learn
any thing new concerning my own nature, I can not with my present facul-
ties conceive this new information to be any thing else, than that I have
some additional capacities, as yet unknown to me, of feeling, thinking, or
willing.
Thus, then, as body is the unsentient cause to which we are naturally
prompted to refer a certain portion of our feelings, so mind may be de-
scribed as the sentient subject (in the scholastic sense of the term) of all
feelings; that which has or feels them. But of the nature of either body
or mind, further than the feelings which the former excites, and which the
latter experiences, we do not, according to the best existing doctrine, know
any thing; and if any thing, logic has nothing to do with it, or with the
manner in which the knowledge is acquired. With this result we may
conclude this portion of our subject, and pass to the third and only remain-
ing class or division of Namable Things.
III. ATTRIBUTES : AND, FIRST, QUALITIES.
9. From what has already been said of Substance, what is to be said
of Attribute is easily deducible. For if we know not, and can not know,
anything of bodies but the sensations which they excite in us or in others,
those sensations must be all that we can, at bottom, mean by their attri-
butes ; and the distinction which we verbally make between the properties
of things and the sensations we receive from them, must originate in the
convenience of discourse rather than in the nature of what is signified by
the terms.
Attributes are usually distributed under the three heads of Quality,
Quantity, and Relation. We shall come to the two latter presently : in the
first place we shall confine ourselves to the former.
Let us take, then, as our example, one of what are termed the sensible
qualities of objects, and let that example be whiteness. When we ascribe
whiteness to any substance, as, for instance, snow; when we say that snow
has the quality whiteness, what do we really assert? Simply, that when
snow is present to our organs, we have a particular sensation, which we
are accustomed to call the sensation of white. But how do I know that
snow is present? Obviously by the sensations which I derive from it, and
not otherwise. I infer that the object is present, because it gives me a
certain assemblage or series of sensations. And when I ascribe to it the
attribute whiteness, my meaning is only, that, of the sensations composing
this group or series, that which I call the sensation of white color is one.
This is one view which may be taken of the subject. But there is also
another and a different view. It may be said, that it is true we know noth-
ing of sensible objects, except the sensations they excite in us ; that the
fact of our receiving from sno\v the particular sensation which is called a
sensation of white, is the ground on which we ascribe to that substance the
quality whiteness; the sole proof of its possessing that quality. But be-
cause one thing may be the sole evidence of the existence of another thing,
58 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
it docs not follow that the two arc one and the same. The attribute white-
ness (it may be said) is not the fact of receiving the sensation, but some-
thing in the object itself; a poirer inherent in it; something in virtue of
which the object produces the sensation. And when we affirm that snow
possesses the attribute whiteness, we do not merely assert that the pres-
ence of snow produces in us that sensation, but that it does so through,
and by reason of, that power or quality.
For the purposes of logic it is not of material importance which of these
opinions we adopt. The full discussion of the subject belongs to the other
department of scientific inquiry, so often alluded to under the name of met-
aphysics ; but it may be said here, that for the doctrine of the existence of
a peculiar species of entities called qualities, I can see no foundation ex-
cept in a tendency of the human mind which is the cause of many delu-
sions. I mean, the disposition, wherever we meet with two names which
are not precisely synonymous, to suppose that they must be the names of
two different things ; whereas in reality they may be names of the same
thing viewed in two different lights, or under different suppositions as to
surrounding circumstances. Because quality and sensation can not be put
indiscriminately one for the other, it is supposed that they can not both
signify the same thing, namely, the impression or feeling with which we
are affected through our senses by the presence of an object; though there
is at least no absurdity in supposing that this identical impression or feel-
ing may be called a sensation when considered merely in itself, and a quali-
ty when looked at in relation to any one of the numerous objects, the pres-
ence of which to our organs excites in our minds that among various other
sensations or feelings. And if this be admissible as a supposition, it rests
with those who contend for an entity per se called a quality, to show that
their opinion is preferable, or is any thing in fact but a lingering remnant
of the old doctrine of occult causes; the very absurdity which Moliere so
happily ridiculed when he made one of his pedantic physicians account for
the fact that opium produces sleep by the maxim, Because it has a soporific
virtue.
It is evident that when the physician stated that opium has a soporific
virtue, he did not account for, but merely asserted over again, the fact that
it produces sleep. In like manner, when we say that snow is white because
it has the quality of whiteness, we arc only re-asserting in more technical
language the fact that it excites in us the sensation of white. If it be said
that the sensation must have some cause, I answer, its cause is the presence
of the assemblage of phenomena which is termed the object. When we
have asserted that as often as the object is present, and our organs in their
normal state, the sensation takes place, we have stated all that we know
about the matter. There is no need, after assigning a certain and intelli-
gible cause, to suppose an occult cause besides, for the purpose of enabling
the real cause to produce its effect. If I am asked, why does the presence
of the object cause this sensation in me, I can not tell: I can onlv say that
such is my nature, and the nature of the object ; that the fact forms a part
of the constitution of things. And to this we must at last come, even after
interpolating the imaginary entity. Whatever number of links the chain
of causes and effects may consist of, how any one link produces the one
which is next to it, remains equally inexplicable to us. It is as easy to
comprehend that the object should produce the sensation directly and at
once, as that it should produce the same sensation by the aid of something
else called the power of producing it.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 59
But, as the difficulties which may be felt in adopting this view of the
subject can not be removed without discussions transcending the bounds
of our science, I content myself with a passing indication, and shall, for the
purposes of logic, adopt a language compatible with either view of the na-
ture of qualities. I shall say what at least admits of no dispute that
the quality of whiteness ascribed to the object snow, is grounded on its
exciting in us the sensation of white ; and adopting the language already
used by the school logicians in the case of the kind of attributes called
Relations, I shall term the sensation of white i\\Q foundation of the quality
whiteness. For logical purposes the sensation is the only essential part of
what is meant by the word ; the only part which we ever can be concerned
in proving. When that is proved, the quality is proved ; if an object ex-
cites a sensation, it has, of course, the power of exciting it.
IV. RELATIONS.
10. The qualities of a body, we have said, are the attributes grounded
on the sensations which the presence of that particular body to our organs
excites in our minds. But when we ascribe to any object the kind of at-
tribute called a Relation, the foundation of the attribute must be some-
thing in which other objects are concerned besides itself and the percipient.
As there may with propriety be said to be a relation between any two
things to which two correlative names are or may be given, we may ex-
pect to discover what constitutes a relation in general, if we enumerate the
principal cases in which mankind have imposed correlative names, and ob-
serve what these cases have in common.
"What, then, is the character which is possessed in common by states of
circumstances so heterogeneous and discordant as these : one thing like
another; one thing unlike another; one thing near another; one thing
far from another; one thing before, after, along icith another; one thing
greater, equal, less, than another; one thing the cause of another, the effect
of another; one person the master, servant, child, parent, debtor, creditor,
sovereign, subject, attorney, client, of another, and so on ?
Omitting, for the present, the case of Resemblance, (a relation which re-
quires to be considered separately,) there seems to be one thing common
to all these cases, and only one ; that in each of them there exists or occurs,
or has existed or occurred, or may be expected to exist or occur, some fact
or phenomenon, into which the two things which are said to be related to
each other, both enter as parties concerned. This fact, or phenomenon, is
what the Aristotelian logicians called the fandamentum relationis. Thus
in the relation of greater and less between two magnitudes, \\\e fundamen-
tum relationis is the fact that one of the two magnitudes could, under cer-
tain conditions, be included in, without entirely filling, the space occupied
by the other magnitude. In the relation of master and servant, the fun-
damentum relationis is the fact that the one has undertaken, or is com-
pelled, to perform certain services for the benefit and at the bidding of the
other. Examples might be indefinitely multiplied ; but it is already obvi-
ous that whenever two things are said to be related, there is some fact, or
series of facts, into which they both enter; and that whenever any two
things are involved in some one fact, or series of facts, we may ascribe to
those two things a mutual relation grounded on the fact. Even if they
have nothing in common but what is common to all things, that they are
members of the universe, we call that a relation, and denominate them
fellow-creatures, fellow-beings, or fellow-denizens of the universe. But in
y o /
60 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
proportion as the fact into which the t\vo objects enter as parts is of a
more special and peculiar, or of a more complicated nature, so also is the
relation grounded upon it. And there are as many conceivable relations
as there are conceivable kinds of fact in which two things can be jointly
concerned.
In the same manner, therefore, as a quality is an attribute grounded on
the fact that a certain sensation or sensations are produced in us by the
object, so an attribute grounded on some fact into which the object enters
jointly with another object, is a relation between it and that other object.
But the fact in the latter case consists of the very same kind of elements
as the fact in the former; namely, states of consciousness. In the case,
for example, of any legal relation, as debtor and creditor, principal and
agent, guardian and ward, the fiuulamentum relationis consists entirely of
thoughts, feelings, and volitions (actual or contingent), either of the persons
themselves or of other persons concerned in the same series of transactions ;
as, for instance, the intentions which would be formed by a judge, in case
a complaint were made to his tribunal of the infringement of any of the
legal obligations imposed by the relation; and the acts which the judge
would perform in consequence; acts being (as we have already seen) an-
other word for intentions followed by an effect, and that effect being but
another word for sensations, or some other feelings, occasioned either to
the agent himself or to somebody else. There is no part of what the names
expressive of the relation imply, that is not resolvable into states of con-
sciousness ; outward objects being, no doubt, supposed throughout as the
causes by which some of those states of consciousness are excited, and
minds as the subjects by which all of them are experienced, but neither
the external objects nor the minds making their existence known other-
wise than by the states of consciousness.
Cases of relation are not always so complicated as those to which we
last alluded. The simplest of all cases of relation are those expressed by
the words antecedent and consequent, and by the word simultaneous. If
we say, lor instance, that dawn preceded sunrise, the fact in which the two
things, dawn and sunrise, were jointly concerned, consisted only of the two
things themselves; no third thing entered into the fact or phenomenon at
all. Unless, indeed, we choose to call the succession of the two objects .1
third thing; but their succession is not something added to the things
themselves; it is something involved in them. Dawn and sunrise announce
themselves to our consciousness by two successive sensations. Our con-
sciousness of the succession of these sensations is not a third sensation or
feeling added to them; we have not first the two feelings, and then a feel-
ing of their succession. To have two feelings at all, implies having them
either successively, or else simultaneously. Sensations, or other feelings,
being given, succession and simultaneousness are the two conditions, to the
alternative of which they are subjected by the nature of our faculties; and
no one has been able, or needs expect, to analyze the matter any further.
11. In a somewhat similar position are two other sorts of relations,
Likeness and Unlikeness. I have two sensations; we will suppose them
to be simple ones; two sensations of white, or one sensation of white and
Another of black. I call the first two sensations like ; the last two unlike.
What is the fact or phenomenon constituting the fntnlamentum of this
relation? The two sensations first, and then what we call a feeling of re-
semblance, or of want of resemblance. Let us confine ourselves to the fcv-
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 61
mer case. Resemblance is evidently a feeling ; a state of the consciousness
of the observer. Whether the feeling of the resemblance of the two colors
be a third state of consciousness, which I have after having the two sensa-
tions of color, or whether (like the feeling of their succession) it is involved
in the sensations themselves, may be a matter of discussion. But in either
case, these feelings of resemblance, and of its opposite dissimilarity, are
parts of our nature; and parts so far from being capable of analysis, that
they are presupposed in every attempt to analyze any of our other feelings.
Likeness and unlikeness, therefore, as well as antecedence, sequence, and
simultaneousness, must stand apart among relations, as things sui generis.
They are attributes grounded on facts, that is, on states of consciousness,
but on states which are peculiar, unresolvable, and inexplicable.
But, though likeness or unlikeness can not be resolved into any thing
else, complex cases of likeness or unlikeness can be resolved into simpler
ones. When we say of two things which consist of parts, that they are
like one another, the likeness of the wholes does admit of analysis ; it is
compounded of likenesses between the various parts respectively, and of
likeness in their arrangement. Of how vast a variety of resemblances of
parts must that resemblance be composed, which induces us to say that a
portrait, or a landscape, is like its original. If one person mimics another
with any success, of how many simple likenesses must the general or com-
plex likeness be compounded : likeness in a succession of bodily postures ;
likeness in voice, or in the accents and intonations of the voice ; likeness
in the choice of words, and in the thoughts or sentiments expressed, wheth-
er by word, countenance, or gesture.
All likeness and unlikeness of which we have any cognizance, resolve
themselves into likeness and unlikeness between states of our own, or some
other, mind. When we say that one body is like another, (since we know
nothing of bodies but the sensations which they excite,) we mean really
that there is a resemblance between the sensations excited by the two
bodies, or between some portions at least of those sensations. If we say
that two attributes are like one another (since we know nothing of attri-
butes except the sensations or states of feeling on which they are ground-
ed), we mean really that those sensations, or states of feeling, resemble each
other. We may also say that two relations are alike. The fact of resem-
blance between relations is sometimes called analogy, forming one of the
numerous meanings of that word. The relation in which Priam stood to
Hector, namely, that of father and son, resembles the relation in ^ which
Philip stood to Alexander; resembles it so closely that they are called the
same relation. The relation in which Cromwell stood to England resem-
bles the relation in which Xapoleon stood to France, though not so closely
as to be called the same relation. The meaning in both these instances
must be, that a resemblance existed between the facts which constituted
the fundamentum relationis.
This resemblance may exist in all conceivable gradations, from perfect
undistinguishableness to something extremely slight. When we say, that
a thought suggested to the mind of a person of genius is like a seed cast
into the ground, because the former produces a multitude of other thoughts,
and the latter a multitude of other seeds, this is saying that between the
relation of an inventive mind to a thought contained in it, and the relation
of a fertile soil to a seed contained in it, there exists a resemblance : the
real resemblance being in the two fundamenta relationis, in each of which
there occurs a germ, producing by its development a multitude of other
02 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
things similar to itself. And as, whenever two objects are jointly concern-
ed in a phenomenon, this constitutes a relation between those objects, so,
if we suppose a second pair of objects concerned in a second phenomenon,
the slightest resemblance between the two phenomena is sufficient to ad-
mit of its being said that the two relations resemble; provided, of course,
the points of resemblance arc found in those portions of the two phenom-
ena respectively which are connoted by the relative names.
While speaking of resemblance, it is necessary to take notice of an am-
biguity of language, against which scarcely any one is sufficiently on his
guard. Resemblance, when it exists in the highest degree of all, amount-
ing to undistinguishableness, is often called identity, and the two similar
things are said to be the same. I say often, not always; for we do not say
that two visible objects, two persons, for instance, are the same, because
they are so much alike that one might be mistaken for the other: but we
constantly use this mode of expression when speaking of feelings ; as when
I say that the sight of any object gives me the same sensation or emotion
to-day that it did yesterday, or the same which it gives to some other per-
son. This is evidently an incorrect application of the word same- for the
feeling which I had yesterday is gone, never to return ; what I have to-
day is another feeling, exactly like the former, perhaps, but distinct from it;
and it is evident that two different persons can not be experiencing the
same feeling, in the sense in which we say that they are both sitting at the
same table. By a similar ambiguity we say, that two persons are ill of the
same disease; that two persons hold the same office; not in the sense in
which we say that they are engaged in the same adventure, or sailing in
the same ship, but in the sense that they fill offices exactly similar, though,
perhaps, in distant places. Great confusion of ideas is often produced, and
many fallacies engendered, in otherwise enlightened understandings, by
not being sufficiently alive to the fact (in itself not always to be avoided),
that they use the same name to express ideas so different as those of iden-
tity and undistinguishable resemblance. Among modern writers, Arch-
bishop Whately stands almost alone in having drawn attention to this dis-
tinction, and to the ambiguity connected with it.
Several relations, generally called by other names, are really cases of
resemblance. As, for example, equality ; which is but another word for
the exact resemblance commonly called identity, considered as subsisting
between things in respect of their quantity. And this example forms a
suitable transition to the third and last of the three heads under which, as
already remarked, Attributes are commonly arranged.
V. QUANTITY.
12. Let us imagine two things, between which there is no difference
(that is, no dissimilarity), except in quantity alone; for instance, a gallon
of water, and more than a gallon of water. A gallon of water, like any
other external object, makes its presence known to us by a set of sensa-
tions which it excites. Ten gallons of water are also an external object,
making its presence known to us in a similar manner; and as we do not
mistake ten gallons of water for a gallon of water, it is plain that the set
of sensations is more or less different in the two cases. Jn like manner,
a gallon of water, and a gallon of wine, are two external objects, making
their presence known by two sets of sensations, which sensations are dif-
ferent from each other. In the first case, however, we say that the differ-
ence is in quantity ; in the last there is a difference in quality, while the
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. QQ
quantity of the water and of the wine is the same. "What is the real dis-
tinction between the two cases? It is not within the province of Logic to
analyze it ; nor to decide whether it is susceptible of analysis or not. For
us the following considerations are sufficient: It is evident that the sen-
sations I receive from the gallon of water, and those I receive from the
gallon of wine, are not the same, that is, not precisely alike ; neither are
they altogether unlike : they are partly similar, partly dissimilar ; and that
in which they resemble is precisely that in which alone the gallon of wa-
ter and the ten gallons do not resemble. That in which the gallon of wa-
ter and the gallon of wine are like each other, and in which the gallon
and the ten gallons of water are unlike each other, is called their quan-
tity. This likeness and unlikeness I do not pretend to explain, no more
than any other kind of likeness or unlikeness. But my object is to show,
that when we say of two things that they differ in quantity, just as when
we say that they differ in quality, the assertion is always grounded on a
difference in the sensations which they excite. Nobody, I presume, will
say, that to see, or to lift, or to drink, ten gallons of water, does not include
in itself a different set of sensations from those of seeing, lifting, or drink-
ing one gallon ; or that to see or handle a foot-rule, and to see or handle a
yard-measure made exactly like it, are the same sensations. I do not un-
dertake to say what the difference in the sensations is. Every body knows,
and nobody can tell ; no more than any one could tell what white is to a
person who had never had the sensation. But the difference, so far as
cognizable by our faculties, lies in the sensations. Whatever difference
we say there is in the things themselves, is, in this as in all other cases,
grounded, and grounded exclusively, on a difference in the sensations ex-
cited by them.
VI. ATTRIBUTES CONCLUDED.
13. Thus, then, all the attributes of bodies which are classed under
Quality or Quantity, are grounded on the sensations which we receive from
those bodies, and may be defined, the powers which the bodies have of ex-
citing those sensations. And the same general explanation has been found
to apply to most of the attributes usually classed under the head of Rela-
tion. They, too, are grounded on some fact or phenomenon into which the
related objects enter as parts; that fact or phenomenon having no mean-
ing and no existence to us, except the series of sensations or other states
of consciousness by which it makes itself known ; and the relation being
simply the power or capacity which the object possesses of taking part
along with the correlated object in the production of that series of sensa-
tions or states of consciousness. We have been obliged, indeed, to recog-
nize a somewhat different character in certain peculiar relations, those of
succession and simultaneity, of likeness and unlikeness. These, not being
grounded on any fact or phenomenon distinct from the related objects
themselves, do not admit of the same kind of analysis. But these relations,
though not, like other relations, grounded on states of consciousness, are
themselves states of consciousness : resemblance is nothing but our feeling
of resemblance ; succession is nothing but our feeling of succession. Or,
if this be disputed (and we can not, without transgressing the bounds of
our science, discuss it here), at least our knowledge of these relations, and
even our possibility of knowledge, is confined to those which subsist be-
tween sensations, or other states of consciousness ; for, though we ascribe
resemblance, or succession, or simultaneity, to objects and to attributes, it
04 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
is always in virtue of resemblance or succession or simultaneity in the sen-
sations or states of consciousness which those objects excite, and on which
those attributes are grounded.
14. In the preceding investigation we have, for the sake of simplicity,
considered bodies only, and omitted minds. But what we have said, is ap-
plicable, mutatis mutandis, to the latter. The attributes of minds, as well
as those of bodies, are grounded on states of feeling or consciousness. But
in the case of a mind, we have to consider its own states, as well as those
which it produces in other minds. Every attribute of a mind consists either
in being itself affected in a certain way, or affecting other minds in a certain
way. Considered in itself, we can predicate nothing of it but the series
of its own feelings. When we say of any mind, that it is devout, or super-
stitious, or meditative, or cheerful, we mean that the ideas, emotions, or
volitions implied in those words, form a frequently recurring part of the
series of feelings, or states of consciousness, which till up the sentient ex-
istence of that mind.
In addition, however, to those attributes of a mind which are grounded
on its own states of feeling, attributes may also be ascribed to it, in the
same manner as to a body, grounded on the feelings which it excites in
other minds. A mind does not, indeed, like a body, excite sensations, but
it may excite thoughts or emotions. The most important example of attri-
butes ascribed on this ground, is the employment of terms expressive of
approbation or blame. When, for example, we say of any character, or (in
other words) of any mind, that it is admirable, we mean that the contem-
plation of it excites the sentiment of admiration ; and indeed somewhat
more, for the word implies that we not only feel admiration, but approve
that sentiment in ourselves. In some cases, under the semblance of a sin-
gle attribute, two are really predicated : one of them, a state of the mind
itself; the other, a state with which other minds are affected by thinking
of it. As when we say of any one that he is generous. The word gene-
rosity expresses a certain state of mind, but being a term of praise, it also
expresses that this state of mind excites in us another mental state, called
approbation. The assertion made, therefore, is twofold, and of the follow-
ing purport: Certain feelings form habitually a part of this person's sen-
tient existence ; and the idea of those feelings of his, excites the sentiment
of approbation in ourselves or others.
As we thus ascribe attributes to minds on the ground of ideas and emo-
tions, so may we to bodies on similar grounds, and not solely on the ground
of sensations : as in speaking of the beauty of a statue ; since this attribute
is grounded on the peculiar feeling of pleasure which the statue produces
in our minds ; which is not a sensation, but an emotion.
VII. GKNERAL RESULTS.
15. Our survey of the varieties of Things which have been, or which
are capable of being, named which have been, or are capable of being,
either predicated of other Things, or themselves made the subject of predi-
cations is now concluded.
Our enumeration commenced with Feelings. These we scrupulously dis-
tinguished from the objects which excite them, and from the organs by
which they are, or may be supposed to be, conveyed. Feelings are of four
sorts: Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, and Volitions. What are called
Perceptions are merely a particular case of Belief, and Belief is a kind of
thought. Actions are merelv volitions followed bv an effect.
THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES.
65
After Feelings we proceeded to Substances. These are either Bodies or
Minds. Without entering into the grounds of the metaphysical doubts
which have been raised concerning the existence of Matter and Mind as ob-
jective realities, we stated as sufficient for us the conclusion in which the
best thinkers are now for the most part agreed, that all we can know of
Matter is the sensations which it gives us, and the order of occurrence of
those sensations ; and that while the substance Body is the unknown cause
of our sensations, the substance Mind is the unknown recipient.
The only remaining class of Namable Things is Attributes; and these
are of three kinds, Quality, Relation, and Quantity. Qualities, like sub-
stances, are known to us no otherwise than by the sensations or other
states of consciousness which they excite : and while, in compliance with
common usage, we have continued to speak of them as a distinct class of
Tilings, we showed that in predicating them no one means to predicate any
thing but those sensations or states of consciousness, on which they may be
said to be grounded, and by which alone they can be defined or described.
Relations, except the simple cases of likeness and unlikeness, succession
and simultaneity, are similarly grounded on some fact or phenomenon, that
is, on some series of sensations or states of consciousness, more or less
complicated. The third species of Attribute, Quantity, is also manifestly
grounded on something in our sensations or states of feeling, since there is
an indubitable difference in the sensations excited by a larger and a smaller
bulk, or by a greater or a less degree of intensity, in any object of sense or
of consciousness. All attributes, therefore, are to us nothing but either
our sensations and other states of feeling, or something inextricably in-
volved therein; and to this even the peculiar and simple relations just ad-
verted to arc not exceptions. Those peculiar relations, however, are so im-
portant, and, even if they might in strictness be classed among states of
consciousness, are so fundamentally distinct from any other of those states,
that it would be a vain subtlety to bring them under that common descrip-
tion, and it is necessary that they should be classed apart.*
As the result, therefore, of our analysis, we obtain the following as an
enumeration and classification of all Namable Things :
1st. Feelings, or States of Consciousness.
2d. The Minds which experience those feelings.
3d. The Bodies, or external objects which excite certain of those feelings,
together w r ith the powers or properties whereby they excite them ; these
latter (at least) being included rather in compliance with common opinion,
and because their existence is taken for granted in the common language
from which I can not prudently deviate, than because the recognition of
such powers or pi'operties as real existences appears to be warranted by a
sound philosophy.
4th, and last. The Successions and Co-existences, the Likenesses and Un-
likenesses, between feelings or states of consciousness. Those relations,
when considered as subsisting between other things, exist in reality only
between the states of consciousness which those things, if bodies, excite, if
minds, either excite or experience.
* Professor Bain (Logic, i., 49) defines attributes as "points of community among classes."'
This definition expresses well one point of view, but is liable to the objection that it applies
only to the attributes of classes ; though an object, unique in its kind, may be said to have at-
tributes. Moreover, the definition is not ultimate, since the points of community themselves
admit of, and require, further analysis ; and Mr. Bain does analyze them into resemblances in.
the sensations, or other states of consciousness excited by the object.
5
66 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
This, xmtil a better can be suggested, may serve as a substitute for the
Categories of Aristotle considered as a classification of Existences. The
practical application of it will appear when we commence the inquiry into
the Import of Propositions ; in other words, when we inquire what it is
which the mind actually believes, when it gives what is called its assent to
a proposition.
These four classes comprising, if the classification be correct, all Xamable
Things, these or some of them must of course compose the signification of
all names: and of these, or some of them, is made up whatever we call a
fact.
For distinction's sake, every fact which is solely composed of feelings or
states of consciousness considered as such, is often called a Psychological
or Subjective fact; while every fact which is composed, either wholly or in
part, of something different from these, that is, of substances and attri-
butes, is called an Objective fact. We may say, then, that every objective
fact is grounded on a corresponding subjective one ; and has no meaning
to us (apart from the subjective fact which corresponds to it), except as a
name for the unknown and inscrutable process by which that subjective or
psychological fact is brought to pass.
CHAPTER IV.
OF PROPOSITIONS.
1. IN treating of Propositions, as already in treating of Names, some
considerations of a comparatively elementary nature respecting their form
and varieties must be premised, before entering upon that analysis of the
import conveyed by them, which is the real subject and purpose of this
preliminary book.
A proposition, we have before said, is a portion of discourse in which a
predicate is affirmed or denied of a subject. A predicate and a subject are
all that is necessarily required to make up a proposition : but as we can not
conclude from merely seeing two names put together, that they are a predi-
cate and a subject, that is, that one of them is intended to be affirmed or
denied of the other, it is necessary that there should be some mode or form
of indicating that such is the intention; some sign to distinguish a predi-
cation from any other kind of discourse. This is sometimes done by a
slight alteration of one of the words, called an inflection; as when we say,
Fire burns ; the change of the second word from burn to burns showing
that we mean to affirm the predicate burn of the subject fire. But this
function is more commonly fulfilled by the word fa, when an affirmation is
intended, is not, when a negation ; or by some other part of the verb to be.
The word which thus serves the purpose of a sign of predication is called,
as we formerly observed, the copula. It is important that there should be
no indistinctness in our conception of the nature and office of the copula;
for confused notions respecting it are among the causes which have spread
mysticism over the field of logic, and perverted its speculations into logoma-
chies.
It is apt to be supposed that the copula is something more than a mere
sign of predication; that it also signifies existence. In the proposition,
Socrates is just, it may seem to be implied not only that the quality just
can be affirmed of Socrates, but moreover that Socrates fa, that is to say,
PROPOSITIONS. 6 7
exists. This, however, only shows that there is an ambiguity in the word
is ; a word which not only performs the function of the copula in affirma-
tions, but has also a meaning of its own, in virtue of which it may itself be
made the predicate of a proposition. That the employment of it as a cop-
ula does not necessarily include the affirmation of existence, appears from
such a proposition as this, A centaur is a fiction of the poets ; where it can
not possibly be implied that a centaur exists, since the proposition itself ex-
pressly asserts that the thing has no real existence.
Many volumes might be filled with the frivolous speculations concerning
the nature of Being (TO ov, ovaia, Ens, Entitas, Essentia, and the like), which
have arisen from overlooking this double meaning of the word to be; from
supposing that when it signifies to evist, and when it signifies to be some
specified thing, as to be a man, to be Socrates, to be seen or spoken of, to be
a phantom, even to be a nonentity, it must still, at bottom, answer to the
same idea; and that a meaning must be found for it which shall suit all
these cases. The fog which rose from this narrow spot diffused itself at
an early period over the whole surface of metaphysics. Yet it becomes
us not to triumph over the great intellects of Plato and Aristotle because
we are now able to preserve ourselves from many errors into which they,
perhaps inevitably, fell. The fire-teazer of a modern steam-engine produces
by his exertions far greater effects than Milo of Crotona could, but he is
not therefore a stronger man. The Greeks seldom knew any language but
their own. This rendered it far more difficult for them than it is for us, to
acquire a readiness in detecting ambiguities. One of the advantages of
having accurately studied a plurality of languages, especially of those lan-
guages which eminent thinkers have used as the vehicle of their thoughts,
is the practical lesson we learn respecting the ambiguities of words, by find-
ing that the same word in one language corresponds, on different occasions,
to different words in another. When not thus exercised, even the strong-
est understandings find it difficult to believe that things which have a com-
mon name, have not in some respect or other a common nature ; and often
expend much labor very unprofitably (as was frequently done by the two
philosophers just mentioned) in vain attempts to discover in what this com-
mon nature consists. But, the habit once formed, intellects much inferior
are capable of detecting even ambiguities which are common to many lan-
guages: and it is surprising that the one now under consideration, though
it exists in the modern languages as well as in the ancient, should have
been overlooked by almost all authors. The quantity of futile speculation
which had been caused by a misapprehension of the nature of the copula,
was hinted at by Hobbes ; but Mr. James Mill* was, I believe, the first who
distinctly characterized the ambiguity, and pointed out how many errors in
the received systems of philosophy it has had to answer for. It has, indeed,
misled the moderns scarcely less than the ancients, though their mistakes,
because our understandings are not yet so completely emancipated from
their influence, do not appear equally irrational.
We shall now briefly review the principal distinctions which exist among
propositions, and the technical terms most commonly in use to express
those distinctions.
2. A proposition being a portion of discourse in which something is
affirmed or denied of something, the first division of propositions is into
* Analysis of the Human Mind, i., 126 et seq.
68 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
affirmative and negative. An affirmative proposition is that in which the
predicate is affirmed of the subject; as, Ca)sar is dead. A negative prop-
osition is that in which the predicate is denied of the subject; as, Ciesar
is not dead. The copula, in this last species of proposition, consists of
the words is not, which are the sign of negation ; is being the sign of
affirmation.
Some logicians, among whom may be mentioned Ilobbes, state this dis-
tinction differently; they recognize only one form of copula, is, and attach
the negative sign to the predicate. " Caesar is dead," and " Crcsar is not
dead,'' according to these writers, are propositions agreeing not in the sub-
ject and predicate, but in the subject only. They do not consider " dead,"
but " not dead," to be the predicate of the second proposition, and they ac-
cordingly define a negative proposition to be one in which the predicate is
a negative name. The point, though not of much practical moment, de-
serves notice as an example (not unfrequent in logic) where by means of
an apparent simplification, but which is merely verbal, matters are made
more complex than before. The notion of these writers was, that they
could get rid of the distinction between affirming and denying, by treating
every case of denying as the affirming of a negative name. But what is
meant by a negative name? A name expressive of the absence of an attri-
bute. So that when we affirm a negative name, what we are really predi-
cating is absence and not presence; we are asserting not that any thing is,
but that something is not; to express which operation no word seems so
proper as the word denying. The fundamental distinction is between a
fact and the non-existence of that fact; between seeing something and
not seeing it, between Caesar's being dead and his not being dead ; and if
this were a merely verbal distinction, the generalization which brings both
within the same form of assertion would be a real simplification : the dis-
tinction, however, being real, and in the facts, it is the generalization con-
founding the distinction that is merely verbal ; and tends to obscure the
subject, by treating the difference between two kinds of truths as if it were
only a difference between two kinds of words. To put things together,
and to put them or keep them asunder, will remain different operations,
whatever tricks we may play with language.
A remark of a similar nature may be applied to most of those distinc-
tions among propositions which are said to have reference to their modali-
ty ; as, difference of tense or time; the sun did rise, the sun is rising, the
suii will rise. These differences, like that between affirmation and nega-
tion, might be glossed over by considering the incident of time as a mere
modification of the predicate : thus, The sun is an object having risen, The
sun is an object now rising, The sun is an object to rise hereafter. But the
simplification would be merely verbal. Past, present, and future, do not
constitute so many different kinds of rising; they are designations belong-
ing to the event asserted, to the sun's rising to-day. They affect, not the
predicate, but the applicability of the predicate to the particular subject.
That which we affirm to be past, present, or future, is not what the subject
signifies, nor what the predicate signifies, but specifically and expressly
what the predication signifies; what is expressed only by the proposition
as such, and not by either or both of the terms. Therefore the circum-
stance of time is properly considered as attaching to the copula, which is
the sign of predication, and not to the predicate. If the same can not be
said of such modifications as these, Caesar may be dead ; Caesar is perhaps
dead; it is possible that Ca?sar is dead; it is only because these fall alto-
PROPOSITIONS.
09
gethcr under another head, being properly assertions not of any thino- re-
lating to the fact itself, but of the state of our own mind in regard to it
namely, our absence of disbelief of it. Thus " Caesar may be dead" means
" I am not sure that Caesar is alive."
3. The next division of propositions is into Simple and Complex ; more
aptly (by Professor Bain*) termed Compound. A simple proposition is
that in which one predicate is affirmed or denied of one subject. A com-
pound proposition is that in which there is more than one predicate, or
more than one subject, or both.
At first sight this division has the air of an absurdity; a solemn distinc-
tion of things into one and more than one; as if we were to divide horses
into single horses and teams of horses. And it is true that what is called
a complex (or compound) proposition is often not a proposition at all, but
several propositions, held together by a conjunction. Such, for example, is
this : Caesar is dead, and Brutus is alive : or even this, Caesar is dead, but
Brutus is alive. There are here two distinct assertions ; and we might as
well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex
proposition. It is true that the syncategorematic words and and but have
a meaning; but that meaning is so far from making the two propositions
one, that it adds a third proposition to them. All particles are abbrevia-
tions, and generally abbreviations of propositions; a kind of short-hand,
whereby something which, to be expressed fully, would have required a
proposition or a series of propositions, is suggested to the mind at once.
Thus the words, Caesar is dead and Brutus is alive, are equivalent to these :
Ca3sar is dead; Brutus is alive; it is desired that the two preceding prop-
ositions should be thought of together. If the words were, Cassar is dead,
but Brutus is alive, the sense would be equivalent to the same three propo-
sitions together with a fourth ; " between the two preceding propositions
there exists a contrast :" viz., either between the two facts themselves, or
between the feelings with which it is desired that they should be regarded.
In the instances cited the two propositions are kept visibly distinct, each
subject having its separate predicate, and each predicate its separate sub-
ject. For brevity, however, and to avoid repetition, the propositions are
often blended together : as in this, " Peter and James preached at Jerusa-
lem and in Galilee," which contains four propositions : Peter preached at
Jerusalem, Peter preached in Galilee, James preached at Jerusalem, James
preached in Galilee.
We have seen that when the two or more propositions comprised in
what is called a complex proposition are stated absolutely, and not under
any condition or proviso, it is not a proposition at all, but a plurality of
propositions ; since what it expresses is not a single assertion, but several
assertions, which, if true when joined, are true also when separated. But
there is a kind of proposition which, though it contains a plurality of sub-
jects and of predicates, and may be said in one sense of the word to con-
sist of several propositions, contains but one assertion ; and its truth does
not at all imply that of the simple propositions which compose it. An ex-
ample of this is, when the simple propositions are connected by the parti-
cle or; as, either A is B or C is D ; or by the particle if; as, A is B if C
is D. In the former case, the proposition is called disjunctive, in the lat-
ter, conditional: the name hypothetical was originally common to both.
Logic, i., 85.
70 XAMKS AND PROPOSITIONS.
As has been well remarked by Archbishop Whately and otlicrs, the dis-
junctive form is resolvable into the conditional; every disjunctive proposi-
tion being equivalent to two or more conditional ones. "Either A is B or
C is D," means, " if A is not B, C is D ; and if C is not D, A is B." All
hypothetical propositions, therefore, though disjunctive in form, are condi-
tional in meaning; and the words hypothetical and conditional may be, as
indeed they generally are, used synonymously. Propositions in which the
assertion is not dependent on a condition, are said, in the language of logi-
cians, to be categorical.
A hypothetical proposition is not, like the pretended complex proposi-
tions which we previously considered, a mere aggregation of simple propo-
sitions. The simple propositions which form part of the words in which
it is couched, form no part of the assertion which it conveys. When we
say. If the Koran comes from God, Mohammed is the prophet of God, we
do not intend to affirm either that the Koran does come from God, or that
Mohammed is really his prophet. Neither of these simple propositions may
be true, and yet the truth of the hypothetical proposition may be indis-
putable. What is asserted is not the truth of either of the propositions,
but the inferribility of the one from the other. What, then, is the subject,
and what the predicate of the hypothetical proposition? "The Koran"
is not the subject of it, nor is "Mohammed:" for nothing is affirmed or de-
nied either of: the Koran or of Mohammed. The real subject of the pred-
ication is the entire proposition, "Mohammed is the prophet of God;" and
the affirmation is, that this is a legitimate inference from the proposi-
tion, " The Koran comes from God." The subject and predicate, therefore,
of a hypothetical proposition are names of propositions. The subject is
some one proposition. The predicate is a general relative name applicable
to propositions; of this form "an inference from so and so." A fresh
instance is here afforded of the remark, that particles are abbreviations ;
since " If A. is B, C is D," is found to be an abbreviation of the follow-
ing: "The proposition C is D, is a legitimate inference from the proposi-
tion A is B."
The distinction, therefore, between hypothetical and categorical proposi-
tions is not so great as it at first appears. In the conditional, as well as in
the categorical form, one predicate is affirmed of one subject, and no more:
but a conditional proposition is a proposition concerning a proposition;
the subject of the assertion is itself an assertion. Nor is this a property
peculiar to hypothetical propositions. There are other classes of assertions
concerning propositions. Like other things, a proposition has attributes
which may be predicated of it. The attribute predicated of it in a hypo-
thetical proposition, is that of being an inference from a certain other prop-
osition. But this is only one of many attributes that might be predicated.
We may say, That the whole is greater than its part, is an axiom in math-
ematics : That the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone, is a tenet
of the Greek Church: The doctrine of the divine right of kings was re-
nounced by Parliament at the Revolution: The infallibility of the Pope
has no countenance from Scripture. In all these cases the subject of the
predication is an entire proposition. That which these different predicates
are affirmed of, is tlie proposition," the whole is greater than its part;" the
proposition, "the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone;" the propo-
sition, " kings have a divine right ;" the proposition, " the Pope is infallible."
Seeing, then, that there is much less difference between hypothetical
propositions aud any others, than one might be led to imagine from their
PROPOSITIONS. 7!
form, we should be at a loss to account for the conspicuous position which
they have been selected to fill in treatises on logic, if we did not remem-
ber that what they predicate of a proposition, namely, its being an inference
from something else, is precisely that one of its attributes with which most
of all a logician is concerned.
4. The next of the common divisions of Propositions is into Universal,
Particular, Indefinite, and Singular : a distinction founded on the degree
of generality in which the name, which is the subject of the proposition,
is to be understood. The following are examples :
All men are mortal Universal.
Some men are mortal Particular.
Man is mortal Indefinite.
Julius Caesar is mortal Singular.
The proposition is Singular, when the subject is an individual name.
The individual name needs not be a proper name. "The Founder of
Christianity was crucified," is as much a singular proposition as " Christ
was crucified."
When the name which is the subject of the proposition is a general
name, we may intend to affirm or deny the predicate, either of all the
things that the subject denotes, or only of some. When the predicate is
affirmed or denied of all and each of the things denoted by the subject,
the proposition is universal ; when of some undefined portion of them only,
it is particular. Thus, All men are mortal ; Every man is mortal ; are uni-
versal propositions. No man is immortal, is also a universal proposition,
since the predicate, immortal, is denied of each and every individual de-
noted by the term man ; the negative proposition being exactly equivalent
to the following, Every man is not-immortal. But "some men are wise,"
" some men are not wise," are particular propositions ; the predicate wise
being in the one case affirmed and in the other denied not of each and ev-
ery individual denoted by the term man, but only of each and every one
of some portion of those individuals, without specifying what portion ; for
if this were specified, the proposition would be changed either into a singu-
lar proposition, or into a universal proposition with a different subject;
as, for instance, " all properly instructed men are wise." There are other
forms of particular propositions ; as, "Most men are imperfectly educated:"
it being immaterial how large a portion of the subject the predicate is as-
serted of, as long as it is left uncertain how that portion is to be distin-
guished from the rest.*
When the form of the expression does not clearly show whether the
general name which is the subject of the proposition is meant to stand for
all the individuals denoted by it, or only for some of them, the proposition
is, by some logicians, called Indefinite ; but this, as Archbishop Whately ob-
* Instead of Universal and Particular as applied to propositions, Professor Bain proposes
(Logic, i., 81) the terms Total and Partial; reserving the former pair of terms for their in-
ductive meaning, "the contrast between a general proposition and the particulars or individ-
uals that we derive it from." This change in nomenclature would be attended with the further
advantage, that Singular propositions, which in the Syllogism follow the same rules as Univer-
sal, would be included along with them in the same class, that of Total predications. It is not
the Subject's denoting many things or only one, that is of importance in reasoning, it is that
the assertion is made of the whole or a part only of what the Subject denotes. The words
Universal and Particular, however, are so familiar and so well understood in both the senses
mentioned by Mr. Bain, that the double meaning does not produce any material inconvenience.
72 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
serves, is a solecism, of the same nature as that committed by some gram-
marians when in their list of genders they enumerate the doubtful gender.
The speaker must mean to assert the proposition either as a universal or
as a particular proposition, though lie has failed to declare which : and it
often happens that though the words do not show which of the two he in-
tends, the context, or the custom of speech, supplies the deficiency. Thus,
when it is affirmed that <; Man is mortal," nobody doubts that the asser-
tion is intended of all human beings; and the word indicative of universal-
ity is commonly omitted, only because the meaning is evident without it.
In the proposition," Wine is good," it is understood with equal readiness,
though for somewhat different reasons, that the assertion is not intended
to be universal, but particular.* As is observed by Professor Bain,f the
chief examples of Indefinite propositions occur "with names of material,
which are the subjects sometimes of universal, and at other times of partic-
ular predication. 'Food is chemically constituted by carbon, oxygen, etc.,'
is a proposition of universal quantity; the meaning is all food all kinds
of food. 'Food is necessary to animal life' is a case of particular quan-
tity; the meaning is some sort of food, not necessarily all sorts. 'Metal
is requisite in order to strength' does not mean all kinds of metal. ' Gold
will make a way,' means a portion of gold."
When a general name stands for each and every individual which it is a
name of, or in other words, which it denotes, it is said by logicians to be
distributed, or taken distributively. Thus, in the proposition, All men are
mortal, the subject, Man, is distributed, because mortality is affirmed of
each and every man. The predicate, Mortal, is not distributed, because
the only mortals who are spoken of in the proposition are those who hap-
pen to be men; while the word may, for aught that appears, and in fact
dut-s, comprehend within it an indefinite number of objects besides men.
In the proposition, Some men are mortal, both the predicate and the sub-
ject are undistributed. In the following, No men have wings, both the
predicate and the subject are distributed. Xot only is the attribute of
having wings denied of the entire class Man, but that class is severed and
cast out from the whole of the class Winged, and not merely from some
part of that class.
This phraseology, which is of great service in stating and demonstrating
the rules of the syllogism, enables us to express very concisely the defini-
tions of a universal and a particular proposition. A universal proposition
is that of which the subject is distributed ; a particular proposition is that
of which the subject is undistributed.
There are many more distinctions among propositions than those we
have here stated, some of them of considerable importance. But, for ex-
plaining and illustrating these, more suitable opportunities will occur in the
sequel.
* It may, however, be considered ns equivalent to a universal proposition with a different
predicate, viz. : "All wine is good qua wine," or "is good in respect of the qualities which
constitute it wine."
t Logic, i., 82.
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS.
1. Ax inquiry into the nature of propositions must have one of two
objects: to analyze the state of mind called Belief, or to analyze what is
believed. All language recognizes a difference between a doctrine or opin-
ion, and the fact of entertaining the opinion ; between assent, and what is
assented to.
Logic, according to the conception here formed of it, has no concern
with the nature of the act of judging or believing; the consideration of
that act, as a phenomenon of the mind, belongs to another science. Phi-
losophers, however, from Descartes downward, and especially from the era
of Leibnitz and Locke, have by no means observed this distinction ; and
would have treated with great disrespect any attempt to analyze the im-
port of Propositions, unless founded on an analysis of the act of Judgment.
A proposition, they would have said, is but the expression in words t>f a
Judgment. The thing expressed, not the mere verbal expression, is the
important matter. When the mind assents to a proposition, it judges.
Let us find out what the mind does when it judges, and we shall know
what propositions mean, and not otherwise.
Conformably to these views, almost all the writers on Logic in the last
two centuries, whether English, German, or French, have made their the-
ory of Propositions, from one end to the other, a theory of Judgments.
They considered a Proposition, or a Judgment, for they used the two
words indiscriminately, to consist in affirming or denying one idea of an-
other. To judge, was to put two ideas together, or to bring one idea un-
der another, or to compare two ideas, or to perceive the agreement or disa-
greement between two ideas : and the whole doctrine of Propositions, to-
gether with the theory of Reasoning (always necessarily founded on the
theory of Propositions), was stated as if Ideas, or Conceptions, or whatever
other term the writer preferred as a name for mental representations gen-
erally, constituted essentially the subject-matter and substance of those op-
erations.
It is, of course, true, that in any case of judgment, as for instance when
we judge that gold is yellow, a process takes place in our minds, of which
some one or other of these theories is a partially correct account. We
must have the idea of gold and the idea of yellow, and these two ideas
must be brought together in our mind. But in the first place, it is evident
that this is only a part of what takes place; for we may put two ideas to-
gether without any act of belief; as when we merely imagine something,
such as a golden mountain ; or when we actually disbelieve : for in order
even to disbelieve that Mohammed was an apostle of God, we must put the
idea of Mohammed and that of an apostle of God together. To determine
what it is that happens in the case of assent or dissent besides putting two
ideas together, is one of the most intricate of metaphysical problems. But
whatever the solution may be, we may venture to assert that it can have
nothing whatever to do with the import of propositions; for this reason,
74 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
that propositions (except sometimes when the mind itself is the subject
treated of) are not assertions respecting our ideas of things, but assertions
respecting the tilings themselves. In order to believe that gold is yellow,
I must, indeed, have the idea of gold, and the idea of yellow, and some-
thing having reference to those ideas must take place in my mind ; but
my belief has not reference to the ideas, it has reference to the things.
What I believe, is a fact relating to the outward thing, gold, and to the
impression made by that outward thing upon the human organs ; not a
fact relating to my conception of gold, which would be a fact in my mental
history, not a fact of external nature. It is true, that in order to believe
this fact in external nature, another fact must take place in my mind, a
process must be performed upon my ideas ; but so it must in every thing
else that I do. I can not dig the ground unless I have the idea of the
ground, and of a spade, and of all the other things I am operating upon,
and unless I put those ideas together.* But it would be a very ridiculous
description of digging the ground to say that it is putting one idea into an-
other. Digging is an operation which is performed upon the things them-
selves, though it can not be performed unless I have in my mind the ideas
of them. And in like manner, believing is an act which has for its subject
the facts themselves, though a previous mental conception of the facts is
an indispensable condition. When I say that fire causes heat, do I mean
that my idea of fire causes my idea of heat? Xo : I mean that the natural
phenomenon, fire, causes the natural phenomenon, heat. When I mean to
assert any thing respecting the ideas, I give them their proper name, I
call them ideas: as when I say, that a child's idea of a battle is unlike the
reality, or that the ideas entertained of the Deity have a great effect on the
characters of mankind.
The notion that what is of primary importance to the logician in a prop-
osition, is the relation between the two ideas corresponding to the subject
and predicate (instead of the relation between the two phenomena which
they respectively express), seems to me one of the most fatal errors ever
introduced into the philosophy of Logic; and the principal cause why the
theory of the science has made such inconsiderable progress during the last
two centuries. The treatises on Logic, and on the branches of Mental Phi-
losophy connected with Logic, which have been produced since the intru-
sion of this cardinal error, though sometimes written by men of extraor-
dinary abilities and attainments, almost always tacitly imply a theory that
the investigation of truth consists in contemplating and handling our ideas,
or conceptions of things, instead of the things themselves: a doctrine tan-
tamount to the assertion, that the only mode of acquiring knowledge of
nature is to study it at second hand, as represented in our own minds.
Meanwhile, inquiries into every kind of natural phenomena were incessant-
ly establishing great and fruitful truths on most important subjects, by
processes upon which these views of the nature of Judgment and Reason-
ing threw no light, and in which they afforded no assistance whatever. No
wonder that those who knew by practical experience how truths are ar-
rived at, should deem a science futile, which consisted chiefly of such spec-
* Dr. Whewell (Philotophy of Ltiicavery, p. 242) questions this statement, and asks, "Are
we to say that a mole can not dig the ground, except he has an idea of the ground, and of
the snout and paws with which he digs it?" I do not know what passes in a mole's mind,
nor what amount of mental apprehension may or may not accompany his instinctive actions.
But a human being does not use n spade by instinct ; and he certainly could not use it unless
he had knowledge of a spade, and of the earth which he uses it upon.
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 75
ulations. What has been done for the advancement of Los:ic since these
doctrines came into vogue, has been done not by professed logicians, but
by discoverers in the other sciences ; in whose methods of investio-ation
many principles of logic, not previously thought of, have successively come
forth into light, but who have generally committed the error of supposing
that nothing whatever was known of the art of philosophizing by the old
logicians, because their modern interpreters have written to so little pur-
pose respecting it.
We have to inquire, then, on the present occasion, not into Judgment,
but judgments; not into the act of believing, but into the thing believed.
What is the immediate object of belief in a Proposition? What is the
matter of fact signified by it? What is it to which, when I assert the
proposition, I give my assent, and call upon others to give theirs ? What is
that which is expressed by the form of discourse called a Proposition, and
the conformity of which to fact constitutes the truth of the proposition ?
2. One of the clearest and most consecutive thinkers whom this coun-
try or the world has produced, I mean Hobbes, has given the following an-
swer to this question. In every proposition (says he) what is signified is,
the belief of the speaker that the predicate is a name of the same thing of
which the subject is a name ; and if it really is so, the proposition is true.
Thus the proposition, All men are living beings (he would say) is true,
because living being is a name of every thing of which man is a name.
All men are six feet high, is not true, because six feet high is not a name
of every tiling (though it is of some things) of which man is a name.
What is stated in this theory as the definition of a true proposition, must
be allowed to be a property which all true propositions possess. The sub-
ject and predicate being both of them names of things, if they were names
of quite different things the one name could not, consistently with its sig-
nification, be predicated of the other. If it be true that some men are cop-
per-colored, it must be true and the proposition does really assert that
among the individuals denoted by the name man, there are some who are
also among those denoted by the name copper-colored. If it be true that
all oxen ruminate, it must be true that all the individuals denoted by the
name ox are also among those denoted by the name ruminating ; and who-
ever asserts that all oxen ruminate, undoubtedly does assert that this rela-
tion subsists between the two names.
The assertion, therefore, which, according to Hobbes, is the only one
made in any proposition, really is made in every proposition : and his anal-
ysis has consequently one of the requisites for being the true one. We
may go a step further; it is the only analysis that is rigorously true of Jill
propositions without exception. What he gives as the meaning of propo-
sitions, is part of the meaning of all propositions, and the whole meaning
of some. This, however, only shows what an extremely minute fragment
of meaning it is quite possible to include within the logical formula of a
proposition. It does not show that no proposition means more. To war-
rant us in putting together two words with a copula between them, it is
really enough that the thing or things denoted by one of the names should
be capable, without violation of usage, of being called by the other name also.
If, then, this be all the meaning necessarily implied in the form of discourse
called a Proposition, why do I object to it as the scientific definition of what
a proposition means? Because, though the mere collocation which makes
the proposition a proposition, conveys no more than this scanty amount of
76 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
meaning, that same collocation combined with other circumstances, that
form combined with other matter, does convey more, and the proposition
in those other circumstances does assert more, than merely that relation
between the two names.
The only propositions of which Hobbes's principle is a sufficient account,
are that limited and unimportant class in which both the predicate and
the subject are proper names. For, as has already been remarked, proper
names have strictly no meaning; they are mere marks for individual ob-
jects: and when a proper name is predicated of another proper name, all
the signification conveyed is, that both the names arc marks for the same
object. But this is precisely what Hobbes produces as a theory of predi-
cation in general. His doctrine is a full explanation of such predications
as these: Hyde was Clarendon, or, Tally is Cicero. It exhausts the mean-
ing of those propositions. Hut it is a sadly inadequate theory of any oth-
ers. That it should ever have been thought of as such, can be accounted
for only by the fact, that Hobbes, in common with the other Nominalists,
bestowed little or no attention upon the connotation of words; and sought
for their meaning exclusively in what they denote: as if all names had been
(what none but proper names really are) marks put upon individuals ; and
as if there were no difference between a proper and a general name, except
that the first denotes only one individual, and the last a greater number.
It has been seen, however, that the meaning of all names, except proper,
names and that portion of the class of abstract names which are not conno-
tative, resides in the connotation. AVhen, therefore, we are analyzing the
meaning of any proposition in which the predicate and the subject, or
either of them, are connotative names, it is to the connotation of those
terms that we must exclusively look, and not to what they denote, or in the
language of Hobbes (language so far correct) are names of.
In asserting that the truth of a proposition depends on the conformity of
import between its terms, as, for instance, that the proposition, Socrates is
wise, is a true proposition, because Socrates and wise are names applicable
to, or, as he expresses it, names of, the same person ; it is very remarkable
that so powerful a thinker should not have asked himself the question, But
how came they to be names of the same person ? Surely not because such
was the intention of those who invented the words. When mankind h'xed
the meaning of the word wise, they were not thinking of Socrates, nor,
when his parents gave him the name of Socrates, were they thinking of
wisdom. The names happen to fit the same person because of a certain
fact, which fact was not known, nor in being, when the names were in-
vented. If we want to know what the fact is, we shall find the clue to it
in the connotation of the names.
A bird or a stone, a man, or a wise man, means simply, an object having
such and such attributes. The real meaning of the word man, is those at-
tributes, and not Smith, Brown, and the remainder of the individuals. The
word mortal, in like manner connotes a certain attribute or attributes ; and
when we say, All men are mortal, the meaning of the proposition is, that all
beings which possess the one set of attributes, possess also the other. If,
in our experience, the attributes connoted by man are always accompanied
by the attribute connoted by mortal, it will follow as a consequence, that
the class man will be wholly included in the class mortal, and that mortal
will be a name of all things of which mart is a name: but why? Those
objects are brought under the name, by possessing the attributes connoted
by it: but their possession of the attributes is the real condition on which
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 77
the truth of the proposition depends ; not their being called by the name.
Connotative names do not precede, but follow, the attributes which they
connote. If one attribute happens to be always found in conjunction with
another attribute, the concrete names which answer to those attributes will
of course be predicable of the same subjects, and may be said, in Hobbes's
language (in the propriety of which on this occasion I fully concur), to be
two names for the same things. But the possibility of a concurrent appli-
cation of the two names, is a mere consequence of the conjunction between
the two attributes, and Avas, in most cases, never thought of when the
names were introduced and their signification fixed. That the diamond is
combustible, was a proposition certainly not dreamed of when the words
Diamond and Combustible first received their meaning; and could not
have been discovered by the most ingenious and refined analysis of the sig-
nification of those words. It was found out by a very different process,
namely, by exerting the senses, and learning from them, that the attribute
of combustibility existed in the diamonds upon which the experiment was
tried ; the number or character of the experiments being such, that what
was true of those individuals might be concluded to be true of all sub-
stances " called by the name," that is, of all substances possessing the at-
tributes which the name connotes. The assertion, therefore, when ana-
lyzed, is, that wherever we find certain attributes, there will be found a cer-
tain other attribute : which is not a question of the signification of names,
but of laws of nature ; the order existing among phenomena.
3. Although Hobbes's theory of Predication has not, in the terms in
which he stated it, met with a very favorable reception from subsequent
thinkers, a theory virtually identical with it, and not by any means so per-
spicuously expressed, may almost be said to have taken the rank of an es-
tablished opinion. The most generally received notion of Predication de-
cidedly is that it consists in referring something to a class, i. e., either pla-
cing an individual under a class, or placing one class under another class.
Thus, the proposition, Man is mortal, asserts, according to this view of it,
that the class man is included in the class mortal. "Plato is a philoso-
pher," asserts that the individual Plato is one of those who compose the
class philosopher. If the proposition is negative, then instead of placing
something in a class, it is said to exclude something from a class. Thus,
if the following be the proposition, The elephant is not carnivorous ; what
is asserted (according to this theory) is, that the elephant is excluded from
the class carnivorous, or is not numbered among the things comprising that
class. There is no real difference, except in language, between this theory
of Predication and the theory of Hobbes. For a class is absolutely noth-
ing but an indefinite number of individuals denoted by a general name.
The name given to them in common, is what makes them a class. To re-
fer any thing to a class, therefore, is to look upon it as one of the things
which are to be called by that common name. To exclude it from a class,
is to say that the common name is not applicable to it.
How widely these views of predication have prevailed, is evident from
this, that they are the basis of the celebrated dictum de or/mi et nullo.
When the syllogism is resolved, by all who treat of it, into an inference
that what is true of a class is true of all things whatever that belong to the
class ; and when this is laid down by almost all professed logicians as the
ultimate principle to which all reasoning owes its validity; it is clear that
in the general estimation of logicians, the propositions of which reasonings
78 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
:ire compose*! can be the expression of nothing but the process of dividing
tilings into classes, and referring every thing to its proper class.
This theory appears to me a signal example of a logical error very often
committed in logic, that of vertpot' Trpor/por, or explaining a thing by some-
thing which presupposes it. When I say that snow is white, I may and
ought to be thinking of snow as a class, because I am asserting a proposi-
tion as true of all snow: but I am certainly not thinking of white objects
as a class ; I am thiuking of no white object whatever except snow, but
only of that, and of the sensation of white which it gives me. When, in-
deed, I have judged, or assented to the propositions, that snow is white,
and that several other things are also white, I gradually begin to think of
white objects as a class, including snow and those other things. But this
is a conception which followed, not preceded, those judgments, and there-
fore can not be given as an explanation of them. Instead of explaining the
effect by the cause, this doctrine explains the cause by the effect, and is, I
conceive, founded on a latent misconception of the nature of classification.
There is a sort of language very generally prevalent in these discussions,
which seems to suppose that classification is an arrangement and grouping
of definite and known individuals: that when names were imposed, man-
kind took into consideration all the individual objects in the universe, dis-
tributed them into parcels or lists, and gave to the objects of each list a
common name, repeating this operation totics quoties until they had invent-
ed all the general names of which language consists; which having been
once done, if a question subsequently arises whether a certain general
name can be truly predicated of a certain particular object, we have only
(as it were) to read the roll of the objects upon which that name was con-
ferred, and see whether the object about which the question arises is to be
found among them. The framers of language (it would seem to be sup-
posed) have predetermined all the objects that arc to compose each class,
and we have only to refer to the record of an antecedent decision.
So absurd a doctrine will be owned by nobody when thus nakedly stated;
but if the commonly received explanations of classification and naming do
not imply this theory, it requires to be shown how they admit of being rec-
onciled with any other.
General names are not marks put upon definite objects; classes are not
made by drawing a line round a given number of assignable individuals.
The objects which compose any given class are perpetually fluctuating.
We may frame a class without knowing the individuals, or even any of the
individuals, of which it may be composed ; we may do so while believing
that no such individuals exist. If by the meaning of a general name are
to be understood the things which it is the name of, no general name, ex-
cept by accident, has a fixed meaning at all, or ever long retains the same
meaning. The only mode in which any general name has a definite mean-
ing, is by being a name of an indefinite variety of things ; namely, of all
things, known or unknown, past, present, or future, which possess certain
definite attributes. When, by studying not the meaning of words, but the
phenomena of nature, we discover that these attributes are possessed by
some object not previously known to possess them (as when chemists
found that the diamond was combustible), we include this new object in
the class; but it did not already belong to the class. We place the indi-
vidual in the class because the proposition is true; the proposition is not
true because the object is placed in the class.*
* Professor Bain remarks, in qualification of the statement in the text (Logic, i., 50), that
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 79
It will appear hereafter, in treating of reasoning, bo\v much the theory
of that intellectual process has been vitiated by the influence of these erro-
neous notions, and by the habit which they exemplify of assimilating all
the operations of the human understanding which have truth for their ob-
ject, to processes of mere classification and naming. Unfortunately, the
minds which have been entangled in this net are precisely those which have
escaped 'the other cardinal error commented upon in the beginning of the
present chapter. Since the revolution which dislodged Aristotle from the
schools, logicians may almost be divided into those who have looked upon
reasoning as essentially an affair of Ideas, and those who have looked upon
it as essentially an affair of Names.
Although, however, Hobbes's theory of Predication, according to the
well-known remark of Leibnitz, and the avowal of Hobbes himself,* renders
truth and falsity completely arbitrary, with no standard but the will of
men, it must not be concluded that either Hobbes, or any of the other
thinkers who have in the main agreed with him, did in fact consider the
distinction between truth and error as less real, or attached less importance
to it, than other people. To suppose that they did so would argue total
unacquaintance with their other speculations. But this shows how little
hold their doctrine possessed over their own minds. No person, at bot-
tom, ever imagined that there was nothing more in truth than propriety of
expression ; than using language in conformity to a previous convention.
When the inquiry was brought down from generals to a particular case, it
has always been acknowledged that there is a distinction between verbal
and real questions ; that some false propositions are uttered from ignorance
of the meaning of words, but that in others the source of the error is a
misapprehension of things ; that a person who has not the use of language
at all may form propositions mentally, and that they may be untrue that
is, he may believe as matters of fact what are not really so. This last ad-
mission can not be made in stronger terms than it is by Hobbes himself,!
though he will not allow such erroneous belief to be called falsity, but only
error. And he has himself laid down, in other places, doctrines in which
the true theory of predication is by implication contained. He distinctly
the word Class has two meanings; "the class definite, and the class indefinite. The class
definite is an enumeration of actual individuals, as the Peers of the Realm, the oceans of the
globe, the known planets. . . . The class indefinite is unenumerated. Such classes are
stars, planets, gold-bearing rocks, men, poets, virtuous. ... In this last acceptation of the
word, class name and general name are identical. The class name denotes an indefinite num-
ber of individuals, and connotes the points of community or likeness."
The theory controverted in the text, tacitly supposes all classes to be definite. I have as-
sumed them to be indefinite ; because, for the purposes of Logic, definite classes, as such, are
almost useless ; though often serviceable as means of abridged expression. (Vide infra, book
iii., chap, ii.)
* "From hence also this may be deduced, that the first truths were arbitrarily made by
those that first of all imposed names upon things, or received them from the imposition of oth-
ers. For it is true (for example) that man is a living creature, but it is for this reason, that it
pleased men to impose both these names on the same thing." Computation or Logic, chap,
iii., sect. 8.
t " Men are subject to err not only in affirming and denying, but also in perception, and in
silent cogitation. . . . Tacit errors, or the errors of sense and cogitation, are made by pass-
ing from one imagination to the imagination of another different thing ; or by feigning that to
be past, or future, which never was, nor ever shall be ; as when by seeing the image of the
sun in water, we imagine the sun itself to be there ; or by seeing swords, that there has been,
or shall be, fighting, because it uses to be so for the most part; or when from promises we
feign the mind of the promiser to be such and such ; or, lastly, when from any sign we vainly
imagine something to be signified which is not. And errors of this sort are common to all
things that have sense." Computation or Logic, chap, v., sect. 1.
80 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
says that general names arc given to tilings on account of their attributes,
ami that abstract names are the names of those attributes. " Abstract is
that which in any subject denotes the cause of the concrete name
Ami these causes of names are the same with the causes of our conceptions,
namely, some power of action, or affection, of the thing conceived, which
some call the manner by which any thing works upon our senses, but by
most men they arc called accidents.''''* It is strange that having gone so
far, he should not have gone one step further, and seen that what he calls
the cause of the concrete name, is in reality the meaning of it; and that
when we predicate of any subject a name which is given because of an at-
tribute (or, as he calls it, an accident), our object is not to affirm the name,
but, by means of the name, to affirm the attribute.
4. Let the predicate be, as we have said, a connotative term ; and to
take the simplest case first, let the subject be a proper name: "The sum-
mit of Chimborazo is white." The word white connotes an attribute which
is possessed by the individual object designated by the words "summit of
Chimborazo;" which attribute consists in the physical fact, of its exciting
in human beings the sensation which we call a sensation of white. It will
be admitted that, by asserting the proposition, we wish to communicate in-
formation of that physical fact, and are not thinking of the names, except
as the necessary means of making that communication. The meaning of
the proposition, therefore, is, that the individual thing denoted by the sub-
ject, has the attributes connoted by the predicate.
It we now suppose the subject also to be a connotative name, the mean-
ing expressed by the proposition has advanced a step further in complica-
tion. Let us first suppose the proposition to be universal, as well as affirm-
ative : "All men are mortal." In this case, as in the last, what the propo-
sition asserts (or expresses a belief of) is, of course, that the objects de-
noted by the subject (man) possess the attributes connoted by the predi-
cate (mortal). Hut the characteristic of this case is, that the objects are
no longer individually designated. They are pointed out only by some of
their attributes: they are the objects called men, that is, possessing the at-
tributes connoted by the name man ; and the only thing known of them
may be those attributes: indeed, as the proposition is general, and the ob-
jects denoted by the subject are therefore indefinite in number, most of
them are not known individually at all. The assertion, therefore, is not, as
before, that the attributes which the predicate connotes are possessed by
any given individual, or by any number of individuals previously known as
John, Thomas, etc., but that those attributes are possessed by each and ev-
ery individual possessing certain other attributes ; that whatever has the
attributes connoted by the subject, has also those connoted by the predi-
cate; that the latter set of attributes constantly accompany the former set.
Whatever has the attributes of man has the attribute of mortality; mortal-
ity constantly accompanies the attributes of man.f
* Chap, iii., sect. 3.
t To the preceding statement it has been objected, that " we naturally construe the subject
of n proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which therefore may be an adjective) in
its intension (connotation): and that consequently co-existence of attributes does not, any
more than the opposite theory of equation of groups, correspond with the living processes of
thought and language." I acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had my-
self laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 77). But though it is true that we nat-
urally "construe the subject of a proposition in its extension," this extension, or in other
words, the extent of the class denoted by the name, is not apprehended or indicated directly.
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 81
If it be remembered that every attribute is grounded on some fact or
phenomenon, either of outward sense or of inward consciousness, and that
to possess an attribute is another phrase for being the cause of, or formin^
part of, the fact or phenomenon upon which the attribute is grounded ; we
may add one more step to complete the analysis. The proposition which
asserts that one attribute always accompanies another attribute, really as-
serts thereby no other thing than this, that one phenomenon always accom-
panies another phenomenon ; insomuch that where we find the latter, we
have assurance of the existence of the former. Thus, in the proposition,
All men are mortal, the word man connotes the attributes which we ascribe
to a certain kind of living creatures, on the ground of certain phenomena
which they exhibit, and which are partly physical phenomena, namely the
impressions made on our senses by their bodily form and structure, and
partly mental phenomena, namely the sentient and intellectual life which
they have of their own. All this is understood when we utter the word
man, by any one to whom the meaning of the word is known. Now, when
we say, Man is mortal, we mean that wherever these various physical and
mental phenomena are all found, there we have assurance that the other
physical and mental phenomenon, called death, will not fail to take place.
The proposition does not affirm when; for the connotation of the word
mortal goes no further than to the occurrence of the phenomenon at some
time or other, leaving the particular time undecided.
5. We have already proceeded far enough, not only to demonstrate the
error of Hobbes, but to ascertain ^the real import of by far the most numer-
ous class of propositions. The object of belief in a proposition, when it
asserts any thing more than the meaning of words, is generally, as in the
cases which we have examined, either the co-existence or the sequence of
two phenomena. At the very commencement of our inquiry, we found that
every act of belief implied two Things : we have now ascertained what, in
the most frequent case, these two things are, namely, two Phenomena ; in
other words, two states of consciousness ; and what it is which the propo-
sition affirms (or denies) to subsist between them, namely, either succession
or co-existence. And this case includes innumerable instances which no
one, previous to reflection, would think of referring to it. Take the follow-
ing example : A generous person is worthy of honor. Who would expect
to recognize here a case of co-existence between phenomena ? But so it is.
The attribute which causes a person to be termed generous, is ascribed to
him on the ground of states of his mind, and particulars of his conduct:
both are phenomena : the former are facts of internal consciousness ; the
latter, so far as distinct from the former, are physical facts, or perceptions
of the senses. Worthy of honor admits of a similar analysis. Honor, as
here used, means a state of approving and admiring emotion, followed on
occasion by corresponding outward acts. " Worthy of honor" connotes all
this, together with our approval of the act of showing honor. All these
are phenomena ; states of internal consciousness, accompanied or followed
by physical facts. When we say, A generous person is worthy of honor,
It is both apprehended and indicated solely through the attributes. In the "living processes
of thought and language" the extension, though in this case really thought of (which in the
case of the predicate it is not), is thought of only through the medium of what my acute and
courteous critic terms the "intension."
For further illustrations of this subject, see Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Phi-
losophy, chap. xxii.
6
82 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
we affirm co-existence between the two complicated phenomena connoted
by the two terms respectively. We affirm, that wherever and whenever
the inward feelings and outward facts implied in the word generosity
have place, then and there the existence and manifestation of an inward
feeling, honor, would be followed in our minds by another inward feeling,
approval.
After the analysis, in a former chapter, of the import of names, many
examples are not needed to illustrate the import of propositions. When
there is any obscurity, or difficulty, it does not lie in the meaning of the
proposition, but in the meaning of the names which compose it; in the
extremely complicated connotation of many words; the immense multitude
and prolonged series of facts which often constitute the phenomenon con-
noted by a name. But where it is seen what the phenomenon is, there is
seldom any difficulty in seeing that the assertion conveyed by the proposi-
tion is, the co-existence of one such phenomenon with another ; or the suc-
cession of one such phenomenon to another: so that where the one is found,
we may calculate on finding the other, though perhaps not conversely.
This, however, though the most common, is not the only meaning which
propositions are ever intended to convey. In the first place, sequences and
co-existences are not only asserted respecting Phenomena ; we make propo-
sitions also respecting those hidden causes of phenomena, which are named
substances and attributes. A substance, however, being to us nothing but
either that which causes, or that which is conscious of, phenomena ; and the
same being true, mutatis mutandis, of attributes; no assertion can be made,
at least with a meaning, concerning these unknown and unknowable en-
tities, except in virtue of the Phenomena by which alone they manifest
themselves to our faculties. When we say Socrates was contemporary with
the Peloponnesian war, the foundation of this assertion, as of all assertions
concerning substances, is an assertion concerning the phenomena which
they exhibit namely, that the series of facts by which Socrates manifested
himself to mankind, and the series of mental states which constituted his
sentient existence, went on simultaneously with the series of facts known
by the name of the Peloponnesian war. Still, the proposition as commonly
understood does not assert that alone ; it asserts that the Thing in itself,
the noumenon Socrates, was existing, and doing or experiencing those vari-
ous facts during the same time. Co-existence and sequence, therefore, may
be affirmed or denied not only between phenomena, but between noumena,
or between a noumenon and phenomena. And both of noumena and of
phenomena we may affirm simple existence. But what is a noumenon?
An unknown cause. In affirming, therefore, the existence of a noumenon,
we affirm causation. Here, therefore, are two additional kinds of fact,
capable of being asserted in a proposition. Besides the propositions which
assert Sequence or Co-existence, there are some which assert simple Exist-
ence ;* and others assert Causation, which, subject to the explanations
* Professor Bain, in bis Logic (i., 2.~>(>), excludes Existence from the list, considering it as a
mere name. All propositions, he says, which predicate mere existence "are more or less ab-
breviated, or elliptical : when fully expressed they fall tinder either co-existence or succession.
When we say there exists a conspiracy for a particular purpose, we mt>;ui that at the present
time a body of men have formed themselves into n society for n particular object; which is a
complex affirmation, resolvable into propositions of co-existence and success 1 ion (as causation).
The assertion that the dodo does not exist, points to the fact that this animal, once known in
a certain place, has disappeared or become extinct; is no longer associated with the locality;
all which may be better suited without the use of the verb 'exist,' There is a debated ques-
tion Does an ether exist? but the concrete form would be this 'Are heat and light and
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 83
which will follow in the Third Book, must be considered provisionally as a
distinct and peculiar kind of assertion.
6. To these four kinds of matter-of-fact or assertion, must be added
a fifth, Resemblance. This was a species of attribute which we found it
impossible to analyze ; for which no fundamentum, distinct from the ob-
jects themselves, could be assigned. Besides propositions which assert a
sequence or co-existence between two phenomena, there are therefore also
propositions which assert resemblance between them ; as, This color is like
that color ; The heat of to-day is equal to the heat of yesterday. It is
true that such an assertion might with some plausibility be brought within
the description of an affirmation of sequence, by considering it as an asser-
tion that the simultaneous contemplation of the two colors is followed by
a specific feeling termed the feeling of resemblance. But there would be
nothing gained by incumbering ourselves, especially in this place, with a
generalization which may be looked upon as strained. Logic does not un-
dertake to analyze mental facts into their ultimate elements. Resemblance
between two phenomena is more intelligible in itself than any explanation
could make it, and under any classification must remain specifically distinct
from the ordinary cases of sequence and co-existence.
It is sometimes said, that all propositions whatever, of which the pred-
icate is a general name, do, in point of fact, affirm or deny resemblance. AH
snch propositions affirm that a thing belongs to a class ; but things being
classed together according to their resemblance, every thing is of course
classed with the things which it is supposed to resemble most ; and thence,
it may be said, when we affirm that Gold is a metal, or that Socrates is a
man, the affirmation intended is, that gold resembles other metals, and Soc-
other radiant influences propagated by an ethereal medium diffused in space ;' which is a prop-
osition of causation. In like manner the question of the Existence of a Deity can not be dis-
cussed in that form. It is properly a question as to the First Cause of the Universe, and as to
the continued exertion of that Cause in providential superintendence." (i., 407.)
Mr. Bain thinks it "fictitious and unmeaning language" to carry up the classification of
Nature to one summum genus, Being, or that which Exists ; since nothing can be perceived or
apprehended but by way of contrast with something else (of which important truth, under the
name of Law of Relativity, he has been in our time the principal expounder and champion),
and we have no other class to oppose to Being, or fact to contrast with Existence.
I accept fully Mr. Bain's Law of Relativity, but I do not understand by it that to enable us
to apprehend or be conscious of any fact, it is necessary that we should contrast it with some
other positive fact. The antithesis necessary to consciousness need not, I conceive, be an an-
tithesis between two positives ; it may be between one positive and its negative. Hobbes was
undoubtedly right when he said that a single sensation indefinitely prolonged would cease to be
felt at all ; but simple intermission, without other change, would restore it to consciousness.
In order to be conscious of heat, it is not necessary that we should pass to it from cold ; it
suffices that we should pass to it from a state of no sensation, or from a sensation of some other
kind. The relative opposite of Being, considered as a summum genus, is Nonentity, or
Nothing ; and we have, now and then, occasion to consider and discuss things merely in con-
trast with Nonentity.
I grant that the decision of questions of Existence usually if not always depends on a pre-
vious question of either Causation or Co-existence. But Existence is nevertheless a different
tiling from Causation or Co-existence, and can be predicated apart from them. The meaning
of the abstract name Existence, and the connotation of the concrete name Being, consist, like
the meaning of all other names, in sensations or states of consciousness : their peculiarity is
that to exist, is to excite, or be capable of exciting, any sensations or states of consciousness :
no matter what, but it is indispensable that there should be some. It was from overlooking
this that Hegel, finding that Being is an abstraction reached by thinking away all particular
attributes, arrived at the self-contradictory proposition on which he founded all his philosophy,
that Being is the same as Nothing. It is really the name of Something, taken in the most
comprehensive sense of the word.
84 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
rates other men, more nearly than they resemble the objects contained in
any other of the classes co-ordinate with these.
There is some slight degree of foundation for this remark, but no more
than a slight degree. The arrangement of things into classes, such as the
class metal, or the class man, is grounded indeed on a resemblance among
the things which are placed in the same class, but not on a mere general
resemblance : the resemblance it is grounded on consists in the possession
by all those things, of certain common peculiarities ; and those peculiarities
it is which the terms connote, and which the propositions consequently as-
sert ; not the resemblance. For though when I say, Gold is a metal, I say
by implication that if there be any other metals it must resemble them, yet
if there were no other metals I might still assert the proposition with the
same meaning as at present, namely, that gold has the various properties
implied in the word metal ; just as it might be said, Christians are men,
even if there were no men who were not Christians. Propositions, there-
fore, in which objects are referred to a class because they possess the attri-
butes constituting the class, are so far from asserting nothing but resem-
blance, that they do not, properly speaking, assert resemblance at all.
But we remarked some time ago (and the reasons of the remark will be
more fully entered into in a subsequent Book*) that there is sometimes a
convenience in extending the boundaries of a class so as to include things
which possess in a very inferior degree, if in any, some of the characteris-
tic properties of the class provided they resemble that class more than
any other, insomuch that the general propositions which are true of the
class, will be nearer to being true of those things than any other equally
general propositions. For instance, there are substances called metals
which have very few of the properties by which metals are commonly rec-
ognized ; and almost every great family of plants or animals has a few anom-
alous genera or species on its borders, which are admitted into it by a sort
of courtesy, and concerning which it has been matter of discussion to what
family they properly belonged. Now when the class-name is predicated of
any object of this description, we do, by so predicating it, affirm resem-
blance and nothing more. And in order to be scrupulously correct it ought
to be said, that in every case in which we predicate a general name, we af-
firm, not absolutely that the object possesses the properties designated by
the name, but that it either possesses those properties, or if it does not, at
any rate resembles the things which do so, more than it resembles any oth-
er things. In most cases, however, it is unnecessary to suppose any such
alternative, the latter of the two grounds being very seldom that on which
the assertion is made: and when it is, there is generally some slight differ-
ence in the form of the expression, as, This species (or genus) is consider-
ed, or may be ranked, as belonging to such and such a family : we should
hardly say positively that it does belong to it, unless it possessed unequiv-
ocally the properties of which the class-name is scientifically significant.
There is still another exceptional case, in which, though the predicate is
the name of a class, yet in predicating it we affirm nothing but resemblance,
the class being founded not on resemblance in any given particular, but on
general unanalyzablc resemblance. The classes in question are those into
which our simple sensations, or other simple feelings, are divided. Sensa-
tions of white, for instance, are classed together, not because we can take
them to pieces, and say they are alike in this, and not alike in that, but be-
* Book iv., chap. vii.
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 85
cause we feel them to be alike altogether, though in different degrees.
When, therefore, I say, The color I saw yesterday was a white color, or
The sensation I feel is one of tightness, in both cases the attribute I affirm
of the color or of the other sensation is mere resemblance simple likeness
to sensations which I have had before, and which have had those names be-
stowed upon them. The names of feelings, like other concrete general
names, are connotative; but they connote a mere resemblance. When
predicated of any individual feeling, the information they convey is that of
its likeness to the other feelings which we have been accustomed to call by
the same name. Thus much may suffice in illustration of the kind of prop-
ositions in which the matter-of-fact asserted (or denied) is simple Resem-
blance.
Existence, Co-existence, Sequence, Causation, Resemblance : one or other
of these is asserted (or denied) in every proposition which is not merely
verbal. This five-fold division is an exhaustive classification of matte rs-of-
fact ; of all things that can be believed, or tendered for belief ; of all ques-
tions that can be propounded, and all answers that can be returned to them.
Professor Bain* distinguishes two kinds of Propositions of Co-existence.
" In the one kind, account is taken of Place ; they may be described as
propositions of Order in Place." In the other kind, the co-existence which
is predicated is termed by Mr. Bain Co-inherence of Attributes. " This is a
distinct variety of Propositions of Co-existence. Instead of an arrangement
in place with numerical intervals, we have the concurrence of two or more
attributes or powers in the same part or locality. A mass of gold contains,
in every atom, the concurring attributes that mark the substance weight,
hardness, color, lustre, incorrosibility, etc. An animal, besides having parts
situated in place, has co-inhering functions in the same parts, exerted by
the very same masses and molecules of its substance. . . . The Mind,
which affords no Propositions of Order in Place, has co-inhering functions.
We affirm mind to contain Feeling, Will, and Thought, not in local separa-
tion, but in commingling exercise. The concurring properties of minerals,
of plants, and of the bodily and the mental structure of animals, are united
in affirmations of co-inherence."
The distinction is real and important. But, as has been seen, an Attri-
bute, when it is any thing but a simple unanalyzable Resemblance between
the subject and some other things, consists in causing impressions of some
sort on consciousness. Consequently, the co-inherence of two attributes
is but the co-existence of the two states of consciousness implied in their
meaning : with the difference, however, that this co-existence is sometimes
potential only, the attribute being considered as in existence, though the
fact on which it is grounded may not be actually, but only potentially pres-
ent. Snow, for instance, is, with great convenience, said to be white even
in a state of total darkness, because, though we are not now conscious of
the color, we shall be conscious of it as soon as morning breaks. Co-in-
herence of attributes is therefore still a case, though a complex one, of
co-existence of states of consciousness ; a totally different thing, however,
from Order in Place. Being a part of simultaneity, it belongs not to Place
but to Time.
We may therefore (and we shall sometimes find it a convenience) instead
of Co-existence and Sequence, say, for greater particularity, Order in Place
and Order in Time : Order in Place being a specific mode of co-existence,
* Logic, i., 103-105.
86 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
not necessary to be more particularly analyzed here ; while tho mere fact of
co-existence, whether between actual sensations, or between the potentiali-
ties of causing them, known by the name of attributes, may be classed, to-
gether with Sequence, under the head of Order in Time.
7. In the foregoing inquiry into the import of propositions, we have
thought it necessary to analyze directly those alone, in which the terms of
the proposition (or the predicate at least) are concrete terms. ]>ut, in do-
ing so, we have indirectly analyzed those in which the terms are abstract.
The distinction between an abstract term and its corresponding concrete,
does not turn upon any difference in what they are appointed to signify;
for the real signification of a concrete general name is, as we have so often
said, its connotation ; and what the concrete term connotes, forms the en-
tire meaning of the abstract name. Since there is nothing in the import
of an abstract name which is not in the import of the corresponding con-
crete, it is natural to suppose that neither can there be any thing in the im-
port of a proposition of which the terms are abstract, but what there is in
some proposition which can be framed of concrete terms.
And this presumption a closer examination will confirm. An abstract
name is the name of an attribute, or combination of attributes. The cor-
responding concrete is a name given to things, because of, and in order to
express, their possessing that attribute, or that combination of attributes.
"When, therefore, we predicate of any thing a concrete name, the attribute
is what we in reality predicate of it. But it has now been shown that in
all propositions of which the predicate is a concrete name, what is really
predicated is one of five things : Existence, Co-existence, Causation, Se-
quence, or Resemblance. An attribute, therefore, is necessarily either an
existence, a co-existence, a causation, a sequence, or a resemblance. When
a proposition consists of a subject and predicate which are abstract terms,
it consists of terms which must necessarily signify one or other of these
things. When we predicate of any thing an abstract name, we am'rm
of the thing that it is one or other of these five things ; that it is a case of
Existence, or of Co-existence, or of Causation, or of Sequence, or of Re-
semblance.
It is impossible to imagine any proposition expressed in abstract terms,
which can not be transformed into a precisely equivalent proposition in
which the terms are concrete ; namely, either the concrete names which
connote the attributes themselves, or the names of the fund-amenta of those
attributes; the facts or phenomena on which they are grounded. To il-
lustrate the latter case, let us take this proposition, of which the subject
only is an abstract name, " Thoughtlessness is dangerous." Thoughtless-
ness is an attribute, grounded on the facts which we call thoughtless ac-
tions; and the proposition is equivalent to this, Thoughtless actions are
dangerous. In the next example the predicate as well as the subject are
abstract names: " Whiteness is a color;" or "The color of snow is a white-
ness." These attributes being grounded on sensations, the equivalent prop-
ositions in the concrete would be, The sensation of white is one of the sen-
sations called those of color The sensation of sight, caused by looking at
snow, is one of the sensations called sensations of white. In these proposi-
tions, as we have before seen, the matter-of-fact asserted is a Resemblance.
In the following examples, the concrete terms are those which directly cor-
respond to the abstract names ; connoting the attribute which these de-
note. " Prudence is a virtue :" this may be rendered, " All prudent per-
IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 87
sons, in so far as prudent, are virtuous :" " Courage is deserving of hon-
or ;" thus, "All courageous persons are deserving of honor in so far as they
are courageous:" which is equivalent to this "All courageous persons
deserve an addition to the honor, or a diminution of the disgrace, which
would attach to them on other grounds."
In order to throw still further light upon the import of propositions of
which the terms are abstract, we will subject one of the examples given
above to a minuter analysis. The proposition we shall select is the follow-
ing: "Prudence is a virtue." Let us substitute for the word virtue an
equivalent but more definite expression, such as " a mental quality beneficial
to society," or " a mental quality pleasing to God," or whatever else we
adopt as the definition of virtue. What the proposition asserts is a se-
quence, accompanied with causation; namely, that benefit to society, or
that the approval of God, is consequent on, and caused by, prudence. Here
is a sequence ; but between what ? We understand the consequent of the
sequence, but we have yet to analyze the antecedent. Prudence is an at-
tribute; and, in connection with it, two things besides itself are to be con-
sidered ; prudent persons, who are the subjects of the attribute, and pru-
dential conduct, which may be called the foundation of it. Now is either
of these the antecedent? and, first, is it meant, that the approval of God,
or benefit to society, is attendant upon all prudent persons ? No ; except
in so far as they are prudent; for prudent persons who are scoundrels can
seldom, on the whole, be beneficial to society, nor can they be acceptable to
a good being. Is it upon prudential conduct, then, that divine appi'obalion
and benefit to mankind are supposed to be invariably consequent ? Neither
is this the assertion meant, when it is said that prudence is a virtue; ex-
cept with the same reservation as before, and for the same reason, namely,
that prudential conduct, although in so far as it is prudential it is benefi-
cial to society, may yet, by reason of some other of its qualities, be produc-
tive of an injury outweighing the benefit, and deserve a displeasure exceed-
ing the approbation which would be due to the prudence. Neither the
substance, therefore (viz., the person), nor the phenomenon (the conduct),
is an antecedent on which the other term of the sequence is universally
consequent. But the proposition, " Prudence is a virtue," is a universal
proposition. What is it, then, upon which the proposition affirms the ef-
fects in question to be universally consequent ? Upon that in the person,
and in the conduct, which causes them to be called prudent, and which is
equally in them when the action, though prudent, is wicked ; namely, a cor-
rect foresight of consequences, a just estimation of their importance to the
object in view, and repression of any unreflecting impulse at variance with
the deliberate purpose. These, which are states of the person's mind, are
the real antecedent in the sequence, the real cause in the causation, asserted
by the proposition. But these are also the real ground, or foundation, of
the attribute Prudence ; since wherever these states of mind exist we may
predicate prudence, even before we know whether any conduct has fol-
lowed. And in this manner every assertion respecting an attribute, may
be transformed into an assertion exactly equivalent respecting the fact or
phenomenon which is the ground of the attribute. And no case can be
assigned, where that which is predicated of the fact or phenomenon, does
not belong to one or other of the five species formerly enumerated : it is
either simple Existence, or it is some Sequence, Co-existence, Causation, or
Resemblance.
And as these five are the only things which can be affirmed, so are they
88 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
the only things which can be denied. " No horses are web-footed " denies
that the attributes of a horse ever co-exist with web-feet. It is scarcely
necessary to apply the same analysis to Particular affirmations and nega-
tions. " Some birds are web-footed," affirms that, with the attributes con-
noted by bird, the phenomenon web-feet is sometimes co-existent : " Some
birds are not web-footed," asserts that there are other instances in which
this co-existence does not have place. Any further explanation of a thing
which, if the previous exposition has been assented to, is so obvious, may
here be spared.
CHAPTER VI.
OF PROPOSITIONS MERELY VERBAL.
1. As a preparation for the inquiry which is the proper object of
Logic, namely, in what manner propositions are to be proved, we have
found it necessary to inquire what they contain which requires, or is sus-
ceptible of, proof; or (which is the same thing) what they assert. In the
course of this preliminary investigation into the import of Propositions,
we examined the opinion of the Conceptualists, that a proposition is the
expression of a relation between two ideas; and the doctrine of the ex-
treme Nominalists, that it is the expression of an agreement or disagree-
ment between the meanings of two names. We decided that, as general
theories, both of these are erroneous; and that, though propositions may
be made both respecting names and respecting ideas, neither the one nor
the other are the subject-matter of Propositions considered generally. We
then examined the different kinds of Propositions, and found that, with the
exception of those which are merely verbal, they assert five different kinds
of matters of fact, namely, Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time, Causa-
tion, and Resemblance ; that in every proposition one of these five is either
affirmed, or denied, of some fact or phenomenon, or of some object the un-
known source of a fact or phenomenon.
In distinguishing, however, the different kinds of matters of fact asserted
in propositions, we reserved one class of propositions, which do not relate
to any matter of fact, in the proper sense of the term at all, but to the
meaning of names. Since names and their signification are entirely arbi-
trary, such propositions are not, strictly speaking, susceptible of truth or
falsity, but only of conformity or disconfonnity to usage or convention ;
and all the proof they are capable of, is proof of usage; proof that the
words have been employed by others in the acceptation in which the speak-
er or writer desires to use them. These propositions occupy, however, a
conspicuous place in philosophy; and their nature and characteristics are
of as much importance in logic, as those of any of the other classes of prop-
ositions previously adverted to.
If all propositions respecting the signification of words were as simple
and unimportant as those which served us for examples when examining
Ilobbes's theory of predication, vix., those of which the subject and predi-
cate are proper names, and which assert only that those names have, or
that they have not, been conventionally assigned to the same individual,
there would be little to attract to such propositions the attention of phi-
losophers. But the class of merely verbal propositions embraces not only
much more than these, but much more than any propositions which at first
VERBAL AND REAL PROPOSITIONS. 89
sight present themselves as verbal; comprehending a kind of assertions
which have been regarded not only as relating to things, but as havino-
actually a more intimate relation with them than any other propositions
whatever. The student in philosophy will perceive that I allude to the
distinction on which so much stress was laid by the schoolmen, and which
has been retained either under the same or under other names by most
metaphysicians to the present day, viz., between what were called essential,
and what were called accidental, propositions, and between essential and
accidental properties or attributes.
2. Almost all metaphysicians prior to Locke, as well as many since his
time, have made a great mystery of Essential Predication, and of predi-
cates which are said to be of the essence of the subject. The essence of a
thing, they said, was that without which the thing could neither be, nor
be conceived to be. Thus, rationality was of the essence of man, because
without rationality, man could not be conceived to exist. The different
attributes which made up the essence of the thing were called its essential
properties ; and a proposition in which any of these were predicated of it
was called an Essential Proposition, and was considered to go deeper into
the nature of the thing, and to convey more important information respect-
ing it, than any other proposition could do. All properties, not of the es-
sence of the thing, were called its accidents ; were supposed to have noth-
ing at all, or nothing comparatively, to do with its inmost nature ; and the
propositions in which any of these were predicated of it were called Acci-
dental Propositions. A connection may be traced between this distinction,
which originated with the schoolmen, and the well-known dogmas of sub-
stantice secundce or general substances, and substantial forms, doctrines
which under varieties of language pervaded alike the Aristotelian and the
Platonic schools, and of which more of the spirit has come down to mod-
ern times than might be conjectured from the disuse of the phraseology.
The false views of the nature of classification and generalization which pre-
vailed among the schoolmen, and of which these dogmas were the technical
expression, afford the only explanation which can be given of their having
misunderstood the real nature of those Essences which held so conspicuous
a place in their philosophy. They said, truly, that man can not be con-
ceived without rationality. But though man can not, a being may be con-
ceived exactly like a man in all points except that one quality, and those
others which are the conditions or consequences of it. All, therefore, which
is really true in the assertion that man can not be conceived without ration-
ality, is only, that if he had not rationality, he would not be reputed a man.
There is no impossibility in conceiving the thing, nor, for aught we know,
in its existing : the impossibility is in the conventions of language, which
will not allow the thing, even if it exist, to be called by the name which is
reserved for rational beings. Rationality, in short, is involved in the mean-
ing of the word man : is one of the attributes connoted by the name. The
essence of man, simply means the whole of the attributes connoted by the
word ; and any one of those attributes taken singly, is an essential property
of man.
But these reflections, so easy to us, would have been difficult to persons
who thought, as most of the later Aristotelians did, that objects were made
what they were called, that gold (for instance) was made gold, not by the
possession of certain properties to which mankind have chosen to attach
that name, but by participation in the nature of a general substance, called
90 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
gold in general, which substance, together with all the properties that be-
longed to it, inhered in every individual piece of gold.* As they did not
consider these universal substances to be attached to all general names, but
only to some, they thought that an object borrowed only a part of its prop-
erties from a universal substance, and that the rest belonged to it individu-
ally : the former they called its essence, and the latter its accidents. The
scholastic doctrine of essences long survived the theory on which it rested,
that of the existence of real entities corresponding to general terms ; and it
was reserved for Locke, at the end of the seventeenth century, to convince
philosophers that the supposed essences of classes were merely the signifi-
cation of their names ; nor, among the signal services which his writings
rendered to philosophy, was there one more needful or more valuable.
Now, as the most familiar of the general names by which an object is
designated usually connotes not one only, but several attributes of the ob-
ject, each of which attributes separately forms also the bond of union of
some class, and the meaning of some general name ; we may predicate of a
name which connotes a variety of attributes, another name which connotes
only one of these attributes, or some smaller number of them than all. In
such cases, the universal affirmative proposition will be true; since what-
ever possesses the whole of any set of attributes, must possess any part of
that same set. A proposition of this sort, however, conveys no informa-
tion to any one who previously understood the whole meaning of the terms.
The propositions, Every man is a corporeal being, Every man is a living
creature, Every man is rational, convey no knowledge to any one who was
already aware of the entire meaning of the word man, for the meaning of
the word includes all this: and that every man has the attributes connoted
by all these predicates, is already asserted when he is called a man. Now,
of this nature are all the propositions which have been called essential.
They are, in fact, identical propositions.
It is true that a proposition which predicates any attribute, even though
it be one implied in the name, is in most cases understood to involve a tacit
assertion that there exists a thing corresponding to the name, and possess-
ing the attributes connoted by it ; and this implied assertion may convey
information, even to those who understood the meaning of the name. But
all information of this sort, conveyed by all the essential propositions of
which man can be made the subject, is included in the assertion, Men exist.
And this assumption of real existence is, after all, the result of an imper-
fection of language. It arises from the ambiguity of the copula, which, in
addition to its proper office of a mark to show that an assertion is made, is
also, as formerly remarked, a concrete word connoting existence. The act-
ual existence of the subject of the proposition is therefore only apparently,
not really, implied in the predication, if an essential one : we may say, A
ghost is a disembodied spirit, without believing in ghosts. But an acci-
dental, or non-essential, affirmation, does imply the real existence of the
subject, because in the case of a non-existent subject there is nothing for
the proposition to assert. Such a proposition as, The ghost of a murdered
person haunts the couch of the murderer, can only have a meaning if un-
derstood as implying a belief in ghosts; for since the signification of the
* The doctrines which prevented the real meaning of Essences from being understood, had
not assumed so settled a shape in the time of Aristotle and his immediate followers, as was
afterward given to them by the Realists of the Middle Ages. Aristotle himself (in his Trea-
'tise on the Categories) expressly denies that the 6ev7f(>at ovotai, or Substantial Secimda:, in-
here in a subject. They are only, he says, predicated of it.
VERBAL AND REAL PROPOSITIONS. 91
word ghost implies nothing of the kind, the speaker either means nothing,
or means to assert a thing which he wishes to be believed to have reallv
taken place.
It will be hereafter seen that when any important consequences seem to
follow, as in mathematics, from an essential proposition, oi', in other words,
from a proposition involved in the meaning of a name, what they really
flow from is the tacit assumption of the real existence of the objects so
named. Apart from this assumption of real existence, the class of proposi-
tions in which the predicate is of the essence of the subject (that is, in
which the predicate connotes the whole or part of what the subject con-
notes, but nothing besides) answer no purpose but that of unfolding the
whole or some part of the meaning of the name, to those who did not pre-
viously know it. Accordingly, the most useful, and in strictness the only
useful kind of essential propositions, are Definitions : which, to be com-
plete, should unfold the whole of what is involved in the meaning of the
word defined ; that is (when it is a connotative word), the whole of what it
connotes. In defining a name, however, it is not usual to specify its entire
connotation, but so much only as is sufficient to mark out the objects usu-
ally denoted by it from all other known objects. And sometimes a merely
accidental property, not involved in the meaning of the name, answers this
purpose equally well. The various kinds of definition which these distinc-
tions give rise to, und the purposes to which they are respectively subserv-
ient, will be minutely considered in the proper place.
3. According to the above view of essential propositions, no proposi-
tion can be reckoned such which relates to an individual by name, that is,
in which the subject is a proper name. Individuals have no essences.
When the schoolmen talked of the essence of an individual, they did not
mean the properties implied in its name, for the names of individuals imply
no properties. They regarded as of the essence of an individual, whatever
was of the essence of the species in which they were accustomed to place
that individual ; i. e., of the class to which it was most familiarly referred,
and to which, therefore, they conceived that it by nature belonged. Thus,
because the proposition Man is a rational being, was an essential proposi-
tion, they affirmed the same thing of the proposition, Julius Cajsar is a
rational being. This followed very naturally if genera and species were to
be considered as entities, distinct from, but inhering in, the individuals
composing them. If man was a substance inhering in each individual
man, the essence of man (whatever that might mean) was naturally sup-
posed to accompany it; to inhere in John Thompson, and to form the
common essence of Thompson and Julius Caesar. It might then be fairly
said, that rationality, being of the essence of Man, was of the essence also
of Thompson. But if Man altogether be only the individual men and a
name bestowed upon them in consequence of certain common properties,
what becomes of John Thompson's essence ?
A fundamental error is seldom expelled from philosophy by a single vic-
tory. It retreats slowly, defends every inch of ground, and often, after it
has been driven from the open country, retains a footing in some remote
fastness. The essences of individuals were an unmeaning figment arising
from a misapprehension of the essences of classes, yet even Locke, when he
extirpated the parent error, could not shake himself free from that which
was its fruit. He distinguished two sorts of essences, Real and Nominal.
His nominal essences were the essences of classes, explained nearly as we
92 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
have now explained them. Nor is any thing wanting to render the third
book of Locke's Essay a nearly unexceptional treatise on the connotation
of names, except to free its language from the assumption of what are
called Abstract Ideas, which unfortunately is involved in the phraseology,
though not necessarily connected with the thoughts contained in that im-
mortal Third Book.* But besides nominal essences, he admitted real es-
sences, or essences of individual objects, which he supposed to be the causes
of the sensible properties of those objects. We know not (said he) what
these are (and this acknowledgment rendered the fiction comparatively in-
nocuous) ; but if we did, we could, from them alone, demonstrate the sen-
sible properties of the object, as the properties of the triangle are demon-
strated from the definition of the triangle. I shall have occasion to revert
to this theory in treating of Demonstration, and of the conditions under
which one property of a thing admits of being demonstrated from another
property. It is enough here to remark that, according to this definition,
the real essence of an object has, in the progress of physics, come to be
conceived as nearly equivalent, in the case of bodies, to their corpuscular
structure : what it is now supposed to mean in the case of any other en-
tities, I would not take upon myself to define.
4. An essential proposition, then, is one which is purely verbal ; which
asserts of a thing under a particular name, only what is asserted of it in
the fact of calling it by that name; and which, therefore, either gives no
information, or gives it respecting the name, not the thing. Non-essential,
or accidental propositions, on the contrary, may be called Real Proposi-
tions, in opposition to Verbal. They predicate of a thing some fact not
involved in the signification of the name by which the proposition speaks
of it; some attribute not connoted by that name. Such are all proposi-
tions concerning things individually designated, and all general or partic-
ular propositions in which the predicate connotes any attribute not con-
noted by the subject. All these, if true, add to our knowledge : they con-
vey information, not already involved in the names employed. When I
am told that all, or even that some objects, which have certain qualities, or
which stand in certain relations, have also certain other qualities, or stand
in certain other relations, I learn from this proposition a new fact ; a fact
not included in my knowledge of the meaning of the words, nor even of
the existence of Things answering to the signification of those words. It
is this class of propositions only which are in themselves instructive, or
from which any instructive propositions can be inferred. f
Nothing has probably contributed more to the opinion so long prevalent
of the futility of the school logic, than the circumstance that almost all the
examples used in the common school books to illustrate the doctrine of
* The always acute and often profound author of An Outline of Sematology (Mr. B. II.
Smart) justly says, " Locke will he much more intelligible, if, in the majority of places, we
substitute 'the knowledge of for what he calls 'the Idea of" (p. 10). Among the many
criticisms on Locke's use of the word Idea, this is the one which, as it appears to me, most
nearly hits the mark : and I quote it for the additional reason that it precisely expresses the
point of difference respecting the import of Propositions, between my view and what I have
spoken of as the Conceptualist view of them. Where a Conceptualist says that a name or a
proposition expresses our Idea of a thing, I should generally say (instead of our Idea) our
Knowledge, or Belief, concerning the thing itself.
t This distinction corresponds to that which is drawn by Kant and other metaphysicians
between what they term analytic and synthetic, judgments ; the former being those which can
be evolved from the meaning of the terms used.
VERBAL AND REAL PROPOSITIONS. 93
predication and that of the syllogism, consist of essential propositions.
They were usually taken either from the branches or from the main trunk
of the Predicamental Tree, which included nothing but what was of the es-
sence of the species : Omne corpus est substantia, Omne animal est corpus,
Omnis homo est corpus, Omnis homo est animal, Omnis homo est rationalis,
and so forth. It is far from wonderful that the syllogistic art should have
been thought to be of no use in assisting correct reasoning, when almost
the only propositions which, in the hands of its professed teachers, it was
employed to prove, were such as every one assented to without proof the
moment he comprehended the meaning of the words ; and stood exactly
on a level, in point of evidence, with the premises from which they were
drawn. I have, therefore, throughout this work, avoided the employment
of essential propositions as examples, except where the nature of the prin-
ciple to be illustrated specifically required them.
5. "With respect to propositions which do convey information which
assert something of a Thing, under a name that does not already presup-
pose what is about to be asserted ; there are two different aspects in which
these, or rather such of them as are general propositions, may be consid-
ered : we may either look at them as portions of speculative truth, or as
memoranda for practical use. According as we consider propositions in
one or the other of these lights, their import may be conveniently expressed
in one or in the other of two formulas.
According to the formula which we have hitherto employed, and which
is best adapted to express the import of the proposition as a portion of
our theoretical knowledge, All men are mortal, means that the attributes
of man are always accompanied by the attribute mortality : No men are
gods, means that the attributes of man are never accompanied by the at-
tributes, or at least never by all the attributes, signified by the word god.
But when the proposition is considered as a memorandum for practical use,
we shall find a different mode of expressing the same meaning better adapt-
ed to indicate the office which the proposition performs. The practical use
of a proposition is, to apprise or remind us what we have to expect, in any
individual case which comes within the assertion contained in the proposi-
tion. In reference to this purpose, the proposition, All men are mortal,
means that the attributes of man are evidence of, are a mark of, mortality ;
an indication by which the presence of that attribute is made manifest.
No men are gods, means that the attributes of man are a mark or evidence
that some or all of the attributes understood to belong to a god are not
there ; that where the former are, we need not expect to find the latter.
These two forms of expression are at bottom equivalent; but the one
points the attention more directly to what a proposition means, the latter
to the manner in which it is to be used.
Now it is to be observed that Reasoning (the subject to which we are
next to proceed) is a process into which propositions enter not as ultimate
results, but as means to the establishment of other propositions. We may
expect, therefore, that the mode of exhibiting the import of a general prop-
osition which shows it in its application to practical use, will best express
the function which propositions perform in Reasoning. And accordingly,
in the theory of Reasoning, the mode of viewing the subject which consid-
ers a Proposition as asserting that one fact or phenomenon is a mark or ev-
idence of another fact or phenomenon, will be found almost indispensable.
For the purposes of that Theory, the best mode of defining the import of
94 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
a proposition is not the mode which shows most clearly what it is in itself,
but that which most distinctly suggests the manner in which it may be
made available for advancing from it to other propositions.
CHAPTER VII.
OF THE NATURE OF CLASSIFICATION, AND THE FIVE PREDICABLES.
1. IN examining into the nature of general propositions, we have ad-
verted much less than is usual with logicians to the ideas of a Class, and
Classification ; ideas which, since the Realist doctrine of General Substances
went out of vogue, have formed the basis of almost every attempt at a
philosophical theory of general terms and general propositions. We have
considered general names as having a meaning, quite independently of their
being the names of classes. That circumstance is in truth accidental, it
being wholly immaterial to the signification of the name whether there are
many objects, or only one, to which it happens to be applicable, or whether
there be any at all. God is as much a general term to the Christian or
Jew as to the Polytheist ; and dragon, hippogriff, chimera, mermaid, ghost,
are as much so as if real objects existed, corresponding to those names.
Every name the signification of which is constituted by attributes, is po-
tentially a name of an indefinite number of objects ; but it needs not be
actually the name of any; and if of any, it may be the name of only one.
As soon as we employ a name to connote attributes, the things, be they
more or fewer, which happen to possess those attributes, are constituted
ipso facto a class. But in predicating the name we predicate only the at-
tributes ; and the fact of belonging to a class does not, in many cases, come
into view at all.
Although, however, 'Predication does not presuppose Classification, and
though the theory of Names and of Propositions is not cleared up, but only
encumbered, by intruding the idea of classification into it, there is never-
theless a close connection between Classification and the employment of
General Names. By every general name which we introduce, we create a
class, if there be any things, real or imaginary, to compose it; that is, any
Things corresponding to the signification of the name. Classes, therefore,
mostly owe their existence to general language. But general language,
also, though that is not the most common case, sometimes owes its exist-
ence to classes. A general, which is as much as to say a significant, name,
is indeed mostly introduced because we have a signification to express by
it; because we need a word by means of which to predicate the attributes
which it connotes. But it is also true that a name is sometimes introduced
because we have found it convenient to create a class; because we have
thought it useful for the regulation of our mental operations, that a certain
group of objects should be thought of together. A naturalist, for purposes
connected with his particular science, sees reason to distribute the animal
or vegetable creation into certain groups rather than into any others, and
he requires a name to bind, as it were, each of his groups together. It
must not, however, be supposed that such names, when introduced, differ
in any respect, as to their mode of signification, from other connotative
names. The classes which they denote are, as much as any other classes,
constituted by certain common attributes, and their names are significant
of those attributes, and of nothing else. The names of Cuvier's classes and
CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 95
orders, Plantigrades, Digitigrades, etc., are as much the expression of at-
tributes as if those names had preceded, instead of grown out of, his clas-
sification of animals. The only peculiarity of the case is, that the conven-
ience of classification was here the primary motive for introducing the
names ; while in other cases the name is introduced as a means of predica-
tion, and the formation of a class denoted by it is only an indirect conse-
quence.
The principles which ought to regulate Classification, as a logical process
subservient to the investigation of truth, can not be discussed to any pur-
pose until a much later stage of our inquiry. But, of Classification as re-
sulting from, and implied in, the fact of employing general language, we
can not forbear to treat here, without leaving the theory of general names,
and of their employment in predication, mutilated and formless.
2. This portion of the theory of general language is the subject of
what is termed the doctrine of the Predicables ; a set of distinctions hand-
ed down from Aristotle, and his follower Porphyry, many of which have
taken a firm root in scientific, and some of them even in popular, phraseolo-
gy. The predicables are a fivefold division of General Xames, not ground-
ed as usual on a difference in their meaning, that is, in the attribute which
they connote, but on a difference in the kind of class which they denote.
We may predicate of a thing five different varieties of class-name :
A genus of the thing
A species
A differentia
A proprium u&ov)
An accidens
It is to be remarked of these distinctions, that they express, not what the
predicate is in its own meaning, but what relation it bears to the subject
of which it happens on the particular occasion to be predicated. There
are not some names which are exclusively genera, and others which are ex-
clusively species, or differentia ; but the same name is referred to one or
another predicable, according to the subject of which it is predicated on
the particular occasion. Animal, for instance, is a genus with respect to
man, or John ; a species with respect to Substance, or Being. Rectangu-
lar is one of the Differentia of a geometrical square ; it is merely one of
the Accidentia of the table at which I am writing. The words genus, spe-
cies, etc., are therefore relative terms ; they are names applied to certain
predicates, to express the relation between them and some given subject: a
relation grounded, as we shall see, not on what the predicate connotes, but
on the class which it denotes, and on the place which, in some given classi-
fication, that class occupies relatively to the particular subject.
3. Of these five names, two, Genus and Species, are not only used by
naturalists in a technical acceptation not precisely agreeing with their phil-
osophical meaning, but have also acquired a popular acceptation, much
more general than either. In this popular sense any two classes, one of
which includes the whole of the other and more, may be called a Genus
and a Species. Such, for instance, are Animal and Man ; Man and Mathe-
matician. Animal is a Genus; Man and Brute are its two species; or we
may divide it into a greater number of species, as man, horse, dog, etc.
Biped, or two-footed animal, may also be considered a genus, of which
96 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
man and bird arc two species. Taste is a genus, of which sweet taste, sour
taste, salt taste, etc., are species. Virtue is a genus; justice, prudence,
courage, fortitude, generosity, etc., are its species.
The same class which is a genus with reference to the sub-classes or
species included in it, may be itself a species with reference to a more
comprehensive, or, as it is often called, a superior genus. Man is a species
with reference to animal, but a genus with reference to the species Mathe-
matician. Animal is a genus, divided into two species, man and brute ; but
animal is also a species, which, with another species, vegetable, makes up
the genus, organized being. Biped is a genus with reference to man and
bird, but a species with respect to the superior genus, animal. Taste is a
genus divided into species, but also a species of the genus sensation. Vir-
tue, a genus with reference to justice, temperance, etc., is one of the species
of the genus, mental quality.
In this popular sense the words Genus and Species have passed into
common discourse. And it should be observed that in ordinary parlance,
not the name of the class, but the class itself, is said to be the genus or
species; not, of course, the class in the sense of each individual of the
class, but the individuals collectively, considered as an aggregate whole ;
the name by which the class is designated being then called not the genus
or species, but the generic or specific name. And this is an admissible
form of expression ; nor is it of any importance which of the two modes
of speaking we adopt, provided the rest of our language is consistent with
it ; but, if we call the class itself the genus, we must not talk of predica-
ting the genus. We predicate of man the name mortal ; and by predica-
ting the name, we may be said, in an intelligible sense, to predicate what
the name expresses, the attribute mortality; but in no allowable sense of
the word predication do we predicate of man the class mortal. AVe predi-
cate of him the fact of belonging to the class.
By the Aristotelian logicians, the terms genus and species were used in
a more restricted sense. They did not admit every class which could be
divided into other classes to be a genus, or every class which could be in-
cluded in a larger class to be a species. Animal was by them considered
a genus ; man and brute co-ordinate species under that genus : biped, how-
ever, would not have been admitted to be a genus with reference to man,
but a proprium or accidens only. It was requisite, according to their
theory, that genus and species should be of the essence of the subject.
Animal was of the essence of man ; biped was not. And in every classi-
fication they considered some one class as the lowest or infirna species.
Man, for instance, was a lowest species. Any further divisions into which
the class might be capable of being broken down, as man into white, black,
and red man, or into priest and layman, they did not admit to be species.
It has been seen, however, in the preceding chapter, that the distinction
between the essence of a class, and the attributes or properties which are
not of its essence a distinction which has given occasion to so much ab-
struse speculation, and to which so mysterious a character was formerly,
and by many writers is still, attached amounts to nothing more than the
difference between those attributes of the class which are, and those which
are not, involved in the signification of the class-name. As applied to in-
dividuals, the word Essence, we found, has no meaning, except in connec-
tion with the exploded tenets of the Realists ; and what the schoolmen
chose to call the essence of an individual, was simply the essence of the
class to which that individual was most familiarly referred.
CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 97
Is there no difference, then, save this merely verbal one, between the
classes which the schoolmen admitted to be genera or species, and those to
which they refused the title? Is it an error to regard some of the differ-
ences which exist among objects as differences in kind (genere or specie)
and others only as differences in the accidents? Were the schoolmen ri^ht
or wrong in giving to some of the classes into which things may be divided,
the name of kinds, and considering others as secondary divisions, ground-
ed on differences of a comparatively superficial nature? Examination will
show that the Aristotelians did mean something by this distinction, and
something important; but which, being but indistinctly conceived, was in-
adequately expressed by the phraseology of essences, and the various other
modes of speech to which they had recourse.
4. It is a fundamental principle in logic, that the power of framing
classes is unlimited, as long as there is any (even the smallest) difference to
found a distinction upon. Take any attribute whatever, and if some things
have it, and others have not, we may ground on the attribute a division of
all things into two classes; and we actually do so, the moment we create a
name which connotes the attribute. The number of possible classes, there-
fore, is boundless ; and there are as many actual classes (either of real or
of imaginary things) as there are general names, positive and negative to-
gether.
But if we contemplate any one of the classes so formed, such as the class
animal or plant, or the class sulphur or phosphorus, or the class white or
red, and consider in what particulars the individuals included in the class
differ from those which do not come within it, we find a very remarkable
diversity in this respect between some classes and others. There are some
classes, the things contained in which differ from other things only in cer-
tain particulars which may be numbered, while others differ in more than
can be numbered, more even than we need ever expect to know. Some
classes have little or nothing in common to characterize them by, except
precisely what is connoted by the name : white things, for example, are not
distinguished by any common properties except whiteness; or if they are,
it is only by such as are in some way dependent on, or connected with,
whiteness. But a hundred generations have not exhausted the common
properties of animals or of plants, of sulphur or of phosphorus ; nor do we
suppose them to be exhaustible, but proceed to new observations and ex-
periments, in the full confidence of discovering new properties which were
by no means implied in those we previously knew. While, if any one were
to propose for investigation the common properties of all things which are
of the same color, the same shape, or the same specific gravity, the absurd-
ity would be palpable. We have no ground to believe that any such com-
mon properties exist, except such as may be shown to be involved in the
supposition itself, or to be derivable from it by some law of causation. It
appears, therefore, that the properties, on which we ground our classes,
sometimes exhaust all that the class has in common, or contain it all by
some mode of implication ; but in other instances we make a selection of a
few properties from among not only a greater number, but a number inex-
haustible by us, and to which as we know no bounds, they may, so far as
we are concerned, be regarded as infinite.
There is no impropriety in saying that, of these two classifications, the
one answers to a much more radical distinction in the things themselves,
than the other does. And if any one even chooses to say that the one clas-
08 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
sification is made by nature, the other by us for our convenience, lie will be
right ; provided he means no more than this : Where a certain apparent
difference between things (though perhaps in itself of little moment) an-
swers to we know not what number of other differences, pervading not
only their known properties, but properties yet undiscovered, it is not op-
tional but imperative to recognize this difference as the foundation of a
specific distinction ; while, on the contrary, differences that are merely finite
and determinate, like those designated by the words white, black, or red,
may be disregarded if the purpose 1 for which the classification is made does
not require attention to those particular properties. The differences, how-
ever, are made by nature, in both cases ; while the recognition of those dif-
ferences as grounds of classification and of naming, is, equally in both cases,
the act of man : only in the one case, the ends of language and of classifica-
tion would be subverted if no notice were taken of the difference, while in
the other case, the necessity of taking notice of it depends on the impor-
tance or unimportance of the particular qualities in which the difference
happens to consist.
No\v, these classes, distinguished by unknown multitudes of properties,
and not solely by a few determinate ones -which are parted off from one
another by an unfathomable chasm, instead of a mere ordinary ditch with
a visible bottom are the only classes which, by the Aristotelian logicians,
were considered as genera or species. Differences which extended only to
a certain property or properties, and there terminated, they considered as
differences only in the accidents of things; but where any class differed
from other things by an infinite series of differences, known and unknown,
they considered the distinction as one of hind, and spoke of it as being an
essential difference, which is also one of the current meanings of that vague
expression at the present day.
Conceiving the schoolmen to have been justified in drawing a broad line
of separation between these two kinds of classes and of class-distinctions, I
shall not only retain the division itself, but continue to express it in their
language. According to that language, the proximate (or lowest) Kind to
which any individual is referable, is called its species. Conformably to
this, Isaac Newton would be said to be of the species man. There arc
indeed numerous sub-classes included in the class man, to which Newton
also belongs; for example, Christian, and Englishman, and Mathematician.
But these, though distinct classes, are not, in our sense of the term, distinct
Kinds of men. A Christian, for example, differs from other human be-
ings; but he differs only in the attribute which the word expresses, namely,
belief in Christianity, and whatever else that implies, either as involved in
the fact itself, or connected with it through some law of cause and effect.
We should never think of inquiring what properties, unconnected with
Christianity, either as cause or effect, are common to all Christians and pe-
culiar to them ; while in regard to all Men, physiologists are perpetually
carrying on such an inquiry ; nor is the answer ever likely to be completed.
Man, therefore, we may call a species ; Christian, or Mathematician, we
can not.
Note here, that it is by no means intended to imply that there may not
be different Kinds, or logical species, of man. The various races and tem-
peraments, the two sexes, and even the various ages, may be differences of
kind, within our meaning of the term. I do not say that they are so. For
in the progress of physiology it may almost be said to be made out, that
the differences which really exist between different races, sexes, etc., follow
CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 99
as consequences, under laws of nature, from a small number of primary
differences which can be precisely determined, and which, as the phrase is
account for all the rest. If this be so, these are not distinctions in kind;
no more than Christian, Jew, Mussulman, and Pagan, a difference which
also carries many consequences along with it. And in this way classes are
often mistaken for real Kinds, which are afterward proved not to be so.
But if it turned out that the differences were not capable of being thus ac-
counted for, then Caucasian, Mongolian, Negro, etc., would be really differ-
ent Kinds of human beings, and entitled to be ranked as species by the
logician ; though not by the naturalist. For (as already noticed) the word
species is used in a different signification in logic and in natural history.
By the naturalist, organized beings are not usually said to be of different
species, if it is supposed that they have descended from the same stock.
That, however, is a sense artificially given to the word, for the technical
purposes of a particular science. To the logician, if a negro and a white
man differ in the same manner (however less in degree) as a horse and a
camel do, that is, if their differences are inexhaustible, and not referrible to
any common cause, they are different species, whether they are descended
from common ancestors or not. But if their differences can all be traced
to climate and habits, or to some one or a few special differences in struc-
ture, they are not, in the logician's view, specifically distinct.
When the injima species, or proximate Kind, to which an individual
belongs, has been ascertained, the properties common to that Kind include
necessarily the whole of the common properties of every other real Kind
to which the individual can be referrible. Let the individual, for example,
be Socrates, and the proximate Kind, man. Animal, or living creature, is
also a real kind, and includes Socrates ; but, since it likewise includes man,
or in other words, since all men are animals, the properties common to ani-
mals form a portion of the common properties of the sub-class, man. And
if there be any class which includes Socrates without including man, that
class is not a real Kind. Let the class, for example, be fiat-nosed; that
being a class which includes Socrates, without including all men. To de-
termine whether it is a real Kind, we must ask ourselves this question :
Have all flat-nosed animals, in addition to whatever is implied in their flat
noses, any common properties, other than those which are common to all
animals whatever? If they had ; if a flat nose were a mark or index to an
indefinite number of other peculiarities, not deducible from the former by
an ascertainable law, then out of the class man we might cut another class,
flat-nosed man, which, according to our definition, would be a Kind. But
if we could do this, man would not be, as it was assumed to be, the proxi-
mate Kind. Therefore, the properties of the proximate Kind do compre-
hend those (whether known or unknown) of all other Kinds to which the
individual belongs; which was the point we undertook to prove. And
hence, every other Kind which is predicable of the individual, will be to
the proximate Kind in the relation of a genus, according to even the popu-
lar acceptation of the terms genus and species ; that is, it will be a larger
class, including it and more.
We are now able to fix the logical meaning of these terms. Every class
which is a real Kind, that is, which is distinguished from all other classes
by an indeterminate multitude of properties not derivable from one an-
other, is either a genus or a species. A Kind which is not divisible into
other Kinds, can not be a genus, because it has no species under it; but it
is itself a species, both with reference to the individuals below and to the
100 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
genera above (Species Pnedicabilis and Species Subjicibilis). But every
Kind which admits of division into real Kinds (as animal into mammal,
bird, fish, etc., or bird into various species of birds) is a genus to all below
it, a species to all genera in which it is itself included. And here we may
close this part of the discussion, and pass to the three remaining predica-
bles, Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens.
5. To begin with Differentia. This word is correlative with the words
genus and species, and as all admit, it signifies the attribute which distin-
guishes a given species from every other species of the same genus. This
is so far clear : but we may still ask, which of the distinguishing attributes
it signifies. For we have seen that every Kind (and a species must be a
Kind) is distinguished from other Kinds, not by any one attribute, but by
an indefinite number. Man, for instance, is a species of the genus animal :
Rational (or rationality, for it is of no consequence here whether we use
the concrete or the abstract form) is generally assigned by logicians as the
Differentia ; and doubtless this attribute serves the purpose of distinction :
but it has also been remarked of man, that he is a cooking animal ; the
only animal that dresses its food. This, therefore, is another of the at-
tributes by which the species man is distinguished from other species of
the same genus: would this attribute serve equally well for a differentia?
The Aristotelians say No ; having laid it down that the differentia must,
like the genus and species, be of the essence of the subject.
And here we lose even that vestige of a meaning grounded in the nature
of the things themselves, which may be supposed to be attached to the
word essence when it is said that genus and species must be of the essence
of the thing. There can be no doubt that when the schoolmen talked of
the essences of things as opposed to their accidents, they had confusedly
in view the distinction between differences of kind, and the differences
which are not of kind ; they meant to intimate that genera and species
must be Kinds. Their notion of the essence of a thing was a vague notion
of a something which makes it what it is, i. e., which makes it the Kind of
thing that it is which causes it to have all that variety of properties which
distinguish its Kind. But when the matter came to be looked at more
closely, nobody could discover what caused the thing to have all those prop-
erties, nor even that there was any thing which caused it to have them.
Logicians, however, not liking to admit this, and being unable to detect
what made the thing to be what it was, satisfied themselves with what
made it to be what it was called. Of the innumerable properties, known
and unknown, that are common to the class man, a portion only, and of
course a very small portion, are connoted by its name; these few, however,
will naturally have beer, thus distinguished from the rest either for their
greater obviousness, or for greater supposed importance. These prop-
erties, then, which were connoted by the name, logicians seized upon, and
called them the essence of the species; and not stopping there, they af-
firmed them, in the case of the injima species, to be the essence of the in-
dividual too ; for it was their maxim, that the species contained the " whole
essence" of the thing. Metaphysics, that fertile field of delusion propa-
gated by language, does not afford a more signal instance of such delusion.
On this account it was that rationality, being connoted by the name man,
was allowed to be a differentia of the class ; but the peculiarity of cook-
ing their food, not being connoted, was relegated to the class of accidental
properties.
CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 1Q1
The distinction, therefore, between Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens,
is not grounded in the nature of things, but in the connotation of names ;
and we must seek it there, if we wish to find what it is.
From the fact that the genus includes the species, in other words denotes
more than the species, or is predicable of a greater number of individuals,
it follows that the species must connote more than the genus. It must
connote all the attributes which the genus connotes, or there would be
nothing to prevent it from denoting individuals not included in the genus.
And it must connote something besides, otherwise it would include the
whole genus. Animal denotes all the individuals denoted by man, and
many more. Man, therefore, must connote all that animal connotes, other-
wise there might be men who are not animals ; and it must connote some-
thing more than animal connotes, otherwise all animals would be men.
This surplus of connotation this which the species connotes over and
above the connotation of the genus is the Differentia, or specific differ-
ence ; or, to state the same proposition in other words, the Differentia is
that which must be added to the connotation of the genus, to complete the
connotation of the species.
The word man, for instance, exclusively of what it connotes in common
with animal, also connotes rationality, and at least some approximation to
that external form which we all know, but which as we have no name for
it considered in itself, we are content to call the h'uman. The Differentia,
or specific difference, therefore, of man, as referred to the genus animal, is
that outward form and the possession of reason. The Aristotelians said,
the possession of reason, without the outward form. But if they adhered
to this, they would have been obliged to call the Houyhnhnms men. The
question never arose, and they were never called upon to decide how such
a case would have affected their notion of essentiality. However this may
be, they were satisfied with taking such a portion of the differentia as suf-
ficed to distinguish the species from all other existing things, though by so
doing they might not exhaust the connotation of the name.
6. And here, to prevent the notion of differentia from being restricted
within too narrow limits, it is necessary to remark, that a species, even as
referred to the same genus, will not always have the same differentia, but
a different one, according to the principle and purpose which preside over
the particular classification. For example, a naturalist surveys the various
kinds of animals, and looks out for the classification of them most in ac-
cordance with the order in which, for zoological purposes, he considers it
desirable that we should think of them. With this view he finds it advisa-
ble that one of his fundamental divisions should be into warm-blooded and
cold-blooded animals ; or into animals which breathe with lungs and those
which breathe with gills; or into carnivorous, and frugivorous or graminiv-
orous ; or into those which walk on the flat part and those which walk on
the extremity of the foot, a distinction on which two of Cuvier's families are
founded. In doing this, the naturalist creates as many new classes ; which
are by no means those to which the individual animal is familiarly and spon-
taneously referred ; nor should we ever think of assigning to them so prom-
inent a position in our arrangement of the animal kingdom, unless for a pre-
conceived purpose of scientific convenience. And to the liberty of doing
this there is no limit. In the examples we have given, most of the classes
are real Kinds, since each of the peculiarities is an index to a multitude
of properties belonging to the class which it characterizes : but even if the
102 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
case were otherwise if the other properties of those classes could all be
derived, by any process known to us, from the one peculiarity on which the
class is founded even then, if these derivative properties were of primary
importance for the purposes of the naturalist, he would be warranted in
founding his primary divisions on them.
If, however, practical convenience is a sufficient warrant for making the
main demarkations in our arrangement of objects run in lines not coin-
ciding with any distinction of Kind, and so creating genera and species in
the popular sense which are not genera or species in the rigorous sense at
all ; (I fortiori must we be warranted, when our genera and species are real
genera and species, in marking the distinction between them by those of
their properties which considerations of practical convenience most strong-
ly recommend. If we cut a species out of a given genus the species man,
for instance, out of the genus animal with an intention on our part that
the peculiarity by which we are to be guided in the application of the
name man should be rationality, then rationality is the differentia of the
species man. Suppose, however, that being naturalists, we, for the pur-
poses of our particular study, cut out of the genus animal the same species
man, but with an intention that the distinction between man and all other
species of animal should be, not rationality, but the possession of "four
incisors in each jaw, tusks solitary, and erect posture." It is evident that
the word man, when used by us as naturalists, no longer connotes rational-
ity, but connotes the three other properties specified ; for that which we
have expressly in view when we impose a name, assuredly forms part of
the meaning of that name. We may, therefore, lay it down as a inaxim,
that wherever there is a Genus, and a Species marked out from that genus
by an assignable differentia, the name of the species must be connotative,
and must connote the differentia ; but the connotation may be special not
involved in the signification of the term as ordinarily used, but given to it
when employed as a term of art or science. The word Man in common
use, connotes rationality and a certain form, but does not connote the num-
ber or character of the teeth; in the Linnoean system it connotes the num-
ber of incisor and canine teeth, but does not connote rationality nor any
particular form. The word man has, therefore, two different meanings;
though not commonly considered as ambiguous, because it happens in both
cases to denote the same individual objects. But a case is conceivable in
which the ambiguity would become evident: we have only to imagine that
some new kind of animal were discovered, having Linna-us's three char-
acteristics of humanity, but not rational, or not of the human form. In
ordinary parlance, these animals would not be called men; but in natural
history' they must still be called so by those, if any there should be, who
adhere to- the Linnaean classification ; and the question would arise, whether
the word should continue to be used in two senses, or the classification be
given up, and the technical sense of the term be abandoned along with it.
Words not otherwise connotative may, in the mode just adverted to,
acquire a special or technical connotation. Thus the word whiteness, as
we have so often remarked, connotes nothing; it merely denotes the at-
tribute corresponding to a certain sensation : but if we are making a clas-
sification of colors, and desire to justify, or even merely to point out, the
particular place assigned to whiteness in our arrangement, we may define
it "the color produced by the mixture of all the simple rays;'' and this
fact, though by no means implied in the meaning of the word whiteness
as ordinarily used, but only known by subsequent scientific investigation,
CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 1Q3
is part of its meaning in the particular essay or treatise, and becomes the
differentia of the species.*
The differentia, therefore, of a species may be defined to be, that part of
the connotation of the specific name, whether ordinary or special and tech-
nical, which distinguishes the species in question from all other species of
the genus to which on the particular occasion we are referring it.
V. Having disposed of Genus, Species, and Differentia, we shall not find
much difficulty in attaining a clear conception of the distinction between
the other two predicables, as well as between them and the first three.
In the Aristotelian phraseology, Genus and Differentia are of the essence
of the subject ; by which, as we have seen, is really meant that the proper-
ties signified by the genus and those signified by the differentia, form part
of the connotation of the name denoting the species. Propriimi and Ac-
cidens, on the other hand, form no part of the essence, but are predicated
of the species only accidentally. Both are Accidents, in the wider sense in
which the accidents of a thing are opposed to its essence; though, in the
doctrine of the Predicables, Accidens is used for one sort of accident only,
Proprium being another sort. Proprium, continue the schoolmen, is pred-
icated accidentally, indeed, but necessarily; or, as they further explain it,
signifies an attribute which is not indeed part of the essence, but which
flows from, or is a consequence of, the essence, and is, therefore, inseparably
attached to the species ; e. g., the various properties of a triangle, which,
though no part of its definition, must necessarily be possessed by whatever
comes under that definition. Accidens, on the contrary, has no connection
whatever with the essence, but may come and go, and the species still re-
main what it was before. If a species could exist without its Propria, it
must be capable of existing without that on which its Propria are neces-
sarily consequent, and therefore without its essence, without that which con-
stitutes it a species. But an Accidens, whether separable or inseparable
from the species in actual experience, may be supposed separated, without
the necessity of supposing any other alteration ; or at least, without sup-
posing any of the essential properties of the species to be altered, since
with them an Accidens has no connection.
A Proprium, therefore, of the species, may be defined, any attribute which
belongs to all the individuals included in the species, and which, though
not connoted by the specific name (either ordinarily if the classification we
are considering be for ordinary purposes, or specially if it be for a special
purpose), yet follows from some attribute which the name either ordinarily
or specially connotes.
One attribute may follow from another in two ways ; and there are con-
sequently two kinds of Proprium. It may follow as a conclusion follows
premises, or it may follow as an effect follows a cause. Thus, the attribute
of having the opposite sides equal, which is not one of those connoted by
the word Parallelogram, nevertheless follows from those connoted by it,
namely, from having the opposite sides straight lines and parallel, and the
number of sides four. The attribute, therefoi'e, of having the opposite
sides equal, is a Proprium of the class parallelogram ; and a Proprium of
the first kind, which follows from the connoted attributes by way of dem-
* If we allow a differentia to what is not really a species. For the distinction of Kinds,
in the sense explained by us, not being in anyway applicable to attributes, it of course follows
that although attributes may be put into classes, those classes can be admitted to be genera
or species only by courtesy.
104 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
onstration. The attribute of being capable of understanding language, is
a Proprium of the species man, since without being connoted by the word,
it follows from an attribute which the word does connote, viz., from the
attribute of rationality. But this is a Proprium of the second kind, which
follows by way of causation. How it is that one property of a thing fol-
lows, or can be inferred, from another; under what conditions this is pos-
sible, and what is the exact meaning of the phrase; are among the ques-
tions which will occupy us in the two succeeding Books. At present it
needs only be said, that whether a Proprium follows by demonstration or
by causation, it follows necessarily,' that is to say, its not following would
be inconsistent with some law which we regard as a part of the constitu-
tion either of our thinking faculty or of the universe.
8. Under the remaining practicable, Accidens, are included all attri-
butes of a thing which are neither involved in the signification of the name
(whether ordinarily or as a term of art), nor have, so far as we know,
any necessary connection with attributes which are so involved. They are
commonly divided into Separable and Inseparable Accidents. Inseparable
accidents are those which although we know of no connection between
them and the attributes constitutive of the species, and although, therefore,
so far as we are aware, they might be absent without making the name in-
applicable and the species a different species are yet never in fact known
to be absent. A concise mode of expressing the same meaning is, that in-
separable accidents are properties which are universal to the species, but
not necessary to it. Thus, blackness is an attribute of a crow, and, as far
as we know, a universal one. But if we were to discover a race of white
birds, in other respects resembling crows, we should not say, These are
not crows; we should say, These are white crows. -Crow, therefore, does
not connote blackness ; nor, from any of the attributes which it does con-
note, whether as a word in popular use or as a term of art, could blackness
be inferred. Not only, therefore, can we conceive a white crow, but we
know of no reason why such an animal should not exist. Since, how-
ever, none but black crows are known to exist, blackness, in the present
state of our knowledge, ranks as an accident, but an inseparable accident,
of the species crow.
Separable Accidents are those which are found, in point of fact, to be
sometimes absent from the species; which are not only not necessary, but
not even universal. They are such as do not belong to every individual
of the species, but only to some individuals; or if to all, not at all times.
Thus the color of a European is one of the separable accidents of the spe-
cies man, because it is not an attribute of all human creatures. Being
born, is also (speaking in the logical sense) a separable accident of the spe-
cies man, because, though an attribute of all human beings, it is so only at
one particular time. A fortiori those attributes which are not constant
even in the same individual, as, to be in one or in another place, to be hot
or cold, sitting or walking, must be ranked as separable accidents.
DEFINITION. 105
CHAPTER VIII.
OF DEFINITION.
1. ONE necessary part of the theory of Names and of Propositions re-
mains to be treated of in this place: the theory of Definitions. As being
the most important of the class of propositions which we have character-
ized as purely verbal, they have already received some notice in the chapter
preceding the last. But their fuller treatment was at that time postponed,
because definition is so closely connected with classification, that, until the
nature of the latter process is in some measure understood, the former can
not be discussed to much purpose.
The simplest and most correct notion of a Definition is, a proposition
declaratory of the meaning of a word ; namely, either the meaning which
it bears in common acceptation, or that which the speaker or writer, for
the particular purposes of his discourse, intends to annex to it.
The definition of a word being the proposition which enunciates its
meaning, words which have no meaning are unsusceptible of definition.
Proper names, therefore, can not be defined. A proper name being a mere
mark put upon an individual, and of which it is the characteristic property
to be destitute of meaning, its meaning can not of course be declared ;
though we may indicate by language, as we might indicate still more con-
veniently by pointing with the finger, upon what individual that particular
mark has been, or is intended to be, put. It is no definition of " John
Thomson" to say he is "the son of General Thomson;" for the name John
Thomson does not express this. Neither is it any definition of " John
Thomson " to say he is " the man now crossing the street." These propo-
sitions may serve to make known who is the particular man to whom the
name belongs, but that may be done still more unambiguously by pointing
to him, which, however, has not been esteemed one of the modes of defi-
nition.
In the case of connotative names, the meaning, as has been so often ob-
served, is the connotation ; and the definition of a connotative name, is the
proposition which declares its connotation. This might be done either di-
rectly or indirectly. The direct mode would be by a proposition in this
form: "Man " (or whatsoever the word may be) "is a name connoting such
and such attributes," or " is a name which, when predicated of any thing,
signifies the possession of such and such attributes by that thing." Or
thus : Man is every thing which possesses such and such attributes : Man
is every thing which possesses corporeity, organization, life, rationality, and
certain peculiarities of external form.
This form of definition is the most precise and least equivocal of any;
but it is not brief enough, and is besides too technical for common discourse.
The more usual mode of declaring the connotation of a name, is to predi-
cate of it another name or names of known signification, which connote the
same aggregation of attributes. This may be done either by predicating
of the name intended to be defined, another connotative name exactly syn-
onymous, as, " Man is a human being," which is not commonly accounted a
106 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
definition at all ; or by predicating t\vo or more connotative names, which
make up among them the whole connotation of the name to be defined. In
this last case, again, we may either compose our definition of as many con-
notative names as there are attributes, each attribute being connoted by
one, as, Man is a corporeal, organized, animated, rational being, shaped so
and so; or we employ names which connote several of the attributes at
once, as, Man is a rational animal, shaped so and so.
The definition of a name, according to this view of it, is the sum total
of all the essential propositions which can be framed with that name for
their subject. All propositions the truth of which is implied in the name,
all those which we are made aware of by merely hearing the name', are in-
cluded in the definition, if complete, and may be evolved from it without
the aid of any other premises; whether the definition expresses them in
two or three words, or in a larger number. It is, therefore, not without
reason that Condillac and other writers have affirmed a definition to be an
analysis. To resolve any complex whole into the elements of which it is
compounded, is the meaning of analysis: and this we do when we replace
one word which connotes a set of attributes collectively, by two or more
which connote the same attributes singly, or in smaller groups.
2. From this, however, the question naturally arises, in what manner
are we to define a name which connotes only a single attribute : for in-
stance, " white," which connotes nothing but whiteness; "rational," which
connotes nothing but the possession of reason. It might seem that the
meaning of such names could only be declared in two ways; by a synony-
mous term, if any such can be found ; or in the direct way already alluded
to: '"White is a name connoting the attribute whiteness." Let us see,
however, whether the analysis of the meaning of the name, that is, the
breaking down of that meaning into several parts, admits of being carried
farther. Without at present deciding this question as to the word white,
it is obvious that in the case of rational some further explanation may be
given of its meaning than is contained in the proposition, " Rational is that
which possesses the attribute of reason ;" since the attribute reason itself
admits of being defined. And here we must turn our attention to the def-
initions of attributes, or rather of the names of attributes, that is, of ab-
stract names.
In regard to such names of attributes as are connotative, and express
attributes of those attributes, there is no difficulty: like other connotative
names, they are defined by declaring their connotation. Thus the word
fault may be defined, " a quality productive of evil or inconvenience."
Sometimes, again, the attribute to be defined is not one attribute, but a
union of several : we have only, therefore, to put together the names of all
the attributes taken separately, and we obtain the definition of the name
which belongs to them all taken together; a definition which will corre-
spond exactly to that of the corresponding concrete name. For, as we de-
fine a concrete name by enumerating the attributes which it connotes, and
as the attributes connoted by a concrete name form the entire signification
of the corresponding abstract name, the same enumeration will serve for
the definition of both. Thus, if the definition of a human being be this,
" a being, corporeal, animated, rational, shaped so and so," the definition of
humanity will be corporeity and animal life, combined with rationality,
and with such and such a shape.
When, on the other hand, the abstract name does not express a compli-
DEFINITION. 10 <7
cation of attributes, but a single attribute, we must remember that every
attribute is grounded on some fact or phenomenon, from which, and which
alone, it derives its meaning. To that fact or phenomenon, called in a for-
mer chapter the foundation of the attribute, we must, therefore, have re-
course for its definition. Now, the foundation of the attribute may be
a phenomenon of any degree of complexity, consisting of many different
parts, either co-existent or in succession. To obtain a definition of the attri-
bute, we must analyze the phenomenon into these parts. Eloquence, for
example, is the name of one attribute only ; but this attribute is grounded
on external effects of a complicated nature, flowing from acts of the person
to whom we ascribe the attribute; and by resolving this phenomenon of
causation into its two parts, the cause and the effect, we obtain a definition
of eloquence, viz. the power of influencing the feelings by speech or writing.
A name, therefore, whether concrete or abstract, admits of definition,
provided we are able to analyze, that is, to distinguish into parts, the attri-
bute or set of attributes which constitute the meaning both of the concrete
name and of the corresponding abstract : if a set of attributes, by enumer-
ating them ; if a single attribute, by dissecting the fact or phenomenon
(whether of perception or of internal consciousness) which is the foundation
of the attribute. But, further, even when the fact is one of our simple
feelings or states of consciousness, and therefore unsusceptible of analy-
sis, the names both of the object and of the attribute still admit of defini-
tion ; or rather, would do so if all our simple feelings had names. White-
ness may be defined, the property or power of exciting the sensation of
white. A white object may be defined, an object which excites the sensation
of white. The only names which are unsusceptible of definition, because
their meaning is unsusceptible of analysis, are the names of the simple feel-
ings themselves. These are in the same condition as proper names. They
are not indeed, like proper names, unmeaning ; for the words sensation
of white signify, that the sensation which I so denominate resembles other
sensations which I remember to have had before, and to have called by that
name. But as we have no words by which to recall those former sensations,
except the very word which we seek to define, or some other which, being
exactly synonymous with it, requires definition as much, words can not un-
fold the signification of this class of names ; and we are obliged to make a
direct appeal to the personal experience of the individual whom we address.
3. Having stated what seems to be the true idea of a Definition, I pro-
ceed to examine some opinions of philosophers, and some popular concep-
tions on the subject, which conflict more or less with that idea.
The only adequate definition of a name is, as already remarked, one which
declares the facts, and the whole of the facts, which the name involves in
its signification. But with most persons the object of a definition does not
embrace so much ; they look for nothing more, in a definition, than a guide
to the correct use of the term a protection against applying it in a man-
ner inconsistent with custom and convention. Any thing, therefore, is to
them a sufficient definition of a term, which will serve as a correct index
to what the term ffenotes ; though not embracing the whole, and some-
times, perhaps, not even any part, of what it connotes. This gives rise to
two sorts of imperfect, or unscientific definition; Essential but incomplete
Definitions, and Accidental Definitions, or Descriptions. In the former, a
connotative name is defined by a part only of its connotation ; in the latter,
by something which forms no part of the connotation at all.
108 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
An example of the first kind of imperfect definitions is the following:
Man is a rational animal. It is impossible to consider this as a complete
definition of the word Man, since (as before remarked) if we adhered to it
we should be obliged to call the Houyhnhnms men ; but as there happen to
be no Houyhnhnms, this imperfect definition is sufficient to mark out and
distinguish from all other things, the objects at present denoted by " man ;"
all the beings actually known to exist, of whom the name is predicable.
Though the word is defined by some only among the attributes which it
connotes, not by all, it happens that all known objects which possess the
enumerated attributes, possess also those which are omitted : so that the
field of predication which the word covers, and the employment of it which
is conformable to usage, are as well indicated by the inadequate definition
as by an adequate one. Such definitions, however, are always liable to be
overthrown by the discovery of new objects in nature.
Definitions of this kind are what logicians have had in view, when they
laid down the rule, that the definition of a species should be per genus et
differentiam. Differentia being seldom taken to mean the whole of the
peculiarities constitutive of the species, but some one of those peculiarities
only, a complete definition would be per genus et differentias, rather than
differentiavn. It would include, with the name of the superior genus, not
merely some attribute which distinguishes the species intended to be de-
fined from all other species of the same genus, but all the attributes im-
plied in the name of the species, which the name of the superior genus
has not already implied. The assertion, however, that a definition must
of necessity consist of a genus and differentia. 1 , is not tenable. It was early
remarked by logicians, that the summum genus in any classification, hav-
ing no genus superior to itself, could not be defined in this manner. Yet
we have seen that all names, except those of our elementary feelings, are
susceptible of definition in the strictest sense ; by setting forth in words
the constituent parts of the fact or phenomenon, of which the connotation
of every word is ultimately composed.
4. Although the first kind of imperfect definition (which defines a con-
notative term by a part only of what it connotes, but a part sufficient to
mark out correctly the boundaries of its denotation), has been considered
by the ancients, and by logicians in general, as a complete definition ; it has
always been deemed necessary that the attributes employed should really
form part of the connotation ; for the rule was that the definition must be
drawn from the essence of the class ; and this would not have been the case
if it had been in any degree made up of attributes not connoted by the
name. The second kind of imperfect definition, therefore, in which the
name of a class is defined by any of its accidents that is, by attributes
which are not included in its connotation has been rejected from the rank
of genuine Definition by all logicians, and has been termed Description.
This kind of imperfect definition, however, takes its rise from the same
cause as the other, namely, the willingness to accept as a definition any thing
which, whether it expounds the meaning of the name or not, enables us to
discriminate the things denoted by the name from all other things, and con-
sequently to employ the term in predication without deviating from estab-
lished usage. This purpose is duly answered by stating any (no matter
what) of the attributes which are common to the whole of the class, and
peculiar to it; or any combination of attributes which happens to be pe-
culiar to it, though separately each of those attributes may be common to
DEFINITION. 10 g
it with some other things. It is only necessary that the definition (or de-
scription) thus formed, should be convertible with the name which it pro-
fesses to define ; that is, should be exactly co-extensive with it, being pred-
icable of every thing of which it is predicable, and of nothing of which it
is not predicable ; though the attributes specified may have no connection
with those which mankind had in view when they formed or recognized the
class, and gave it a name. The following are correct definitions of Man,
according to this test : Man is a mammiferous animal, having (by nature)
two hands (for the human species answers to this description, and no other
animal does) : Man is an animal who cooks his food : Man is a featherless
biped.
What would otherwise be a mere description, may be raised to the rank
of a real definition by the peculiar purpose which the speaker or writer
has in view. As was seen in the preceding chapter, it may, for the ends
of a particular art or science, or for the more convenient statement of an
author's particular doctrines, be advisable to give to some general name,
without altering its denotation, a special connotation, different from its or-
dinary one. When this is done, a definition of the name by means of the
attributes which make up the special connotation, though in general a mere
accidental definition or description, becomes on the particular occasion and
for the particular purpose a complete and genuine definition. This actual-
ly occurs with respect to one of the preceding examples, "Man is a mam-
miferous animal having two hands," which is the scientific definition of
man, considered as one of the species in Cuvier's distribution of the animal
kingdom.
In cases of this sort, though the definition is still a declaration of the
meaning which in the particular instance the name is appointed to convey
it can not be said that to state the meaning of the word is the purpose r,f
the definition. The purpose is not to expound a name, but a classification.
The special meaning which Cuvier assigned to the word Man (quite foreign
to its ordinary meaning, though involving no change in the denotation "of
the word), was incidental to a plan of arranging animals into classes orl a
certain principle, that is, according to a certain set of distinctions, A^nd
since the definition of Man according to the ordinary connotation oft the
word, though it would have answered every other purpose of a definPiior,
would not have pointed out the place which the species ought to oc^cury
in that particular classification ; he gave the word a special connot,'atin,
that he might be able to define it by the kind of attributes on wh'/ch,for
reasons of scientific convenience, he had resolved to found his div'isioi of
animated nature.
Scientific definitions, whether they are definitions of scientific terras, or
of common terms used in a scientific sense, are almost always of thj kind
last spoken of : their main purpose is to serve as the landmarks of scien-
tific classification. And since the classifications in any scier '^"'ire con-
tinually modified as scientific knowledge advances, the defin^^s in the
sciences are also constantly varying. A striking instance is'^'^'orded by
the words Acid and Alkali, especially the former. As expe n \i ental dis-
covery advanced, the substances classed with acids have be 1 "constantly
multiplying, and by a natural consequence the attributes coO c ^ted by the
word have receded and become fewer. At first it connoted ^ attributes,
of combining with an alkali to form a neutral substance (ci^'ed a salt) ;
being compounded of a base and oxygen ; causticity to the ta i,-^ and touch ;
fluidity, etc. The true analysis of muriatic acid, into chlor' 1 e and hydro-
110 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
gen, caused the second property, composition from a base and oxygen, to
be excluded from the connotation. The same discovery fixed the attention
of chemists upon hydrogen as an important element in acids; and more
recent discoveries having led to the recognition of its presence in sulphuric,
nitric, and many other acids, where its existence was not previously sus-
pected, there is now a tendency to include the presence of this element in
the connotation of the word. But carbonic acid, silica, sulphurous acid,
have no hydrogen in their composition; that property can not, therefore,
be connoted by the term, unless those substances are no longer to be con-
sidered acids. Causticity and fluidity have long since been excluded from
the characteristics of the class, by the inclusion of silica and many other
substances in it; and the formation of neutral bodies by combination with
alkalis, together with such electro-chemical peculiarities as this is supposed
to imply, are now the only dijferentiie which form the fixed connotation of
the word Acid, as a term of chemical science.
What is true of the definition of any term of science, is of course true of
the definition of a science itself; and accordingly (as observed in the In-
troductory Chapter of this work), the definition of a science must neces-
sarily be progressive and provisional. Any extension of knowledge or al-
teration in the current opinions respecting the subject-matter, may lead to
a change more or less extensive in the particulars included in the science ;
and its composition being thus altered, it may easily happen that a different
set of characteristics will be found better adapted as differentiae for defin-
ing its name.
In the same manner in which a special or technical definition has for its
object to expound the artificial classification out of which it grows; the
Aristotelian logicians seem to have imagined that it was also the business
>f ordinary definition to expound the ordinary, and what they deemed the
natural, classification of things, namely, the division of them into Kinds;
.o nd to show the place which each Kind occupies, as superior, collateral, or
subordinate, among other Kinds. This notion would account for the rule
th.at all definition must necessarily be per genus et differentiam, and would
alsio explain why a single differentia was deemed sufficient. But to ex-
joiVnd, or express in words, a distinction of Kind, has already been shown
t> & an impossibility : the very meaning of a Kind is, that the properties
which distinguish it do not grow out of one another, and can not therefore
bese't forth in words, even by implication, otherwise than by enumerating
then ^11 : and all are not known, nor are ever likely to be so. It is idle,
therefore, to look to this as one of the purposes of a definition : while, if it
be crily required that the definition of a Kind should indicate what kinds
inclule it or are included by it, any definitions which expound the connota-
tion cf the names will do this: for the name of each class must necessarily
connote enough of its properties to fix the boundaries of the class. If the
definition, therefore, be a full statement of the connotation, it is all that a
definition i can be required to be.*
F
* Profes."^ Bain, in his Logic, takes a peculiar view of Definition. He holds (i., 71) with
the present U irk, that "the definition in its full import, is the sum of all the properties con-
noted by thei ame; it exhausts the meaning of a word. 1 ' Hut he regards the meaning of a
general name?' 5 including, not indeed all the common properties of the class named, hut all
of them that i,^ l , ultimate properties, not resolvable into one another. "The enumeration of
the attributes o\ oxygen, of gold, of man, should be an enumeration of the final (so far as can
be made out), ft .e underivable, powers or functions of each," and nothing less than this is a
complete Definittm (i., 7f>). An independent property, not derivable from other properties,
even if previouslV^unknown, yet as soon as discovered becomes, according to him, part of the
DEFINITION.
Ill
5. Of the two incomplete and popular modes of definition, and in what
they differ from the complete or philosophical mode, enough has now been
said. We shall next examine an ancient doctrine, once generally prevalent
and still by no means exploded, which I regard as the source of a great part
of the obscurity hanging over some of the most important processes of the
understanding in the pursuit of truth. According to this, the definitions
of which we have now treated are only one of two sorts into which defini-
tions may be divided, viz., definitions of names, and definitions of things.
The former are intended to explain the meaning of a term ; the latter, the
nature of a thing; the last being incomparably the most important.
This opinion was held by the ancient philosophers, and by their follow-
ers, with the exception of the Nominalists ; but as the spirit of modern
metaphysics, until a recent period, has been on the whole a Nominalist
spirit, the notion of definitions of things has been to a certain extent in
abeyance, still continuing, however, to breed confusion in logic, by its con-
sequences indeed rather than by itself. Yet the doctrine in its own proper
form now and then breaks out, and has appeared (among other places)
where it was scarcely to be expected, in a justly admired word, Archbishop
Whately's Logic* In a review of that work published by me in the West-
meaning of the term, and should be included in the definition. "When we are told that dia-
mond, which we know to be a transparent, glittering, hard, and high-priced substance, is com-
posed of carbon, and is combustible, we must put these additional properties on the same level
as the rest; to us they are henceforth connoted by the name"(i., 73). Consequently the
propositions that diamond is composed of carbon, and that it is combustible, are regarded by
Mr. Bain as merely verbal propositions. He carries this doctrine so far as to say that unless
mortality can be shown to be a consequence of the ultimate laws of animal organization, mor-
tality is connoted by man, and " Man is Mortal " is a merely verbal proposition. And one of
the peculiarities (I think a disadvantageous peculiarity) of his able and valuable treatise, is
the large number of propositions requiring proof, and learned by experience, which, in con-
formity with this doctrine, he considers as not real, but verbal, propositions.
The objection I have to this language is that it confounds, or at least confuses, a much
more important distinction than that which it draws. The only reason for dividing Proposi-
tions into real and verbal, is in order to discriminate propositions which convey information
about facts, from those which do not. A proposition which affirms that an object has a given
attribute, while designating the object by a name which already signifies the attribute, adds
no information to that which was already possessed by all who understood the name. But
when this is said, it is implied that, by the signification of a name, is meant the signification
attached to it in the common usage of life. I can not think we ought to say that the meaning
of a word includes matters of fact which are unknown to every person who uses the word un-
less he has learned them by special study of a particular department of Nature ; or that because
a few persons are aware of these matters of fact, the affirmation of them is a proposition con-
veying no information. I hold that (special scientific connotation apart) a name means, or
connotes, only the properties which it is a mark of in the general mind ; and that in the case
of any additional properties, however uniformly found to accompany these, it remains possible
that a thing which did not possess the properties might still be thought entitled to the name.
Ruminant, according to Mr. Bain's use of language, connotes cloven-hoofed, since the two
properties are always found together, and no connection has ever been discovered between
them: but ruminant does not mean cloven-hoofed; and were an animal to be discovered
which chews the cud, but has its feet undivided, I venture to say that it would still be called
ruminant.
* In the fuller discussion which Archbishop Whately has given to this subject in his later
editions, he almost ceases to regard the definitions of names and those of things as, in any im-
portant sense, distinct. He seems (9th ed., p. 145) to limit the notion of a Rer.l Definition to
one which "explains any thing more of the nature of the thing than is implied in the name;"
(including under the word "implied," not only what the name connotes, but every thing which
can be deduced by reasoning from the attributes connoted). Even this, as he adds, is usually
called not a Definition, but a Description ; and (as it seems to me) rightly so called. A De-
scription, I conceive, can only be ranked among Definitions, when taken (as in the case of the
zoological definition of man) to fulfill the true office of a Definition, by declaring the connota-
tion given to a word in some special use, as a term of science or art : which special conno-
112 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
minster Review for January, 1828, and containing some opinions which I
no longer entertain, I find the following observations on the question now
before us; observations with which my present view of that question is
still sufficiently in accordance.
"The distinction between nominal and real definitions, between defini-
tions of words and what are called definitions of things, though conforma-
ble to the ideas of most of the Aristotelian logicians, can not, as it appears
to us, be maintained. We apprehend that no definition is ever intended to
'explain and unfold the nature of a thing.' It is some confirmation of our
opinion, that none of those writers who have thought that there were defini-
tions of things, have ever succeeded in discovering any criterion by which
the definition of a thing can be distinguished from any other proposition
relating to the thing. The definition, they say, unfolds the nature of the
thing: but no definition can unfold its whole nature; and every proposi-
tion in which any quality whatever is predicated of the thing, unfolds some
part of its nature. The true state of the case \ve take to be this. All
definitions are of names, and of names only ; but, in some definitions, it is
clearly apparent, that nothing is intended except to explain the meaning of
the word ; while in others, besides explaining the meaning of the word, it
is intended to be implied that there exists a thing, corresponding to the
word. Whether this be or be not implied in any given case, can not be
collected from the mere form of the expression. 'A centaur is an animal
with the upper parts of ti man and the lower parts of a horse,' and 'A tri-
angle is a rectilineal figure with three sides,' are, in form, expressions pre-
cisely similar; although in the former it is not implied that any thiny, con-
formable to the term, really exists, while in the latter it is ; as may be seen
by substituting in both definitions, the word means for is. In the first
expression, 'A centaur means an animal,' etc., the sense would remain un-
changed: in the second, 'A triangle means,' etc., the meaning would be al-
tered, since it would be obviously impossible to deduce any of the truths
of geometry from a proposition expressive only of the manner in which we
intend to employ a particular sign.
" There are, therefore, expressions, commonly passing for definitions,
which include in themselves more than the mere explanation of the meaning
of a term. But it is not correct to call an expression of this sort a peculiar
kind of definition. Its difference from the other kind consists in this, that
it is not a definition, but a definition and something more. The definition
above given of a triangle, obviously comprises not one, but two proposi-
tions, perfectly distinguishable. The one is, ' There may exist a figure,
bounded by three straight lines ;' the other, 'And this figure may be termed
a triangle.' The former of these propositions is not a definition at all : the
tation of course would not be expressed by the proper definition of the word in its ordinary
employment.
Air. I)e Morgan, exactly reversing the doctrine of Archbishop Whately, understands by a
Real Definition one which contains less than the Nominal Definition, provided only that what
it contains is sufficient for distinction. "Uy real definition I mean such an explanation of
the word, be it the whole of the meaning or only part, as will be sufficient to separate the
things contained under that word from all others. Thus the following, I believe, is a complete
definition of an elephant : An animal which naturally drinks by drawing the water into its
nose, and then spurting it into its mouth." Formal Logic, p. !5(>. Mr. De Morgan's gen-
eral proposition and his example are at variance ; for the peculiar mode of drinking of the
elephant certainly forms no part of the meaning of the word elephant. It could not be said,
because a person happened to be ignorant of this property, that he did not know what an
elephant means.
DEFINITION. 113
latter is a mere nominal definition, or explanation of the use and applica-
tio r / of a term. The first is susceptible of truth or falsehood, and may
therefore, be made the foundation of a train of reasoning. The latter can
neither be true nor false ; the only character it is susceptible of is that of
conformity or disconformity to the ordinary usage of language."
There is a real distinction, then, between definitions of names, and what
are erroneously called definitions of things ; but it is, that the latter, along
with the meaning of a name, covertly asserts a matter of fact. This covert
assertion is not a definition, but a postulate. The definition is a mere iden-
tical proposition, which gives information only about the use of language,
and from which no conclusions affecting matters of fact can possibly be
drawn. The accompanying postulate, on the other hand, affirms a fact,
which may lead to consequences of every degree of importance. It affirms
the actual or possible existence of Things possessing the combination of
attributes set forth in the definition ; and this, if true, may be foundation
sufficient on which to build a whole fabric of scientific truth.
"VVe have already made, and shall often have to repeat, the remark, that
the philosophers who overthrew Realism by no means got rid of the con-
sequences of Realism, but retained long afterward, in their own philosophy,
numerous propositions which could only have a rational meaning as part
of a Realistic system. It had been handed down from Aristotle, and prob-
ably from earlier times, as an obvious truth, that the science of Geometry
is deduced from definitions. This, so long as a definition was considered
to be a proposition " unfolding the nature of the thing," did well enough.
But Hobbes followed, and rejected utterly the notion that a definition de-
clares the nature of the thing, or does any thing but state the meaning of
a name ; yet he continued to affirm as broadly as any of his predecessors,
that the up-^al, principia, or original premises of mathematics, and even of
all science, are definitions ; producing the singular paradox, that systems
of scientific truth, nay, all truths whatever at which we arrive by reasoning,
are deduced from the arbitrary conventions of mankind concerning the sig-
nification of words.
To save the credit of the doctrine that definitions are the premises of
scientific knowledge, the proviso is sometimes added, that they are so only
under a certain condition, namely, that they be framed conformably to the
phenomena of nature ; that is, that they ascribe such meanings to terms as
shall suit objects actually existing. But this is only an instance of the at-
tempt so often made, to escape from the necessity of abandoning old lan-
guage after the ideas which it expresses have been exchanged for contrary
ones. From the meaning of a name (we are told) it is possible to infer
physical facts, provided the name has corresponding to it an existing thing.
But if this proviso be necessary, from which of the two is the inference
really drawn ? From the existence of a thing having the properties, or
from the existence of a name meaning them?
Take, for instance, any of the definitions laid down as premises in Euclid's
Elements ; the definition, let us say, of a circle. This, being analyzed, con-
sists of two propositions ; the one an assumption with respect to a matter
of fact, the other a genuine definition. "A figure may exist, having all the
points in the line which bounds it equally distant from a single point with-
in it:" "Any figure possessing this property is called a circle." Let us
look at one of the demonstrations which are said to depend on this defini-
tion, and observe to which of the two propositions contained in it the dem-
onstration really appeals. " About the centre A, describe the circle B C D."
8
114 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
Here is an assumption that a figure, such as the definition expresses, may
be described ; which is no other than the postulate, or covert assumption,
involved in the so-called definition. But whether that figure be called a
circle or not is quite immaterial. The purpose would be as well answered,
in all respects except brevity, were we to say, "Through the point B, draw
a line returning into itself, of which every point shall be at an equal dis-
tance from the point A." By this the definition of a circle would be got
rid of, and rendered needless; but not the postulate implied in it; without
that the demonstration could not stand. The circle being now described,
let us proceed to the consequence. " Since B C D is a circle, the radius
B A is equal to the radius C A." B A is equal to C A, not because BCD
is a circle, but because B C D is a figure with the radii equal. Our war-
rant for assuming that such a figure about the centre A, with the radius
B A, may be made to exist, is the postulate. Whether the admissibility
of these postulates rests on intuition, or on proof, may be a matter of dis-
pute ; but in either case they are the premises on which the theorems de-
pend ; and while these are retained it would make no difference in the cer-
tainty of geometrical truths, though every definition in Euclid, and every
technical term therein defined, were laid aside.
It is, perhaps, superfluous to dwell at so much length on what is so near-
ly self-evident; but when a distinction, obvious as it may appear, has been
confounded, and by powerful intellects, it is better to say too much than
too little for the purpose of rendering such mistakes impossible in future.
I will, therefore detain the reader while I point out one of the absurd con-
sequences flowing from the supposition that definitions, as such, are the
premises in any of our reasonings, except such as relate to words only. If
this supposition were true, we might argue correctly from true premises,
and arrive at a false conclusion. We should only have to assume as a
premise the definition of a nonentity; or rather of a name which has no
entity corresponding to it. Let this, for instance, be our definition :
A dragon is a serpent breathing flame.
This proposition, considered only as a definition, is indisputably correct.
A dragon is a serpent breathing flame : the word means that. The tacit
assumption, indeed (if there were any such understood assertion), of the ex-
istence of an object with properties corresponding to the definition, would,
in the present instance, be false. Out of this definition we may carve the
premises of the following syllogism :
A dragon is a thing which breathes flame:
A dragon is a serpent :
From which the conclusion is,
Therefore some serpent or serpents breathe flame:
an unexceptionable syllogism in the first mode of the third figure, in which
both premises are true and yet the conclusion false; which every logician
knows to be an absurdity. The conclusion being false and the syllogism
correct, the premises can not be true. But the premises, considered as
parts of a definition, are true. Therefore, the premises considered as parts
of a definition can not be the real ones. The real premises must be
A dragon is a really existing thing which breathes flame :
A dragon is a really existing serpent :
which implied premises being false, the falsity of the conclusion presents
no absurdity.
If we would determine what conclusion follows from the same ostensible
premises when the tacit assumption of real existence is left out, let us, ac-
DEFINITION. 115
cording to the recommendation in a previous page, substitute means for is.
We then have
Dragon is a word meaning a thing which breathes flame :
Dragon is a word meaning a serpent:
From which the conclusion is,
Some word or words which mean a serpent, also mean a thing which
breathes flame :
where the conclusion (as well as the premises) is true, and is the only kind
of conclusion which can ever follow from a definition, namely, a proposition
relating to the meaning of words.
There is still another shape. into which we may transform this syllogism.
We may suppose the middle term to be the designation neither of a thing
nor of a name, but of an idea. We then have
The idea of a dragon is an idea of a thing which breathes flame :
The idea of a dragon is an idea of a serpent :
Therefore, there is an idea of a serpent, which is an idea of a
thing breathing flame.
Here the conclusion is true, and also the premises ; but the premises are
not definitions. They are propositions affirming that an idea existing in
the mind, includes certain ideal elements. The truth of the conclusion fol-
lows from the existence of the psychological phenomenon called the idea of
a dragon ; and therefore still from the tacit assumption of a matter of fact.*
When, as in this last syllogism, the conclusion is a proposition respecting
an idea, the assumption on which it depends may be merely that of the ex-
istence of an idea. But when the conclusion is a proposition concerning a
Thing, the postulate involved in the definition which stands as the apparent
premise, is the existence of a thing conformable to the definition, and not
merely of an idea conformable to it. This assumption of real existence we
always convey the impression that we intend to make, when we profess to
define any name which is already known to be a name of really existing
objects. On this account it is, that the assumption was not necessarily
implied in the definition of a dragon, while there was no doubt of its be-
ing included in the definition of a circle.
* In the only attempt which, so far as I know, has been made to refute the preceding argu-
mentation, it is maintained that in the first form of the syllogism,
A dragon is a thing which breathes flame,
A dragon is a serpent,
Therefore some serpent or serpents breathe flame,
"there is just as much truth in the conclusion as there is in the premises, or rather, no more
in the latter than in the former. If the general name serpent includes both real and imaginary
serpents, there is no falsity in the conclusion ; if not, there is falsity in the minor premise."
Let us, then, try to set out the syllogism on the hypothesis that the name serpent includes
imaginary serpents. We shall find that it is now necessary to alter the predicates ; for it can
not be asserted that an imaginary creature breathes flame ; in predicating of it such a fact, we
assert by the most positive implication that it is real, and not imaginary. The conclusion must
run thus, "Some serpent or serpents either do or are imagined to breathe flame." And to
prove this conclusion by the instance of dragons, the premises must be, A dragon is imagined
as breathing flame. A dragon is a (real or imaginary) serpent : from which it undoubtedly
follows, that there are serpents which are imagined to breathe flame ; but the major premise
is not a definition, nor part of a definition ; which is all that I am concerned to prove.
Let us now examine the other assertion that if the word serpent stands for none but real
serpents, the minor premise (a dragon is a serpent) is false. This is exactly what I have my-
self said of the premise, considered as a statement of fact : but it is not false as part of the
definition of a dragon ; and since the premises, or one of them, must be false (the conclusion
being so), the real premise can not be the definition, which is true, but the statement of fact,
which is false.
116 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
6. One of the circumstances which have contributed to keep up the
notion, that demonstrative truths follow from definitions rather than from
the postulates implied in those definitions, is, that the postulates, even in
those sciences which are considered to surpass all others in demonstrative
certainty, are not always exactly true. It is not true that a circle exists, or
can be described, which lias all its radii exactly equal. Such accuracy is
ideal only ; it is not found in nature, still less can it be realized by art.
People had a difficulty, therefore, in conceiving that the most certain of all
conclusions could rest on premises which, instead of being certainly true,
are certainly not true to the full extent asserted. This apparent paradox
will be examined when we come to treat of Demonstration; where we shall
be able to show that as much of the postulate is true, as is required to sup-
port as much as is true of the conclusion. Philosophers, however, to whom
this view had not occurred, or whom it did not satisfy, have thought it in-
dispensable that there should be found in definitions something more cer-
tain, or at least more accurately true, than the implied postulate of the real
existence of a corresponding object. And this something they flattered
themselves they had found, when they laid it down that a definition is a
statement and analysis not of the mere meaning of a word, nor yet of the
nature of a thing, but of an idea. Thus, the proposition, " A circle is a
plane figure bounded by a line all the points of which are at an equal dis-
tance from a given point within it," was considered by them, not as an as-
sertion that any real circle has that property (which would not be exactly
true), but that we conceive a circle as having it; that our abstract idea of
a circle is an idea of a figure with its radii exactly equal.
Conformably to this it is said, that the subject-matter of mathematics,
and of every other demonstrative science, is not things as they really exist,
but abstractions of the mind. A geometrical line is a line without breadth ;
but no such line exists in nature ; it is a notion merely suggested to the
mind by its experience of nature. The definition (it is said) is a definition
of this mental line, not of any actual line : and it is only of the mental line,
not of any line existing in nature, that the theorems of geometry are ac-
curately true.
Allowing this doctrine respecting the nature of demonstrative truth to
be correct (which, in a subsequent place, I shall endeavor to prove that it
is not) ; even on that supposition, the conclusions which seem to follow
from a definition, do not follow from the definition as such, but from an
implied postulate. Even if it be true that there is no object in nature an-
swering to the definition of a line, and that the geometrical properties of
lines are not true of any lines in nature, but only of the idea of a line; the
definition, at all events, postulates the real existence of such an idea: it as-
sumes that the mind can frame, or rather has framed, the notion of length
without breadth, and without any other sensible property whatever. To
me, indeed, it appears that the mind can not form any such notion; it can
not conceive length without breadth ; it can only, in contemplating objects,
attend to their length, exclusively of their other sensible qualities, and so
determine what properties may be predicated of them in virtue of their
length alone. If this be true, the postulate involved in the geometrical
definition of a line, is the real existence, not of length without breadth, but
merely of length, that is, of long objects. This is quite enough to support
all the truths of geometry, since every property of a geometrical line is
really a property of all physical objects in so far as possessing length. ]>ut
even what I hold to be the false doctrine on the subject, leaves the conclu-
DEFINITION. in
sion that our reasonings are grounded on the matters of fact postulated in
definitions, and not on the definitions themselves, entirely unaffected ; and
accordingly this conclusion is one which I have in common with Dr. Whe-
well, in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: though, on the nature
of demonstrative truth, Dr. Whewell's opinions are greatly at variance with
mine. And here, as in many other instances, I gladly acknowledge that his
writings are eminently serviceable in clearing from confusion the initial
steps in the analysis of the mental processes, even where his views respect-
ing the ultimate analysis are such as (though with unfeigned respect) I can
not but regard as fundamentally erroneous.
7. Although, according to the opinion here presented, Definitions are
properly of names only, and not of things, it does not follow from this that
definitions are arbitrary. How to define a name, may not only be an in-
quiry of considerable difficulty and intricacy, but may involve considera-
tions going deep into the nature of the things which are denoted by the
name. Such, for instance, are the inquiries which form the subjects of the
most important of Plato's Dialogues; as, "What is rhetoric?" the topic of
the Gorgias, or, "What is justice?" that of the Republic. Such, also, is
the question scornfully asked by Pilate, " What is truth ?" and the funda-
mental question with speculative moralists in all ages, " What is virtue ?"
It would be a mistake to represent these difficult and noble inquiries as
having nothing in view beyond ascertaining the conventional meaning of
a name. They are inquiries not so much to determine what is, as what
should be, the meaning of a name; which, like other practical questions of
terminology, requires for its solution that we should enter, and sometimes
enter very deeply, into the properties not merely of names but of the
things named.
Although the meaning of every concrete general name resides in the at-
tributes which it connotes, the objects were named before the attributes;
as appears from the fact that in all languages, abstract names are mostly
compounds or other derivatives of the concrete names which correspond to
them. Connotative names, therefore, were, after proper names, the first
which were used : and in the simpler cases, no doubt, a distinct connotation
was present to the minds of those who first used the name, and was dis-
tinctly intended by them to be conveyed by it. The first person who used
the word white, as applied to snow or to any other object, knew, no doubt,
very well what quality he intended to predicate, and had a perfectly dis-
tinct conception in his mind of the attribute signified by the name.
But Avhere the resemblances and differences on which our classifications
are founded are not of this palpable and easily determinable kind; especial-
ly where they consist not in any one quality but in a number of qualities,
the effects of which, being blended together, are not very easily discrimi-
nated, and referred each to its true source ; it often happens that names
are applied to namable objects, with no distinct connotation present to the
minds of those who apply them. They are only influenced by a general
resemblance between the new object and all or some of the old familial-
objects which they have been accustomed to call by that name. This, as
we have seen, is the law M'hich even the mind of the philosopher must fol-
low, in giving names to the simple elementary feelings of our nature : but,
where the tilings to be named are complex wholes, a philosopher is not
content with noticing a general resemblance ; he examines what the resem-
blance consists in : and he only gives the same name to things which re-
1 1 8 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
soluble one another in the same definite particulars. The philosopher,
therefore, habitually employs his general names with a definite connota-
tion. But language was not made, and can only in some small degree be
mended, by philosophers. In the minds of the real arbiters of language,
general names, especially where the classes they denote can not be brought
before the tribunal of the outward senses to be identified and discriminated,
connote little more than a vague gross resemblance to the things which
they were earliest, or have been most, accustomed to call by those names.
When, for instance, ordinary persons predicate the words just or unjust
of any action, noble or mean of any sentiment, expression, or demeanor,
statesman or charlatan of any personage figuring in polities, do they mean
to affirm of those various subjects any determinate attributes, of whatever
kind ? No: they merely recognize, as they think, some likeness, more or
less vague and loose, between these and some other things which they
have been accustomed to denominate or to hear denominated by those ap-
pellations.
Language, as Sir James Mackintosh used to say of governments, "is not
made, but grows." A name is not imposed at once and by previous pur-
pose upon a class of objects, but is first applied to one thing, and then ex-
tended by a series of transitions to another and another. By this process
(as has been remarked by several writers, and illustrated with great force
and clearness by Dugald Stewart in his Philosophical Essays) a name not
unfrequently passes by successive links of resemblance from one object to
another, until it becomes applied to things having nothing in common with
the first things to which the name was given; which, however, do not, for
that reason, drop the name; so that it at last denotes a confused huddle of
objects, having nothing whatever in common ; and connotes nothing, not
even a vague and general resemblance. When a name has fallen into this
state, in which by predicating it of any object we assert literally nothing
about the object, it has become unfit for the purposes either of thought or
of the communication of thought; and can only be made serviceable by
stripping it of some part of its multifarious denotation, and confining it to
objects possessed of some attributes in common, which it may be made to
connote. Such are the inconveniences of a language which " is not made,
but grows." Like the governments which are in a similar case, it may be
compared to a road which is not made but has made itself: it requires con-
tinual mending in order to be passable.
From this it is already evident, why the question respecting the defini-
tion of an abstract name is often one of so much difficulty. The question,
What is justice? is, in other words, What is the attribute which mankind
mean to predicate when they call an action just? To which the first an-
swer is, that having come to no precise agreement on the point, they do
not mean to predicate distinctly any attribute at all. Nevertheless, all be-
lieve that there is some common attribute belonging to all the actions which
they are in the habit of calling just. The question then must be, whether
there is any such common attribute? and, in the first place, whether man-
kind agree sufficiently with one another as to the particular actions which
they do or do not call just, to render the inquiry, what quality those ac-
tions have in common, a possible one : if so, whether the actions really have
any" quality in common; and if they have, what it is. Of these three, the
first alone is an inquiry into usage and convention ; the other two are inqui-
ries into matters of fact. And if the second question (whether the actions
form a class at all) has been answered negatively, there remains a fourth,
DEFINITION. 119
often more arduous than all the rest, namely, how best to form a class arti-
ficially, which the name may denote.
And here it is fitting to remark, that the study of the spontaneous growth
of languages is of the utmost importance to those who would logically re-
model them. The classifications rudely made by established language, when
retouched, as they almost all require to be, by the hands of the logician,
are often themselves excellently suited to his purposes. As compared with
the classifications of a philosopher, they are like the customary law of a
country, which has grown up as it were spontaneously, compared with laws
methodized and digested into a code : the former are a far less perfect in-
strument than the latter ; but being the result of a long, though unscien-
tific, course of experience, they contain a mass of materials which may be
made very usefully available in the formation of the systematic body of
written law. In like manner, the established grouping of objects under a
common name, even when founded only on a gross and general resemblance,
is evidence, in the first place, that the resemblance is obvious, and therefore
considerable; and, in the next place, that it is a resemblance Avhich has
struck great numbers of persons during a series of years and ages. Even
when a name, by successive extensions, has come to be applied to things
among which there does not exist this gross resemblance common to them
all, still at every step in its progress we shall find such a resemblance. And
these transitions of the meaning of words are often an index to real con-
nections between the things denoted by them, which might otherwise escape
the notice of thinkers ; of those at least who, from using a different lan-
guage, or from any difference in their habitual associations, have fixed their
attention in preference on some other aspect of the things. The history of
philosophy abounds in examples of such oversights, committed for want of
perceiving the hidden link that connected together the seemingly disparate
meanings of some ambiguous word.*
Whenever the inquiry into the definition of the name of any real object
consists of any tiling else than a mere comparison of authorities, we tacit-
ly assume that a meaning must be found for the name, compatible with its
continuing to denote, if possible all, but at any rate the greater or the more
important part, of the things of which it is commonly predicated. The in-
quiry, therefore, into the definition, is an inquiry into the resemblances and
differences among those things : whether there be any resemblance running
through them all ; if not, through what portion of them such a general re-
semblance can be traced : and finally, what are the common attributes, the
possession of which gives to them all, or to that portion of them, the char-
acter of resemblance which has led to their being classed together. When
these common attributes have been ascertained and specified, the name
which belongs in common to the resembling objects acquires a distinct in-
* "Few people" (I have said in another place) "have reflected how great a knowledge
of Things is required to enable a man to affirm that any given argument turns wholly upon
words. There is, perhaps, not one of the leading terms of philosophy which is not used in
almost innumerable shades of meaning, to express ideas more or less widely different from
one another. Between two of these ideas a sagacious and penetrating mind will discern, as
it were intuitively, an unobvious link of connection, upon which, though perhaps unable to
give a logical account of it, he will found a perfectly valid argument, which his critic, not
having so keen an insight into the Things, will mistake for a fallacy turning on the double
meaning of a term. And the greater the genius of him who thus safely leaps over the chasm,
the greater will probably be the crowing and vainglory of the mere logician, who, hobbling
after him, evinces his own superior wisdom by pausing on its brink, and giving up as desper-
ate his proper business of bridging it over."
120 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS.
stead of a vague connotation ; and by possessing this distinct connotation,
becomes susceptible of definition.
In giving a distinct connotation to the general name, the philosopher will
endeavor to fix upon such attributes as, while they are common to all the
things usually denoted by the name, are also of greatest importance in them-
selves ; either directly, or from the number, the conspicuousness, or the in-
teresting character, of the consequences to which they lead. He will select,
as far as possible, such differentiae as lead to the greatest number of inter-
esting propria. For these, rather than the more obscure and recondite
qualities on which they often depend, give that general character and as-
pect to a set of objects, which determine the groups into which they natu-
rally fall. But to penetrate to the more hidden agreement on which these
obvious and superficial agreements depend, is often one of the most diffi-
cult of scientific problems. As it is among the most difficult, so it seldom
fails to be among the most important. And since upon the result of this
inquiry respecting the causes of the properties of a class of things, there in-
cidentally depends the question what shall be the meaning of a word ; some
of the most profound and most valuable investigations which philosophy
presents to us, have been introduced by, and have offered themselves under
the guise of, inquiries into the definition of a name.
BOOK II.
OF SEASONING.
uiv E TOVTWV Xeyoi/utv frfr], did rivaiv, Kai TCUTI, icai TTWI; yn/frai TTCIQ
vartpov le XIKTIOV irepl ciTroSti^tojg. Uportpov yap irtpi avXXoyiapov XiKTtov, r) irtpt dirodd-
aC> Sid TO Ka96\ov ndXXov tivai TOV avXXoyiafiov. 'H fiiv yap diroSd^i^, (jvXXoyifffio^ TIQ' 6
Si ov 7ra, cafoSn^iQ. ARIST., Analyt. Prior., 1. i. ? cap. 4.
CHAPTER I.
OP INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL.
1. IN the preceding Book, we have been occupied not with the nature
of Proof, but with the nature of Assertion : the import conveyed by a Prop-
osition, whether that Proposition be true or false ; not the means by which
to discriminate true from false Propositions. The proper subject, however,
of Logic is Proof. Before we could understand what Proof is, it was nec-
essary to understand what that is to which proof is applicable; what that
is which can be a subject of belief or disbelief, of affirmation or denial;
what, in short, the different kinds of Propositions assert.
This preliminary inquiry we have prosecuted to a definite result. Asser-
tion, in the first place, relates either to the meaning of words, or to some
property of the things which words signify. Assertions respecting the
meaning of words, among which definitions are the most important, hold a
place, and an indispensable one, in philosophy ; but as the meaning of words
is essentially arbitrary, this class of assertions are not susceptible of truth
or falsity, nor therefore of proof or disproof. Assertions respecting Things,
or what may be called Real Propositions, in contradistinction to verbal
ones, are of various sorts. We have analyzed the import of each sort, and
have ascertained the nature of the things they relate to, and the nature of
what they severally assert respecting those things. We found that what-
ever be the form of the proposition, and whatever its nominal subject or
predicate, the real subject of every proposition is some one or more facts
or phenomena of consciousness, or some one or more of the hidden causes
or powers to which we ascribe those facts ; and that what is predicated or
asserted, either in the affirmative or negative, of those phenomena or those
powers, is always either Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time, Causa-
tion, or Resemblance. This, then, is the theory of the Import of Proposi-
tions, reduced to its ultimate elements : but there is another and a less ab-
struse expression for it, which, though stopping short in an earlier stage of
the analysis, is sufficiently scientific for many of the purposes for which
such a general expression is required. This expression recognizes the com-
monly received distinction between Subject and Attribute, and gives the
following as the analysis of the meaning of propositions : Every Proposi-
122 REASONING.
tion asserts, that some given subject does or does not possess sonic attri-
bute ; or that some attribute is or is not (either in all or in some portion
of the subjects in which it is met with) conjoined with some other attri-
bute.
We shall now for the present take our leave of this portion of our in-
quiry, and proceed to the peculiar problem of the Science of Logic, name-
ly, how the assertions, of which we have analy/ed the import, are proved
or disproved ; such of them, at least, as, not being amenable to direct con-
sciousness or intuition, are appropriate subjects of proof.
We say of a fact or statement, that it is proved, when we believe its truth
by reason of some other fact or statement from* which it is said to follow.
Most of the propositions, whether affirmative or negative, universal, partic-
ular, or singular, which we believe, are not believed on their own evidence,
but on the ground of something previously assented to, from which they
are said to be inferred. To infer a proposition from a previous proposi-
tion or propositions; to give credence to it, or claim credence for it, as a
conclusion from something else; is to reason, in the most extensive sense
of the term. There is a narrower sense, in which the name reasoning is
confined to the form of inference which is termed ratiocination, and of
which the syllogism is the general type. The reasons for not conforming
to this restricted use of the term were stated in 'an earlier stage of our in-
quiry, and additional motives will be suggested by the considerations on
which we are now about to enter.
2. In proceeding to take into consideration the cases in which infer-
ences can legitimately be drawn, we shall first mention some cases in which
the inference is apparent, not real; and which require notice chiefly that
they may not be confounded with cases of inference properly so called.
This occurs when the proposition ostensibly inferred from another, appears
on analysis to be merely a repetition of the same, or part of the same, as-
sertion, which was contained in the first. All the cases mentioned in books
of Logic as examples of equipollency or equivalence of propositions, are
of this nature. Thus, if we were to argue, No man is incapable of reason,
for every man is rational; or, All men are mortal, for no man is exempt
from death ; it would be plain that AVC were not proving the proposition,
but only appealing to another mode of wording it, which may or may not
be more readily comprehensible by the hearer, or better adapted to suggest
the real proof, but which contains in itself no shadow of proof.
Another case is where, from a universal proposition, we affect to infer
another which differs from it only in being particular: as All A is 1>, there-
fore Some A is B : No A is B, therefore Some A is not B. This, too, is not
to conclude one proposition from another, but to repeat a second time some-
thing which had been asserted at first; with the difference, that we do not
here repeat the whole of the previous assertion, but only an indefinite part
of it.
A third case is where, the antecedent having affirmed a predicate of a
given subject, the consequent affirms of the same subject something already
connoted by the former predicate: as, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates
is a living creature; where all that is connoted by living creature was af-
firmed of Socrates when he was asserted to be a man. If the propositions
are negative, we must invert their order, thus : Socrates is not a living crea-
ture, therefore he is not a man ; for if we deny the less, the greater, which
includes it, is already denied by implication. These, therefore, arc not real-
INFERENCE IN GENERAL. 123
ly cases of inference ; and yet the trivial examples by which, in manuals of
Logic, the rules of the syllogism are illustrated, are often of this ill-chosen
kind ; formal demonstrations oi conclusions to which whoever understands
the terms used in the statement of the data, has already, and consciously,
assented.*
The most complex case of this sort of apparent inference is what is called
the Conversion of propositions; which consists in turning the predicate
into a subject, and the subject into a predicate, and framing out of the same
terms thus reversed, another proposition, which must be true if the former
is true. Thus, from the particular affirmative proposition, Some A is B,
we may infer that Some B is A. From the universal negative, No A is B,
we may conclude that No B is A. From the universal affirmative proposi-
tion, All A is B, it can not be inferred that all B is A ; though all water is
liquid, it is not implied that all liquid is water; but it is implied that some
liquid is so ; and hence the proposition, All A is B, is legitimately convert-
ible into Some B is A. This process, which converts a universal propo-
sition into a particular, is termed conversion per accidens. From the prop-
osition, Some A is not B, we can not even infer that some B is not A ;
though some men are not Englishmen, it does not follow that some English-
men are not men. The only mode usually recognized of converting a par-
ticular negative proposition, is in the form, Some A is not B, therefore
something which is not B is A; and this is termed conversion by contra-
position. In this case, however, the predicate and subject are not merely
reversed, but one of them is changed. Instead of [A] and [B], the terms
of the new proposition are [a thing which is not B], and [A]. The origi-
nal proposition, Some A is not B, is first changed into a proposition equi-
pollent with it, Some A is " a thing which is not B ;" and the proposition,
being now no longer a particular negative, but a particular affirmative, ad-
mits of conversion in the first mode, or as it is called, simple conversion.!
In all these cases there is not really any inference ; there is in the con-
clusion no new truth, nothing but what was already asserted in the prem-
ises, and obvious to whoever apprehends them. The fact asserted in the
conclusion is either the very same fact, or part of the fact, asserted in the
original proposition. This follows from our previous analysis of the Im-
port of Propositions. "When we say, for example, that some lawful sov-
ereigns are tyrants, what is the meaning of the assertion? That the attri-
butes connoted by the term " lawful sovereign," and the attributes connoted
by the term " tyrant," sometimes co-exist in the same individual. Now this
is also precisely what we mean, when we say that some tyrants are lawful
sovereigns ; which, therefore, is not a second proposition inferred from the
first, any more than the English translation of Euclid's Elements is a col-
lection of theorems different from and consequences of, those contained in
the Greek original. Again, if we assert that no great general is a rash
man, we mean that the attributes connoted by " great general," and those
connoted by " rash," never co-exist in the same subject; which is also the
exact meaning which would be expressed by saying, that no rash man is a
* The different cases of Equipollency, or "Equivalent Prepositional Forms, "are set forth
with some fullness in Professor Bain's Logic. One of the commonest of these changes of
expression, that from affirming a proposition to denying- its negative, or vice versa, Mr. Bain
designates, very happily, by the name Obversion.
t As Sir William Hamilton lias pointed out, /'Some A is not B" may also be converted in
the following form : " No B is some A." Some men are not negroes ; therefore, No negroes
are some men (e. g. , Europeans).
124 REASONING.
ucreat general. When we say that all quadrupeds are warm-blooded, we
assert, not only that the attributes connoted by " quadruped " and those
connoted by " warm-blooded " sometimes co-exist, but that the former nev-
er exist without the latter : now the proposition, Some warm-blooded crea-
tures are quadrupeds, expresses the first half of this meaning, dropping the
latter half; and therefore has been already affirmed in the antecedent prop-
osition, All quadrupeds are warm-blooded. I>ut that all warm-blooded
creatures are quadrupeds, or, in other words, that the attributes connoted
by "warm-blooded" never exist without those connoted by "quadruped,"
has not been asserted, and can not be inferred. In order to re-assert, in an
inverted form, the whole of what was affirmed in the proposition, All quad-
rupeds are warm-blooded, we must convert it by contraposition, thus, Noth-
ing which is not warm-blooded is a quadruped. This proposition, and the
one from which it is derived, are exactly equivalent, and either of them may
be substituted for the other ; for, to say that when the attributes of a quad-
ruped are present, those of a warm-blooded creature are present, is to say
that when the latter are absent the former are absent.
In a manual for young students, it would be proper to dwell at greater
length on the conversion and equipollency of propositions. For though
that can not be called reasoning or inference which is a mere re-assertion in
different words of what had been asserted before, there is no more impor-
tant intellectual habit, nor any the cultivation of which falls more strictly
within the province of the art of logic, than that of discerning rapidly and
surely the identity of an assertion when disguised under diversity of lan-
guage. That important chapter in logical treatises which relates to the Op-
position of Propositions, and the excellent technical language which logic
provides for distinguishing the different kinds or modes of opposition, are
of use chiefly for this purpose. Such considerations as these, that contrary
propositions may both be false, but can not both be true ; that subcontrary
propositions may both be true, but can not both be false ; that of two con-
tradictory propositions one must be true and the other false ; that of two
subalternate propositions the truth of the universal proves the truth of the
particular, and the falsity of the particular proves the falsity of the univer-
sal, but not vied versa ;* are apt to appear, at first sight, very technical and
mysterious, but when explained, seem almost too obvious to require so form-
al a statement, since the same amount of explanation which is necessary
to make the principles intelligible, would enable the truths which they con-
vey to be apprehended in any particular case which can occur. In this
respect, however, these axioms of logic are on a level with those of mathe-
matics. That things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another, is as obvious in any particular case as it is in the general state-
ment: and if no such general maxim had ever been laid down, the demon-
strations in Euclid would never have halted for any difficulty in stepping
across the gap which this axiom at present serves to bridge over. Yet no
* All A is B>
No AiBBj- Contrarie8 -
Some A is B >
SomeAi 8 notBJ- Bubcontraries -
" A I s B ' contradictories.
Some A is not 1$)
No A is B> ,
So me AisB,- alsocontra(llctones -
All A is B) , No AisB >
Some A is B)' nnd Some A is not Bj' *I*CtiTely subalternate.
INFERENCE IN GENERAL. 12 5
one has ever censured writers on geometry, for placing a list of these ele-
mentary generalizations at the head of their treatises, as a first exercise to
the learner of the faculty which will be required in him at every step, that
of apprehending a general truth. And the student of logic, in the discus-
sion even of such truths as we have cited above, acquires habits of cir-
cumspect interpretation of words, and of exactly measuring the length and
breadth of his assertions, which are among the most indispensable condi-
tions of any considerable mental attainment, and which it is one of the
primary objects of logical discipline to cultivate.
3. Having noticed, in order to exclude from the province of Reasoning
or Inference properly so called, the cases in which the progression from one
truth to another is only apparent, the logical consequent being a mere rep-
etition of the logical antecedent ; we now pass to those which are cases of
inference in the proper acceptation of the term, those in which we set out
from known truths, to arrive at others ideally distinct from them.
Reasoning, in the extended sense in which I use the term, and in which
it is synonymous with Inference, is popularly said to be of two kinds : rea-
soning from particulars to generals, and reasoning from generals to partic-
ulars ; the former being called Induction, the latter Ratiocination or Syllo-
gism. It will presently be shown that there is a third species of reasoning,
which falls under neither of these descriptions, and which, nevertheless, is
not only valid, but is the foundation of both the others.
It is necessary to observe, that the expressions, reasoning from particu-
lars to generals, and reasoning from generals to particulars, are recom-
mended by brevity rather than by precision, and do not adequately mark,
without the aid of a commentary, the distinction between Induction (in the
sense now adverted to) and Ratiocination. The meaning intended by these
expressions is, that Induction is inferring a proposition from propositions
less general than itself, and Ratiocination is inferring a proposition from
propositions equally or more general. When, from the observation of a
number of individual instances, we ascend to a general proposition, or when,
by combining a number of general propositions, we conclude from them
another proposition still more general, the process, which is substantially
the same in both instances, is called Induction. When from a general prop-
osition, not alone (for from a single proposition nothing can be concluded
which is not involved in the terms), but by combining it with other propo-
sitions, we infer a proposition of the same degree of generality with itself,
or a less general proposition, or a proposition merely individual, the process
is Ratiocination. When, in short, the conclusion is more general than the
largest of the premises, the argument is commonly called Induction ; when
less general, or equally general, it is Ratiocination.
As all experience begins with individual cases, and proceeds from them
to generals, it might seem most conformable to the natural order of thought
that Induction should be treated of before we touch upon Ratiocination.
It will, however, be advantageous, in a science which aims at tracing our
acquired knowledge to its sources, that the inquirer should commence with
the latter rather than with the earlier stages of the process of constructing
our knowledge ; and should trace derivative truths backward to the truths
from which they are deduced, and on which they depend tor their evidence,
before attempting to point out the original spring from which both ulti-
mately take their rise. The advantages of this order of proceeding in the
present instance will manifest themselves as we advance, in a manner su-
perseding the necessity of any further justification or explanation.
126 REASONING.
Of Induction, therefore, we shall say no more at present, than that it at
least is, without doubt, a process of real inference. The conclusion in an
induction embraces more than is contained in the premises. The principle
or law collected from particular instances, the general proposition in which
we embody the result of our experience, covers a much larger extent of
ground than the individual experiments which form its basis. A principle
ascertained by experience, is more than a mere summing up of what has
been specifically observed in the individual cases which have been exam-
ined ; it is a generalization grounded on those cases, and expressive of our
belief, that what we there found true is true in an indefinite number of
cases which we have not examined, and are never likely to examine. The
nature and grounds of this inference, and the conditions necessary to make
it legitimate, will be the subject of discussion in the Third Book : but that
such inference really takes place is not susceptible of question. In every
induction we proceed from truths which we knew, to truths which we did
not know ; from facts certified by observation, to facts Avhich we have not
observed, and even to facts not capable of being now observed ; future
facts, for example; but which we do not hesitate to believe on the sole evi-
dence of the induction itself.
Induction, then, is a real process of Reasoning or Inference. Whether,
and in what sense, as much can be said of the Syllogism, remains to be de-
termined by the examination into which we arc about to enter.
CHAPTER II.
OF RATIOCIXATIOX, OR SYLLOGISM.
1. THE analysis of the Syllogism lias been so accurately and fully per-
formed in the common manuals of Logic, that in the present work, which
is not designed as a manual, it is sufficient to recapitulate, menwriw caitsd,
the leading results of that analysis, as a foundation for the remarks to be
afterward made on the functions of the Syllogism, and the place which it
holds in science.
To a legitimate syllogism it is essential that there should be three, and
no more than three, propositions, namely, the conclusion, or proposition to
be proved, and two other propositions which together prove it, and which
are called the premises. It is essential that there should be three, and no
more than three, terms, namely, the subject and predicate of the conclu-
sion, and another called the middle term, which must be found in both
premises, since it is by means of it that the other two terms are to be con-
nected together. The predicate of the conclusion is called the major term
of the syllogism; the subject of the conclusion is called the minor term.
As there can be but three terms, the major and minor terms must each be
found in one, and only one, of the premises, together with the middle term
which is in them both. The premise which contains the middle term aad
the major term is called the major premise ; that which contains the mid-
dle term and the minor term is called the minor premise.
Syllogisms are divided by some logicians into three jfif/itres, by others
into four, according to the position of the middle term, which may either
be the subject in both premises, the predicate in both, or the subject in
one and the predicate in the other. The most common case is that in which
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM.
127
the middle term is the subject of the major premise and the predicate of
the minor. This is reckoned as the first figure. When the middle term is
the predicate in both premises, the syllogism belongs to the second figure ;
when it is the subject in both, to the third. In the fourth figure the mid-
dle term is the subject of the minor premise and the predicate of the major.
Those writers who reckon no more than three figures, include this case in
the first.
Each figure is divided into moods, according to what are called the quan-
tity and quality of the propositions, that is, according as they are universal
or particular, affirmative or negative. The following are examples of all
the legitimate moods, that is, all those in which the conclusion correctly
follows from the premises. A is the minor term, C the major, B the mid-
dle term.
FIRST FIGURE.
All B is C
All A is B
therefore
All A is C
No C is B
All A is B
therefore
No A is C
No B is C
All A is B
therefore
No A is C
All B is C
Some A is B
therefore
Some A is C
SECOND FIGURE.
All C is B No C is B
No A is B Some A is B
therefore therefore
No A is C Some A is not C
THIRD FIGURE.
No B is C
Some A is B
therefore
Some A is not C
All C is B
Some A is not B
therefore
Some A is not C
All C is B
No B is A
therefore
Some A is not C
FOURTH FIGURE.
Some C is B No C is B
All B is A All B is A
therefore therefore
Some A is C Some A is not C
No C is B
Some B is A
therefore
Some A is not C
All B is C No B is C Some B is C All B is C Some B is not C No B is C
All Bis A All Bis A All B is A SomeBisA All B is A Seme B is A
therefore therefore therefore therefore therefore therefore
Some A is C Some A is not C Some A is C Some A is C Some A is not C Some A is not C
All C is B
All B is A
therefore
Some A is C
In these exemplars, or blank forms for making syllogisms, no place is
assigned to singular propositions ; not, of course, because such proposi-
tions are not used in ratiocination, but because, their predicate being af-
firmed or denied of the whole of the subject, they are ranked, for the pur-
poses of the syllogism, with universal propositions. Thus, these two syllo-
gisms
All men are mortal, All men are mortal,
All kings are men, Socrates is a man,
therefore therefore
All kings are mortal, Socrates is mortal,
are arguments precisely similar, and are both ranked in the first mood of
the first figure.*
* Professor Bain denies the claim of Singular Propositions to be classed, for the purposes
of ratiocination, with Universal ; though they come within the designation which he himself
proposes as an equivalent for Universal, that of Total. He would even, to use his own ex-
pression, banish them entirely from the syllogism. He takes as an example,
Socrates is wise,
Socrates is poor, therefore
Some poor men are wise,
or more properly (as he observes) "one poor man is wise." "Now, if wise, poor, and a
man, are attributes belonging to the meaning of the word Socrates, there is then no march of
128 REASONING.
The reasons why syllogisms in any of the above iorms are legitimate,
that is, why, if the premises are true, the conclusion must inevitably be so,
and why this is not the case in any other possible mood (that is, in any-
other combination of universal and particular, affirmative and negative
propositions), any person taking interest in these inquiries may be pre-
sumed to have either learned from the common-school books of the syllo-
gistic logic, or to be capable of discovering for himself. The reader may,
however, be referred, for every needful explanation, to Archbishop AVhate-
ly's Elements of f^ogic, where he will find stated with philosophical pre-
cision, and explained with remarkable perspicuity, the whole of the com-
mon doctrine of the syllogism.
All valid ratiocination ; all reasoning by which, from general propositions
reasoning at all. We have given in Socrates, inter alia, the facts wise, poor, and a man, and
we merely repeat the concurrence which is selected from the whole aggregate of properties
milking up the whole, Socrates. The case is one under the head 'Greater and Less Connota-
tion ' in Equivalent Prepositional Forms, or Immediate Inference.
''But the example in this form does not do justice to the syllogism of singulars. "\Ve must
suppose both propositions to be real, the predicates being in no way involved in the subject.
Tli us
Socrates was the master of Plato,
Socrates fought at Delium,
The master of Plato fought at Delium.
lt lt may fairly be doubted whether the transitions, in this instance, are any tiling more
than equivalent forms. For the proposition ' Socrates was the master of Plato and fought at
Delium,' compounded out of the two premises, is obviously nothing more than a grammatical
abbreviation. No one can say that there is here any change of meaning, or any thing beyond
a verbal modification of the original form. The next step is, ' The master of Plato fought at
Delium,' which is the previous statement cut down by the omission of Socrates. It contents
itself with reproducing a part of the meaning, or saying less than had been previously said.
The full equivalent of the affirmation is, 'The master of Plato fought at Delium, and the
master of Plato was Socrates:' the new form omits the last piece of information, and gives
only the first. Now, we never consider that we have made a real inference, a step in advance,
when we repeat /ess than we are entitled to say, or drop from a complex statement some por-
tion not desired at the moment. Such an operation keeps strictly within the domain of equiv-
alence, or Immediate Inference. In no way, therefore, can a syllogism with two singular
premises be viewed as a genuine syllogistic or deductive inference." (Logic, i., lf>9.)
The first argument, as will have been seen, rests upon the supposition that the name Soc-
rates has a meaning ; that man, wise, and poor, are parts of this meaning ; and that by predi-
cating them of Socrates we convey no information ; a view of the signification of names
which, for reasons already given,* I can not admit, and which, as applied to the class of names
which Socrates belongs to, is at war with Mr. Bain's own definition of a Proper Name (i., 148),
"a single meaningless mark or designation appropriated to the thingi" Such names, Mr.
Bain proceeded to say, do not necessarily indicate even human beings : much less then does
the name Socrates include the meaning of wise or poor. Otherwise it would follow that if
Socrates had grown rich, or had lost his mental faculties by illness, he would no longer have
been called Socrates.
The second part of Mr. Bain's argument, in which he contends that even when the premises
convey real information, the conclusion is merely the premises with a part left out, is applica-
ble, if at all, as much to universal propositions as to singular. In every syllogism the con-
clusion contains less than is asserted in the two premises taken together. Suppose the syllo-
gism to be
All bees are intelligent,
All bees are insects, therefore
Some insects are intelligent :
one might use the same liberty taken by Mr. Bain, of joining together the two premises as if
they were one "All bees are insects and intelligent" and might say that in omitting the
middle term bees we make no real inference, but merely reproduce part of what had been pre-
viously said. Mr. Bain's is really an objection to the syllogism itself, or at all events to the
third figure : it has no special applicability to singular propositions.
* Note to 4 of the chapter on Definition, supra, pp. 110, 111.
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 129
previously admitted, other propositions equally or less general are inferred ;
may be exhibited in some of the above forms. The whole of Euclid, for
example, might be thrown without difficulty into a series of syllogisms,
regular in mood and figure.
Though a syllogism framed according to any of these formulae is a valid
argument, all correct ratiocination admits of being stated in syllogisms of
the first figure alone. The rules for throwing an argument in any of the
other figures into the first figure, are called rules for the reduction of syl-
logisms. It is done by the conversion of one or other, or both, of the prem-
ises. Thus an argument in the first mood of the second figure, as
No C is B
All A is B
therefore
No A is C,
may be reduced as follows. The proposition, No C is B, being a universal
negative, admits of simple conversion, and may be changed into No B is
C, which, as we showed, is the very same assertion in other words the
same fact differently expressed. This transformation having been effected,
the argument assumes the following form :
No B is C
All A is B
therefore
No A is C,
which is a good syllogism in the second mood of the first figure. Again,
an argument in the first mood of the third figure must resemble the fol-
lowing :
All B is C
All B is A
therefore
Some A is C,
where the minor premise, All B is A, conformably to what was laid down
in the last chapter respecting universal affirmatives, does not admit of sim-
ple conversion, but may be converted per accidens, thus, Some A is B ;
which, though it does not express the whole of what is asserted in the
proposition All B is A, expresses, as was formerly shown, part of it, and
must therefore be true if the whole is true. We have, then, as the re-
sult of the reduction, the following syllogism in the third mood of the first
figure :
All B is C
Some A is B,
from which it obviously follows, that
Some A is C.
In the same manner, or in a manner on which after these examples it is
not necessary to enlarge, every mood of the second, third, and fourth fig-
ures may be reduced to some one of the four moods of the first. In other
words, every conclusion which can be proved in any of the last three fig-
ures, may be proved in the first figure from the same premises, with a
slight alteration in the mere manner of expressing them. Every valid ra-
tiocination, therefore, may be stated in the first figure, that is, in one of the
following forms :
9
130 REASONING.
Every B is C No B is C
All A ) . -p All A I . -p
Some A f 1S B > Some A \ 1S B >
therefore therefore
All A I r No A is ) r
Some A J Some A is not f
Or, if more significant symbols are preferred :
To prove an affirmative, the argument must admit of being stated in this
form :
All animals arc mortal ;
All men }
Some men v are animals;
Socrates )
therefore
All men }
Some men v are mortal.
Socrates )
To prove a negative, the argument must be capable of being expressed
in this form :
No one who is capable of self-control is necessarily vicious ;
All negroes }
Some negroes v are capable of self-control ;
Mr. A's negro )
therefore
No negroes are }
Some negroes are not > necessarily vicious.
Mr. A's negro is not )
Though all ratiocination admits of being thrown into one or the other of
these forms, and sometimes gains considerably by the transformation, both
in clearness and in the obviousness of its consequence ; there are, no doubt,
cases in which the argument falls more naturally into one of the other three
figures, and in which its conclusiveness is more apparent at the first glance
in those figures, than when reduced to the first. Thus, if the proposition
were that pagans may be virtuous, and the evidence to prove it were the
example of Aristides ; a syllogism in the third figure,
Aristides was virtuous,
Aristides was a pagan,
therefore
Some pagan was virtuous,
would be a more natural mode of stating the argument, and would carry
conviction more instantly home, than the same ratiocination strained into
the first figure, thus
Aristides was virtuous,
Some pagan was Aristides,
therefore
Some pagan was virtuous.
A German philosopher, Lambert, whose Neues Organon (published in
the year 1764) contains among other things one of the most elaborate and
complete expositions which had ever been made of the syllogistic doctrine,
has expressly examined what sort of arguments fall most naturally and suit-
ably into each of the four figures ; and his investigation is characterized by
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 131
great ingenuity and clearness of thought.* The argument, however, is one
and the same, in whichever figure it is expressed ; since, as we have already
seen, the premises of a syllogism in the second, third, or fourth figure, and
those of the syllogism in the first figure to which it may be reduced, are
the same premises in every thing except language, or, at least, as much of
them as contributes to the proof of the conclusion is the same. We are
therefore at liberty, in conformity with the general opinion of logicians, to
consider the two elementary forms of the first figure as the universal types
of all correct ratiocination ; the one, when the conclusion to be proved is
affirmative, the other, when it is negative ; even though certain arguments
may have a tendency to clothe themselves in the forms of the second, third,
and fourth figures ; which, however, can not possibly happen with the only
class of arguments which are of first-rate scientific importance, those in
which the conclusion is a universal affirmative, such conclusions being sus-
ceptible of proof in the first figure alone. f
* His conclusions are, "The first figure is suited to the discovery or proof of the properties
of a thing ; the second to the discovery or proof of the distinctions between things ; the third
to the discovery or proof of instances and exceptions ; the fourth to the discovery, or exclu-
sion, of the different species of a genus." The reference of syllogisms in the last three figures
to the dictum de omni et nullo is, in Lambert's opinion, strained and unnatural : to each of
the three belongs, according to him, a separate axiom, co-ordinate and of equal authority with
that dictum, and to which he gives the names of dictum de diverso for the second figure,
dictum de exemplo for the third, and dictum de reciproco for the fourth. See part L, or Dia-
noiologie, chap, iv., 229 et seqq. Mr. Bailey (Theory of Reasoning, 2d ed., pp. 70-74)
takes a similar view of the subject.
t Since this chapter was written, two treatises have appeared (or rather a treatise and a
fragment of a treatise), which aim at a further improvement in the theory of the forms of
ratiocination: Mr. De Morgan's "Formal Logic; or, the Calculus of Inference, Necessary
and Probable;" and the "New Analytic of Logical Forms," attached as an Appendix to Sir
William Hamilton's Discussions on P'hilosophy, and at greater length, to his posthumous Lec-
tures on Logic.
In Mr. Ue Morgan's volume abounding, in its more popular parts, with valuable observa-
tions felicitously expressed the principal feature of originality is an attempt to bring within
strict technical rules the cases in which a conclusion can be drawn from premises of a form
usually classed as particular. Mr. De Morgan observes, very justly, that from the premises
most Bs are Cs, most Bs are As, it may be concluded with certainty that some As are Cs,
since two portions of the class B, each of them comprising more than half, must necessarily
in part consist of the same individuals. Following out this line of thought, it is equally evi-
dent that if we knew exactly what proportion the "most " in each of the premises bear to the
entire class B, we could increase in a corresponding degree the definiteness of the conclusion.
Thus if GO per cent, of B are included in C, and 70 per cent, in A, 30 per cent, at least must
be common to both ; in other words, the number of As which are Cs, and of Cs which are
As, must be at least equal to 30 per cent, of the class B. Proceeding on this conception of
"numerically definite propositions, "and extending it to such forms as these: "45 Xs (or
more) are each of them one of 70 Ys," or "45 Xs (or more) are no one of them to be found
among 70 Ys," and examining what inferences admit of being drawn from the various com-
binations which may be made of premises of this description, Mr. De Morgan establishes uni-
versal formulaj for such inferences ; creating for that purpose not only a new technical lan-
guage, but a formidable array of symbols analogous to those of algebra.
Since it is undeniable that inferences, in the cases examined by Mr. De Morgan, can legiti-
mately be drawn, and that the ordinary theory takes no account of them, I will not say that
it was not worth while to show in detail how these also could be reduced to formula) as rigor-
ous as those of Aristotle. What Mr. De Morgan has done was worth doing once (perhaps
more than once, as a school exercise) ; but I question if its results are worth studying and
mastering for any practical purpose. The practical use of technical forms of reasoning is to
bar out fallacies : but the fallacies which require to be guarded against in ratiocination properly
so called, arise from the incautious use of the common forms of language ; and the logician
must' track the fallacy into that territory, instead of waiting for it on a territory of his own.
While he remains among propositions which have acquired the numerical precision of the
Calculus of Probabilities, the enemy is left in possession of the only ground on which he can
be formidable. And since the propositions (short of universal) on which a thinker has to de-
132 REASONING.
2. On examining, then, these two general formula?, we find that in
both of them, one premise, the major, is a universal proposition; and ac-
pend. either for purposes of speculation or of practice, do not, except in u few peculiar cases,
admit of any numerical precision ; common reasoning can not be translated into Mr. De
Morgan's forms, which therefore can not serve any purpose as a test of it.
Sir William Hamilton's theory of the "quantification of the predicate " may be described as
follows :
''Logically " (I quote his words) "we ought to take into account the quantity, always un-
derstood in thought, but usually, for manifest reasons, elided in its expression, not only of the
subject, but also of the predicate of a judgment." All A is B, is equivalent to all A is some
B. No A is B, to No A is any B. Some A is B, is tantamount to some A is some B.
Some A is not B, to Some A is not any B. As in these forms of assertion the predicate is
exactly co-extensive with the subject, they all admit of simple conversion ; and by this we
obtain two additional forms Some B is all A, and No B is some A. \Ve may also make
the assertion All A is all B, which will be true if the classes A and B are exactly co-extensive.
The last three forms, though conveying real assertions, have no place in the ordinary classifi-
cation of Propositions. All propositions, then, being supposed to be translated into this lan-
guage, and written each in that one of the preceding forms which answers to its signification,
there emerges a new set of syllogistic rules, materially different from the common ones. A
general view of the points of difference may be given in the words of Sir W. Hamilton (Dis-
cussions, 2d ed. , ]). Gf>l) :
"The revocation of the two terms of a Proposition to their true relation ; a proposition be-
ing always an equation of its subject and its predicate.
'The consequent reduction of the Conversion of Propositions from three species to one
that of Simple Conversion.
''The reduction of all the General Lairs of Categorical Syllogisms to a single Canon.
"The evolution from that one canon of all the Species and varieties of Syllogisms.
"The abrogation of all the Special Laws of Syllogism.
"A demonstration of the exclusive possibility of Three Syllogistic Figures; and (on new
grounds) the scientific and final abolition of the Fourth.
"A manifestation that Figure is an unessential variation in syllogistic form; and the con-
sequent absurdity of Reducing the syllogisms of the other figures to the first.
"An enouncement of one Organic Principle for each Figure.
"A determination of the true number of the Legitimate Moods ; with
"Their amplification in number (thirty-six);
" Their numerical equality under all the figures ; and
"Their relative equivalence, or virtual identity, throughout every schematic difference.
"That, in the second and third figures, the extremes holding both the same relation to the
middle term, there is not, as in the first, an opposition and subordination between a term ma-
jor and a term minor, mutually containing and contained, in the counter wholes of Extension
and Comprehension.
"Consequently, in the second and third figures, there is no determinate major and minor
premises, and there are two indifferent conclusions : whereas in the first the premises are de-
terminate, and there is a single proximate conclusion."
This doctrine, like that of Mr. l)e Morgan previously noticed, is a veal addition to the syl-
logistic theory ; and has moreover this advantage over Mr. De Morgan's "numerically definite
Syllogism," that the forms it supplies are really available as a test of the correctness of ratioc-
ination : since propositions in the common form may always have their predicates quantified,
and so be made amenable to Sir W. Hamilton's rules. Considered, however, as a contribution
to the Science of Logic, that is, to the analysis of the mental processes concerned in reasoning,
the new doctrine appears to me, I confess, not merely superfluous, but erroneous ; since the
form in which it clothes propositions does not, like the ordinary form, express what is in the
mind of the speaker when he enunciates the proposition. I can not think Sir William Ham-
ilton right in maintaining that the quantity of the predicate is " always understood in thought."
It is implied, but is not present to the mind of the person who asserts the proposition. The
quantification of the predicate, instead of being a means of bringing out more clearly the mean-
ing of the proposition, actually leads the mind out of the proposition, into another order of
ideas. For when we say, All men are mortal, we simply mean to affirm the attribute mor-
tality of all men ; without thinking at all of the class mortal in the concrete, or troubling our-
selves about whether it contains any other beings or not. It is only for some artificial- pur-
pose that we ever look at the proposition in the aspect in which the predicate also is thought
of as a class-name, either including the subject only, or the subject and something more. (See
above, p. 77, 78.)
For a fuller discussion of this subject, see the twenty-second chapter of a work already re-
ferred to, "An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy."
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 133
cording as this is affirmative or negative, the conclusion is so too. All
ratiocination, therefore, starts from a general proposition, principle, or as-
sumption : a proposition in which a predicate is affirmed or denied of an
entire class ; that is, in which some attribute, or the negation of some
attribute, is asserted of an indefinite number of objects distinguished
by a common characteristic, and designated, in consequence, by a common
name.
The other premise is always affirmative, and asserts that something (which
may be either an individual, a class, or part of a class) belongs to, or is in-
cluded in, the class respecting which something was affirmed or denied in
the major premise. It follows that the attribute affirmed or denied of the
entire class may (if that affirmation or denial was correct) be affirmed or
denied of the object or objects alleged to be included in the class: and this
is precisely the assertion made in the conclusion.
Whether or not the foregoing is an adequate account of the constituent
parts of the syllogism, will be presently considered ; but as far as it goes it
is a true account. It has accordingly been generalized, and erected into a
logical maxim, on which all ratiocination is said to be founded, insomuch
that to reason, and to apply the maxim, are supposed to be one and the
same tiling. The maxim is, That whatever can be affirmed (or denied) of
a class, may be affirmed (or denied) of every thing included in the class.
This axiom, supposed to be the basis of the syllogistic theory, is termed by
logicians the dictum de omni et nullo.
This maxim, however, when considered as a principle of reasoning, ap-
pears suited to a system of metaphysics once indeed generally received, but
which for the last two centuries has been considered as finally abandoned,
though there have not been wanting in our own day attempts at its revival.
So long as what are termed Universals were regarded as a peculiar kind of
substances, having an objective existence distinct from the individual ob
jects classed under them, the dictum de omni conveyed an important mean-
ing ; because it expressed the intercommunity of nature, which it was nec-
essary on that theory that we should suppose to exist between those gen-
eral substances and the particular substances which were subordinated to
them. That every thing predicable of the universal was predicable of the
various individuals contained under it, was then no identical proposition,
but a statement of what was conceived as a fundamental law of the uni-
verse. The assertion that the entire nature and properties of the substan-
tia secunda formed part of the nature and properties of each of the indi-
vidual substances called by the same name; that the properties of Man, for
example, were properties of all men ; was a proposition of real significance
when man did not mean all men, but something inherent in men, and vast-
ly superior to them in dignity. Xow, however, when it is known that a
class, a universal, a genus or species, is not an entity per se, but neither
more nor less than the individual substances themselves which are placed
in the class, and that there is nothing real in the matter except those objects,
a common name given to them, and common attributes indicated by th,e
name ; what, I should be glad to know, do we learn by being told, that
whatever can be affirmed of a class, may be affirmed of every object con-
tained in the class ? The class is nothing but the objects contained in it :
and the dictum de omni merely amounts to the identical proposition, that
whatever is true of certain objects, is true of each of those objects. If all
ratiocination were no more than the application of this maxim to particular
cases, the syllogism would indeed be, what it has so often been, declared to
134 REASONING.
be, solemn trifling. The dictum de omni is on a par with another truth,
which in its time was also reckoned of great importance, " Whatever is,
is." To give any real meaning to the dictum de omni, \ve must consider
it not as an axiom, but as a definition ; we must look upon it as intended
to explain, in a circuitous and paraphrastic manner, the meaning of the
word class.
An error which seemed finally refuted and dislodged from thought, often
needs only put on a new suit of phrases, to be welcomed back to its old
quarters, and allowed to repose unquestioned for another cycle of ages.
Modern philosophers have not been sparing in their contempt for the scho-
lastic dogma that genera and species are a peculiar kind of substances, which
general substances being the only permanent things, while the individual
substances comprehended under them are in a perpetual flux, knowledge,
which necessarily imports stability, can only have relation to those general
substances or universals, and not to the facts or particulars included un-
der them. Yet, though nominally rejected, this very doctrine, whether dis-
guised under the Abstract Ideas of Locke (whose speculations, however, it
has less vitiated than those of perhaps any other writer who has been in-
fected with it), under the ultra-nominalism of Hobbes and Condillac, or the
ontology of the later German schools, has never ceased to poison philosophy.
Once accustomed to consider scientific investigation as essentially consist-
ing in the study of universals, men did not drop this habit of thought when
they ceased to regard universals as possessing an independent existence:
and* even those who went the length of considering them as mere names,
could not free themselves from the notion that the investigation of truth
consisted entirely or partly in some kind of conjuration or juggle with those
names. When a philosopher adopted fully the Xominalist view of the
signification of general language, retaining along with it the dictum de
omni as the foundation of all reasoning, two such premises fairly put to-
gether were likely, if he was a consistent thinker, to land him in rather
startling conclusions. Accordingly it has been seriously held, by writers
of deserved celebrity, that the process of arriving at new truths by reason-
ing consists in the mere substitution of one set of arbitrary signs for an-
other; a doctrine which they suppose to derive irresistible confirmation
from the example of algebra. If there were any process in sorcery or
necromancy more preternatural than this, I should be much surprised.
The culminating point of this philosophy is the noted aphorism of Condil-
lac, that a science is nothing, or scarcely any thing, but nne lanyue bien
fdite; in other words, that the one sufficient rule for discovering the nature
and properties of objects is to name them properly : as if the reverse were
not the truth, that it is impossible to name them properly except in propor-
tion as we are already acquainted with their nature and properties. Can
it be necessary to say, that none, not even the most trivial knowledge with
respect to Things, ever was or could be originally got at by any conceivable
manipulation of mere names, as such ; and that what can be learned from
names, is only what somebody who used the names knew before? Philo-
sophical analysis confirms the indication of common sense, that the func-
tion of names is but that of enabling us to remember and to communicate
our thoughts. That they also strengthen, even to an incalculable extent,
the power of thought itself, is most true: but they do this by no intrinsic
and peculiar virtue; they do it by the power inherent in an artificial mem-
ory, an instrument of which few have adequately considered the immense
potency. As an artificial memory, language truly is, what it has so often
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 135
been called, an instrument of thought ; but it is one thing to be the instru-
ment, and another to be the exclusive subject upon which the instrument
is exercised. We think, indeed, to a considerable extent, by means of
names, but what we think of, are the things called by those names ; and
there can not be a greater error than to imagine that thought can be car-
ried on with nothing in our rnind but names, or that we can make the
names think for us.
3. Those who considered the dictum de omni as the foundation of the
syllogism, looked upon arguments in a manner corresponding to the erro-
neous view which Ilobbes took of propositions. Because there are some
propositions which are merely verbal, Hobbes, in order apparently that his
definition might be rigorously universal, defined a proposition as if no
propositions declared any thing except the meaning of words. If Hobbes
was right; if no further account than this could be given of the import of
propositions; no theory could be given but the commonly received one,
of the combination of propositions in a syllogism. If the minor premise
asserted nothing more than that something belongs to a class, and if the
major premise asserted nothing of that class except that it is included in
another class, the conclusion would only be that what was included in the
lower class is included in the higher, and the result, therefore, nothing ex-
cept that the classification is consistent with itself. But we have seen that
it is no sufficient account of the meaning of a proposition, to say that it
refers something to, or excludes something from, a class. Every proposi-
tion which conveys real information asserts a matter of fact, dependent on
the laws of nature, and not on classification. It asserts that a given object
does or does not possess a given attribute ; or it asserts that two attri-
butes, or sets of attributes, do or do not (constantly or occasionally) co-ex-
ist. Since such is the purport of all propositions which convey any real
knowledge, and since ratiocination is a mode of acquiring real knowledge,
any theory of ratiocination which does not recognize this import of propo-
sitions, can not, we may be sure, be the true one.
Applying this view of propositions to the two premises of a syllogism,
we obtain the following results. The major premise, which, as already
remarked, is always universal, asserts, that all things which have a certain
attribute (or attributes) have or have not along with it, a certain other at-
tribute (or attributes). The minor premise asserts that the thing or set
of things which are the subject of that premise, have the first-mentioned
attribute ; and the conclusion is, that they have (or that they have not), the
second. Thus in our former example,
All men are mortal,
Socrates is a man,
therefore
Socrates is mortal,
the subject and predicate of the major premise are connotative terms, de-
noting objects and connoting attributes. The assertion in the major prem-
ise is, that along with one of the two sets of attributes, we always find
the other : that the attributes connoted by " man " never exist unless con-
joined with the attribute called mortality. The assertion in the minor prem-
ise is that the individual named Socrates possesses the former attributes ;
and it is concluded that he possesses also the attribute mortality. Or, if
both the premises are general propositions, as
136 REASONING.
All men are mortal,
All kings are men,
therefore
All kings are mortal,
the minor premise asserts that the attributes denoted by kingship only
exist in conjunction with those signified by the word man. The major
asserts as before, that the last-mentioned attributes are never found without
the attribute of mortality. The conclusion is, that wherever the attributes
of kingship are found, that of mortality is found also.
If the major premise were negative, as, No men are omnipotent, it would
assert, not that the attributes connoted by " man " never exist without, but
that they never exist with, those connoted by " omnipotent :" from which,
together with the minor premise, it is concluded, that the same incompati-
bility exists between the attribute omnipotence and those constituting a
king. In a similar manner we might analyze any other example of the
syllogism.
If we generalize this process, and look out for the principle or law in-
volved in every such inference, and presupposed in every syllogism, the
propositions of which are any thing more than merely verbal; we find, riot
the unmeaning dictum de omni et nullo, but a fundamental principle, or
rather two principles, strikingly resembling the axioms of mathematics.
The first, which is the principle of affirmative syllogisms, is, that things
which co-exist with the same thing, co-exist with one another: or (still more
precisely) a thing which co-exists with another thing, which other co-exists
with a third thing, also co-exists with that third thing. The second is the
principle of negative syllogisms, and is to this effect: that a thing which
co-exists with another thing, with which other a third thing does not co-ex-
ist, is not co-existent with that third thing. These axioms manifestly relate
to facts, and not to conventions ; and one or other of them is the ground of
the legitimacy of every ai'gument in which facts and not conventions are
the matter treated of.*
* Mr. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Psychology, pp. 125-7), though his theory of the syl-
logism coincides with all that is essential of mine, thinks it a logical fallacy to present the two
axioms in the text, as the regulating principles of syllogism. He charges me with filling
into the error pointed out by Archbishop Whately and myself, of confounding exact likeness
with literal identity ; and maintains, that we ought not to say that Socrates possesses the
same attributes which are connoted by the word Man, but only that he possesses attributes
exactly like them : according to which phraseology, Socrates, and the attribute mortality,
are not two things co-existing with the same thing, as the axiom asserts, but two things co-
existing with two different things.
The question between Mr. Spencer and me is merely one of language; for neither of us (if
I understand Mr. Spencer's opinions rightly) believes an attribute to be a real thing, possessed
of objective existence ; we believe it to be a particular mode of naming our sensations, or our
expectations of sensation, when looked at in their relation to an external object which excites
them. The question raised by Mr. Spencer does not, therefore, concern the properties of anv
really existing thing, but the comparative appropriateness, for philosophical purposes, of two
different modes of using a name. Considered in this point of view, the phraseology 1 have
employed, which is that commonly used by philosophers, seems to me to be the best. Mr.
Spencer is of opinion that because Socrates and Alcibiades are not the same man, the attri-
bute which constitutes them men should not be called the same attribute ; that because the
humanity of one man and that of another express themselves to our senses not by the same
individual sensations but by sensations exactly alike, humanity ought to be regarded as a dif-
ferent attribute in every different man. J5ut on tiiis showing, the humanity even of any one
man should be considered as different attributes now and half an hour hence ; for the sensa-
tions by which it will then manifest itself to my organs will not be a continuation of my pres-
ent sensations, but a repetition of them ; fresh sensations, not identical with, but only exactly
RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM. 137
4. It remains to translate this exposition of the syllogism from the
one into the other of the two languages in which we formerly remarked*
that all propositions, and of course therefore all combinations of proposi-
tions, might be expressed. We observed that a proposition might be con-
sidered in two different lights; as a portion of our knowledge of nature,
or as a memorandum for our guidance. Under the former, or speculative
aspect, an affirmative general proposition is an assertion of a speculative
truth, viz., that whatever has a certain attribute has a certain other attribute.
Under the other aspect, it is to be regarded not as a part of our knowledge,
but as an aid for our practical exigencies, by enabling us, when we see or
learn that an object possesses one of the two attributes, to infer that it pos-
sesses the other; thus employing the first attribute as a mark or evidence
of the second. Thus regarded, every syllogism comes within the following
general formula :
Attribute A is a mark of attribute B,
The given object has the mark A,
therefore
The given object has the attribute B.
Referred to this type, the arguments which we have lately cited as
specimens of the syllogism, will express themselves in the following
manner :
The attributes of man are a mark of the attribute mortality,
Socrates has the attributes of man,
therefore
Socrates has the attribute mortality.
like the present. If every general conception, instead of being " the One in the Many," were
considered to be as many different conceptions as there are things to which it is applicable,
there would be no such thing as general language. A name would have no general meaning
if man connoted one thing when predicated of John, and another, though closely resembling,
thing when predicated of William. Accordingly a recent pamphlet asserts the impossibility
of general knowledge on this precise ground.
The meaning of any general name is some outward or inward phenomenon, consisting, in
the last resort, of feelings ; and these feelings, if their continuity is for an instant broken, are
no longer the same feelings, in the sense of individual identity. What, then, is the common
something which gives a meaning to the general name ? Mr. Spencer can only say, it is the
similarity of the feelings ; and I rejoin, the attribute is precisely that similarity. The names
of attributes are in their ultimate analysis names for the resemblances of our sensations (or
other feelings). Every general name, whether abstract or concrete, denotes or connotes one
or more of those resemblances. It will not, probably, be denied, that if a hundred sensations
are undistinguishably alike, their resemblance ought to be spoken of as one resemblance, and
not a hundred resemblances which merely resemble one another. The things compared are
many, but the something common to all of them must be conceived as one. just as the name
is conceived as one, though corresponding to numerically different sensations of sound each
time it is pronounced. The general term man does not connote the sensations derived once
from one man, which, once gone, can no more occur again than the same flash of light-
ning. It connotes the general type of the sensations derived always from all men, and the
power (always thought of as one) of producing sensations of that type. And the axiom
might be thus worded : Two types of sensation each of which co-exists with a third type,
co-exist with another ; or Two powers each of which co-exists with a third power co-exist
with one another.
Mr. Spencer has misunderstood me in another particular. He supposes that the co-exist-
ence spoken of in the axiom, of two things with the same third thing, means simultaneousness
in time. The co-existence meant is that of being jointly attributes of the same 'subject. The
attribute of being born without teeth, and the attribute of having thirty-two teeth in mature
age, are in this sense co-existent, both being attributes of man, though ex vi termini never of
the same man at the same time.
* Supra, p. 93.
138 REASONING.
And again,
The attributes of man are a mark of the attribute mortality,
The attributes of a king are a mark of the attributes of man,
therefore
The attributes of a king are a mark of the attribute mortality.
And, lastly,
The attributes of man are a mark of the absence of the attribute
omnipotence,
The attributes of a king are a mark of the attributes of man,
therefore
The attributes of a king are a mark of the absence of the attribute
signified by the word omnipotent
(or, are evidence of the absence of that attribute).
To correspond with this alteration in the form of the syllogisms, the ax-
ioms on which the syllogistic process is founded must undergo a corre-
sponding transformation. In this altered phraseology, both those axioms
may be brought under one general expression ; namely, that whatever has
any mark, has that which it is a mark of. Or, when the minor premise as
well as the major is universal, we may state it thus: Whatever is a mark
of any mark, is a mark of that which this last is a mark of. To trace the
identity of these axioms with those previously laid down, may be left to the
intelligent reader. We shall find, as we proceed, the great convenience of
the phraseology into which we have last thrown them, and which is better
adapted than any I am acquainted with, to express with precision and force
what is aimed at, and actually accomplished, in every case of the ascertain-
ment of a truth by ratiocination.*
* Professor Bain (Logic, i., 157) considers the axiom (or rather axioms) here proposed as
a substitute for the dictum de omni, to possess certain advantages, but to be " unworkable as
a basis of the syllogism. The fatal defect consists in this, that it is ill-adapted to bring out
the difference between total and partial coincidence of terms, the observation of which is the
essential precaution in syllogizing correctly. If all the terms were co-extensive, the axiom
would How on admirably ; A carries 15, all B and none but B ; B carries C in the same man-
ner; at once A carries C, without limitation or reserve. But in point of fact, we know that
while A carries B, other things carry B also ; whence a process of limitation is required, in
transferring A to C through B. A (in common with other things) carries B ; B (in common
with other tilings) carries C ; whence A (in common with other things) carries C. The ax-
iom provides no means of making this limitation ; if we were to follow A literally, we should
be led to suppose A and C co-extensive : for such is the only obvious meaning of ' the attri-
bute A coincides with the attribute C.'"
It is certainly possible that a careless learner here and there may suppose that if A carries
B, it follows that B carries A. But if any one is so incautious as to commit this mistake, the
very earliest lesson in the logic of inference, the Conversion of propositions, will correct it.
The first of the two forms in which I have stated the axiom, is in some degree open to Mr.
Bain's criticism : when B is said to co-exist with A (it must be by a lapsus calami that Mr.
Bain uses the word coincide), it is possible, in the absence of warning, to suppose the meaning
to be that the two things are only found together. But this misinterpretation is excluded by
the other, or practical, form of the maxim ; A T o/u notir est nota rei ipsius. No one would be
in any danger of inferring that because a is a mark of b, b can never exist without a ; that
because being in a confirmed consumption is a mark of being about to die, no one dies who is
not in a consumption ; that because being coal is a mark of having come out of the earth,
nothing can come out of the earth except coal. Ordinary knowledge of English seems a
sufficient protection against these mistakes, since in speaking of a mark of any thing we are
never understood as implying reciprocity.
A more fundamental objection is stated by Mr. Bain in a subsequent passage (p. 158).
"The axiom does not accommodate itself to the type of Deductive Keasoning as contrasted
. with Induction the application of a general principle to a special case. Any thing that fails
to make prominent this circumstance is not adapted as a foundation for the syllogism." But
FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 139
CHAPTER III.
OF THE FUNCTIONS AND LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM.
1. WE have shown what is the real nature of the truths with which
the Syllogism is conversant, in contradistinction to the more superficial
manner in which their import is conceived in the common theory; and
what are the fundamental axioms on which its probative force or conclu-
siveness depends. We have now to inquire, whether the syllogistic proc-
ess, that of reasoning from generals to particulars, is, or is not, a_p_roc_e_ss
of inference ; a progress from the_ known to_ the unknown : a means of com-
ingtoaTcnowledge of something which we did not know before.
Logicians have been remarkably unanimous in their mode of answering
this question. It is universally allowed that a syllogism is vicious if there
be any thing more in the conclusion than was assumed in the premises.
Butthisis 1 jn_jact > to j?aj^thajLllothing ever was, or can be, proved by syl-
logism, \vlucir^a^jioJLknjaw-o, oj'iissi^ried^to be knowa. before. Is ratioci-
nation, then, not a process of inference? And is the syllogism, to which
the word reasoning has so often been represented to be exclusively appro-
priate, not really entitled to be called reasoning at all ? This seems an in-
evitable consequence of the doctrine, admitted by all writers on the sub-
ject, that a syllogism can prove no more than is involved in the premises.
Yet the acknowledgment so explicitly made, has not prevented one set of
writers from continuing to represent the syllogism as the correct analysis
of what the mind actually performs in discovering and proving the larger
half of the truths, whether of science or of daily life, which we believe ;
while those who have avoided this inconsistency, and followed out the gen-
eral theorem respecting the logical value of the syllogism to its legitimate
corollary, have been led to impute uselessness and frivolity to the syllogis-
tic theory itself, on the ground of the petitio pr'mcipii which they allege
to be inherent in every syllogism. As I believe both these opinions to be
fundamentally erroneous, I must request the attention of the reader to cer-
tain considerations, without which any just appreciation of the true char-
acter of the syllogism, and the functions it performs in philosophy, appears
to me impossible; but which seem to have been either overlooked, or in-
sufficiently adverted to, both by the defenders of the syllogistic theory and
by its assailants.
2. It must be granted that in every syllogism, considered as an
though it may be proper to limit the term Deduction to the application of a general principle
to a special case, it has never been held that Ratiocination or Syllogism is subject to the same
limitation ; and the adoption of it would exclude a great amount of valid and conclusive syl-
logistic reasoning. Moreover, if the dictum de omni makes prominent the fact of the applica-
tion of a general principle to a particular case, the axiom I propose makes prominent the
condition which alone makes that application a real inference.
I conclude, therefore, that both forms have their value, .and their place in Logic. The
dictum de omni should be retained as the fundamental axiom of the logic of mere consistency,
often called Formal Logic ; nor have I ever quarreled with the use of it in that character,
nor proposed to banish it from treatises on Formal Logic. But the other is the proper axiom
for the logic of the pursuit of truth by way of Deduction ; and the recognition of it can alone
show how it is possible that deductive reasoning can be a road to truth.
140 REASONING.
argument to prove the conclusion, there is a pelitio principii, "When
we say,
All men are mortal,
Socrates is a man,
therefore
Socrates is mortal ;
it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the syllogistic theory, that
the proposition, Socrates is mortal, is presupposed in the more general as-
sumption, All men are mortal : that we can not be assured of the mortali-
ty of all men, unless we are already certain of the mortality of every indi-
vidual man : that if it be still doubtful whether Socrates, or any other in-
dividual we choose to name, be mortal or not, the same degree of uncer-
tainty must hang over the assertion, All men are mortal : that the general
principle, instead of being given as evidence of the particular case, can not
itself be taken for true without exception, until every shadow of doubt
which could affect any case comprised with it, is dispelled by evidence
al'mnde ; and then what remains for the syllogism to prove? That, in
short, no reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such, prove any
thing: since from a general principle we can not infer any particulars, but
those which the principle itself assumes as known.
This doctrine appears to me irrefragable ; and if logicians, though una-
ble to dispute it, have usually exhibited a strong disposition to explain it
away, this was not because they could discover any flaw in the argument
itself, but because the contrary opinion seemed to rest on arguments equal-
ly indisputable. In the syllogism last referred to, for example, or in any of
those which we previously constructed, is it not evident that the conclu-
sion may, to the person to whom the syllogism is presented, be actually
and bona fide a new truth? Is it not matter of daily experience that
truths previously unthought of, facts which have not been, and can not be,
directly observed, are arrived at by way of general reasoning? We be-
lieve that the Duke of Wellington is mortal. We do not know this by di-
rect observation, so long as he is not yet dead. If we were asked how,
this being the case, we know the duke to be mortal, we should probably
answer, Because all men are so. Here, therefore, we arrive at the knowl-
edge of a truth not (as yet) susceptible of observation, by a reasoning
which admits of being exhibited in the following syllogism :
All men arc mortal,
The Duke of Wellington is a man,
therefore
The Duke of Wellington is mortal.
And since a large portion of our knowledge is thus acquired, logicians
have persisted in representing the syllogism as a process of inference or
proof; though none of them lias cleared up the difficulty which arises from
the inconsistency between that assertion, and the principle, that if there be
any thing in the conclusion which was not already asserted in the premi-
ses, the argument is vicious. For it is impossible to attach any serious
scientific value to such a mere salvo, as the distinction drawn between be-
ing involved by implication in the premises, and being directly asserted in
them. When Archbishop Whately says* that the object of reasoning is
" merely to expand and unfold the assertions wrapped up, as it were, and
* Logic, p. 239 (9th cd.).
FUNCTIONS AND VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM. 141
implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a person to perceive
and acknowledge the full force of that which he has admitted," he does
not, I think, meet the real difficulty requiring to be explained, namely, how
it happens that a science, like geometry, can be all " wrapped up " in a
few definitions and axioms. Nor does this defense of the syllogism differ
much from what its assailants urge against it as an accusation, when they
charge it with being of no use except to those who seek to press the con-
sequences of an admission into which a person has been entrapped without
having considered and understood its full force. When you admitted the
major premise, you asserted the conclusion; but, says Archbishop Whate-
ly, you asserted it by implication merely : this, however, can here only
mean that you asserted it unconsciously ; that you did not know you were
asserting it ; but, if so, the difficulty revives in this shape Ought you not
to have known? Were you warranted in asserting the general proposi-
tion without having satisfied yourself of the truth of every thing which it
fairly includes? And if not, is not the syllogistic art prima facie what its
assailants affirm it to be, a contrivance for catching you in a trap, and hold-
ing you fast in it ?*
3. From this difficulty there appears to be but one issue. The propo-
sition that the Duke of Wellington is mortal, is evidently an inference ; it
is got at as a conclusion from something else ; but do we, in reality, con-
clude it from the proposition, All men are mortal? I answer, no.
The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking the distinction be-
tween two parts of the process of philosophizing, the inferring part, and the
registering part; and ascribing to the latter the functions of the former.
The mistake is that of referring a person to his own notes for the origin of
his knowledge. If a person is asked a question, and is at the moment una-
ble to answer it, he may refresh his memory by turning to a memorandum
which he carries about with him. But if he were asked, how the fact came
to his knowledge, he would scarcely answer, because it was set down in his
note-book : unless the book was written, like the Koran, with a quill from
the wing of the angel Gabriel.
Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington is mortal, is
immediately an inference from the proposition, All men are mortal; whence
do we derive our knowledge of that general truth? Of course from ob-
servation. Now, all which man can observe are individual cases. From
these all general truths must be drawn, and into these they may be again
resolved ; for a general truth is but an aggregate of particular truths ; a
comprehensive expression, by which an indefinite number of individual
facts are affirmed or denied at once. But a general proposition is not
merely a compendious form for recording and preserving in the memory a
number of particular facts, all of which have been observed. Generaliza-
* It is hardly necessary to say, that I am not contending for any such absurdity as that we
actually "ought to have known" and considered the case of every individual man, past, pres-
ent, and future, before affirming that all men are mortal : although this interpretation has been,
strangely enough, put upon the preceding observations. There is no difference between me
and Archbishop Whately, or any other defender of the syllogism, on the practical part of the
matter; I am only pointing out an inconsistency in the logical theory of it, as conceived by
almost all writers. I do not say that a person who affirmed, before the Duke of Wellington
was born, that all men are mortal, knew that the Duke of Wellington was mortal ; but I do
say that he asserted it ; and I ask for an explanation of the apparent logical fallacy, of ad-
ducing in proof of the Duke of Wellington's mortality, a general statement which presupposes
it. Finding no sufficient resolution of this difficulty in any of the writers on Logic, I have
attempted to supply one.
142 REASONING.
tion is not a process of mere naming, it is also a process of inference.
From instances which we have observed, we feel warranted in concluding,
that what we found true in those instances, holds in all similar ones, past,
present, and future, however numerous they may be. We then, by that
valuable contrivance of language which enables us to speak of many as if 
