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 conferred, 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 supposed have predetermined all the objects that are 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 reconciled with any other.

tion is not true because the object is placed in the class.*

It will appear hereafter, in treating of reasoning, how much the theory of that intellectual process has been vitiated by the influence of these erroneous notions, and by the habit which they exemplify of assimilating all the operations of the human understanding which have truth for their object, 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' theory of Predication, according to the wellknown remark of Leibnitz, and the avowal of Hobbes himself,† renders

* Professor Bain remarks, in qualification of the statement in the text (Logic, i. 0), that 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.

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, except 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 meaning, 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 individual in the class because the proposition is true; the proposi-iii. sect. 8.

In this last acceptation of the word, class name and general name are identical. The class name denotes an indefinite number 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 assumed them to be indefinite; because for the purposes of Logic, definite classes, as such, are almost useless; though pression. (Vide infra, book iii. ch. ii.) often serviceable as means of abridged ex

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 others. 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, ch.

truth and falsity completely arbitrary, | doctrines in which the true theory of with no standard but the will of men, predication is by implication conit must not be concluded that either tained. He distinctly says that general Hobbes, or any of the other thinkers names are given to things on account who have in the main agreed with of their attributes, and that abstract him, did in fact consider the distinc- names are the names of those attrition between truth and error as less butes. "Abstract is that which in real, or attached less importance to it, any subject denotes the cause of the than other people. To suppose that concrete name. . . . And these causes they did so would argue total unac- of names are the same with the causes quaintance with their other specula- of our conceptions, namely, some tions. But this shows how little hold power of action, or affection, of the their doctrine possessed over their thing conceived, which some call the own minds. No person, at bottom, manner by which anything works even imagined that there was nothing upon our senses, but by most men more in truth than propriety of ex- they are called accidents." * It is pression; than using language in strange that having gone so far, he conformity to a previous convention. should not have gone one step farther, When the inquiry was brought down and seen that what he calls the cause from generals to a particular case, it of the concrete name, is in reality the has always been acknowledged that meaning of it; and that when we there is a distinction between verbal predicate of any subject a name which and real questions; that some false is given because of an attribute, (or, as propositions are uttered from ignor- he calls it, an accident,) our object is ance of the meaning of words, but not to affirm the name, but, by means that in others the source of the error of the name, to affirm the attribute. 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 admission cannot 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, "Men are subject to err not only in

*

percep

S 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 summit 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 information 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 subject, has the attributes connoted by the predicate.

affirming and denying, but also in tion, and in silent cogitation. Tacit errors, or the errors of sense and cogitation, are made by passing 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, If we now suppose the subject also lastly, when from any sign we vainly to be a connotative name, the meanimagine something to be signified which ing expressed by the proposition has is not. And errors of this sort are coinmon to all things that have sense."-Computation or Logic, ch. v, sect, I.

*Ch. iii. sect. 3.

To the preceding statement it has been objected, that "we naturally construe the subject of a proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which therefore may be an adjective) in its intension, (connotation): and that consequently co-existence decided. of attributes does not, any more than the opposite theory of equation of groups, cor-apprehended and indicated solely through respond with the living processes of thought and language." I acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had myself laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 60). But though it is true that we naturally "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. It is both

:

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 connoted 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 proposition is, the co-existence of one such phenomenon with another; or the succession of one such phenomenon to another so that where the one is found, we may calculate on finding the other, though perhaps not conversely.

§ 5. We have already proceeded implied in the word generosity have far enough, not only to demonstrate place, then and there the existence the error of Hobbes, but to ascertain and manifestation of an inward feelthe real import of by far the mosting, honour, would be followed in our numerous class of propositions. The minds by another inward feeling, object of belief in a proposition, when approval. it asserts anything 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 proposition 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 following example: A generous person is worthy of honour. Who would expect to recognise here a case of co-existence between phenomena ? But so it is. The attribute which causes a person to be termed generous, This, however, though the most is ascribed to him on the ground of common, is not the only meaning states of his mind and particulars of which propositions are ever intended his conduct; both are phenomena: to convey. In the first place, the former are facts of internal con- sequences and co-existences are not sciousness; the latter, so far as dis- only asserted respecting Phenomena; tinct from the former, are physical we make propositions also respecting facts, or perceptions of the senses. those hidden causes of phenomena, Worthy of honour admits of a similar which are named substances and analysis. Honour, as here used, attributes. A substance, however, means a state of approving and being to us nothing but either that admiring emotion, followed on occa- which causes, or that which is consion by corresponding outward acts. scious of, phenomena; and the same "Worthy of honour" connotes all being true, mutatis mutandis, of attrithis, together with our approval of butes; no assertion can be made, the act of showing honour. All these at least with a meaning, concernare phenomena; states of internal con- ing these unknown and unknowable sciousness, accompanied or followed entities, except in virtue of the by physical facts. When we say, A Phenomena by which alone they generous person is worthy of honour, manifest themselves to our faculties. we affirm co-existence between the When we say, Socrates was contemtwo complicated phenomena connoted porary with the Peloponnesian war, by the two terms respectively. We the foundation of this assertion, as of affirm, that wherever and whenever all assertions concerning substances, the inward feelings and outward facts is an assertion concerning the pheno

of-fact or assertion must be added § 6. To these four kinds of matter

mena which they exhibit,—namely, the explanations which will follow in that the series of facts by which the Third Book, must be considered Socrates manifested himself to man- provisionally as a distinct and peculiar kind, and the series of mental states kind of assertion. 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 various 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 Existence;* and others assert Causation, which, subject to

the continued exertion of that Cause in providential superintendence" (1. 407). meaning language" to carry up the classiMr. Bain thinks it "fictitious and unfication 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 antithesis beone positive and its negative. tween two positives; it may be between 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 * Professor Bain, in his Logic (i. 256), sensation, or from a sensation of some excludes Existence from the list, consider- other kind. The relative opposite of Being, ing it as a mere name. All propositions, considered as a summum genus, is Nonhe says, which predicate mere existence entity, or Nothing; and we have, now and "are more or less abbreviated or elliptical: then, occasion to consider and discuss when fully expressed they fall under either things merely in contrast with Non-entity. co-existence or succession. When we say I grant that the decision of questions of there exists a conspiracy for a particular Existence usually if not always depends purpose, we mean that at the present time on a previous question of either Causation a body of men have formed themselves or Co-existence. But Existence is neverinto a society for a particular object; which theless a different thing from Causation or is a complex affirmation, resolvable into Co-existence, and can be predicated apart propositions of co-existence and succession from them. The meaning of the abstract (as causation). The assertion that the dodo name Existence, and the connotation of does not exist, points to the fact that this the concrete name Being, consist, like the animal, once known in a certain place, has meaning of all other names, in sensations disappeared or become extinct; is no longer or states of consciousness: their peculiarity associated with the locality: all which is that to exist, is to excite, or be capable may be better stated without the use of of exciting, any sensations or states of conthe verb 'exist.' There is a debated ques-sciousness: no matter what, but it is intion-Does an ether exist? but the con-dispensable that there should be some. crete form would be this-' Are heat and light and other radiant influences propagated by an ethereal medium diffused in space?' which is a proposition of causation. In like manner the question of the Existence of a Deity cannot be discussed in that form. It is properly a question as to the First Cause of the Universe, and as to

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.

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