PART II.
DEFINITION.
Chapter I.
IMPERFECT UNDERSTANDING OF WORDS AND THE REMEDIES THEREFOR.—DIALECTIC.—DEFINITION.
We cannot inquire far into the meaning of proverbs or traditional sayings without discovering that the common understanding of general and abstract names is loose and uncertain. Common speech is a quicksand.
Consider how we acquire our vocabulary, how we pick up the words that we use from our neighbours and from books, and why this is so soon becomes apparent. Theoretically we know the full meaning of a name when we know all the attributes that it connotes, and we are not justified in extending it except to objects that possess all the attributes. This is the logical ideal, but between the ought to be of Logic and the is of practical life, there is a vast difference. How seldom do we conceive words in their full meaning! And who is to instruct us in the full meaning? It is not as in the exact sciences, where we start with a knowledge of the full meaning. In Geometry, for example, we learn the definitions of the words used, point, line, parallel, etc., before we proceed to use them. But in common speech, we learn words first in their application to individual cases. Nobody ever defined good to us, or fair, or kind, or highly educated. We hear the words applied to individual objects: we utter them in the same connexion: we extend them to other objects that strike us as like without knowing the precise points of likeness that the convention of common speech includes. The more exact meaning we learn by gradual induction from individual cases. Ugly, beautiful, good, bad—we learn the words first as applicable to things and persons: gradually there arises a more or less definite sense of what the objects so designated have in common. The individual's extension of the name proceeds upon what in the objects has most impressed him when he caught the word: this may differ in different individuals; the usage of neighbours corrects individual eccentricities. The child in arms shouts Da at the passing stranger who reminds him of his father: for him at first it is a general name applicable to every man: by degrees he learns that for him it is a singular name.
The mode in which words are learnt and extended may be studied most simply in the nursery. A child, say, has learnt to say mambro when it sees its nurse. The nurse works a hand-turned sewing machine, and sings to it as she works. In the street the child sees an organ-grinder singing as he turns his handle: it calls mambro: the nurse catches the meaning and the child is overjoyed. The organ-grinder has a monkey: the child has an india-rubber monkey toy: it calls this also mambro. The name is extended to a monkey in a picture-book. It has a toy musical box with a handle: this also becomes mambro, the word being extended along another line of resemblance. A stroller with a French fiddle comes within the denotation of the word: a towel-rail is also called mambro from some fancied resemblance to the fiddle. A very swarthy hunch-back mambro frightens the child: this leads to the transference of the word to a terrific coalman with a bag of coals on his back. In a short time the word has become a name for a great variety of objects that have nothing whatever common to all of them, though each is strikingly like in some point to a predecessor in the series. When the application becomes too heterogeneous, the word ceases to be of use as a sign and is gradually abandoned, the most impressive meaning being the last to go. In a child's vocabulary where the word mambro had a run of nearly two years, its last use was as an adjective signifying ugly or horrible.
The history of such a word in a child's language is a type of what goes on in the language of men. In the larger history we see similar extensions under similar motives, checked and controlled in the same way by surrounding usage.
It is obvious that to avoid error and confusion, the meaning or connotation of names, the concepts, should somehow be fixed: names cannot otherwise have an identical reference in human intercourse. We may call this ideal fixed concept the Logical Concept: or we may call it the Scientific Concept, inasmuch as one of the main objects of the sciences is to attain such ideals in different departments of study. But in actual speech we have also the Personal Concept, which varies more or less with the individual user, and the Popular or Vernacular Concept, which, though roughly fixed, varies from social sect to social sect and from generation to generation.
The variations in Popular Concepts may be traced in linguistic history. Words change with things and with the aspects of things, as these change in public interest and importance. As long as the attributes that govern the application of words are simple, sensible attributes, little confusion need arise: the variations are matters of curious research for the philologist, but are logically insignificant. Murray's Dictionary, or such books as Trench's English Past and Present, supply endless examples, as many, indeed as there are words in the language. Clerk has almost as many connotations as our typical mambro: clerk in holy orders, church clerk, town clerk, clerk of assize, grocer's clerk. In Early English, the word meant "man in a religious order, cleric, clergyman"; ability to read, write, and keep accounts being a prominent attribute of the class, the word was extended on this simple ground till it has ceased altogether to cover its original field except as a formal designation. But no confusion is caused by the variation, because the property connoted is simple.[1] So with any common noun: street, carriage, ship, house, merchant, lawyer, professor. We might be puzzled to give an exact definition of such words, to say precisely what they connote in common usage; but the risk of error in the use of them is small.
When we come to words of which the logical concept is a complex relation, an obscure or intangible attribute, the defects of the popular conception and its tendencies to change and confusion, are of the greatest practical importance. Take such words as Monarchy, tyranny, civil freedom, freedom of contract, landlord, gentleman, prig, culture, education, temperance, generosity. Not merely should we find it difficult to give an analytic definition of such words: we might be unable to do so, and yet flatter ourselves that we had a clear understanding of their meaning. But let two men begin to discuss any proposition in which any such word is involved, and it will often be found that they take the word in different senses. If the relation expressed is complex, they have different sides or lines of it in their minds; if the meaning is an obscure quality, they are guided in their application of it by different outward signs.
Monarchy, in its original meaning, is applied to a form of government in which the will of one man is supreme, to make laws or break them, to appoint or dismiss officers of state and justice, to determine peace or war, without control of statute or custom. But supreme power is never thus uncontrolled in reality; and the word has been extended to cover governments in which the power of the titular head is controlled in many different modes and degrees. The existence of a head, with the title of King or Emperor, is the simplest and most salient fact: and wherever this exists, the popular concept of a monarchy is realised. The President of the United States has more real power than the Sovereign of Great Britain; but the one government is called a Republic and the other a Monarchy. People discuss the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy without first deciding whether they take the word in its etymological sense of unlimited power, or its popular sense of titular kingship, or its logical sense of power definitely limited in certain ways. And often in debate, monarchy is really a singular term for the government of Great Britain.
Culture, religious, generous, are names for inward states or qualities: with most individuals some simple outward sign directs the application of the word—it may be manner, or bearing, or routine observances, or even nothing more significant than the cut of the clothes or of the hair. Small things undoubtedly are significant, and we must judge by small things when we have nothing else to go by: but instead of trying to get definite conceptions for our moral epithets, and suspending judgment till we know that the use of the epithet is justified, the trifling superficial sign becomes for us practically the whole meaning of the word. We feel that we must have a judgment of some sort at once: only simple signs are suited to our impatience.
It was with reference to this state of things that Hegel formulated his paradox that the true abstract thinker is the plain man who laughs at philosophy as what he calls abstract and unpractical. He holds decided opinions for or against this or the other abstraction, freedom, tyranny, revolution, reform, socialism, but what these words mean and within what limits the things signified are desirable or undesirable, he is in too great a hurry to pause and consider.
The disadvantages of this kind of "abstract" thinking are obvious. The accumulated wisdom of mankind is stored in language. Until we have cleared our conceptions, and penetrated to the full meaning of words, that wisdom is a sealed book to us. Wise maxims are interpreted by us hastily in accordance with our own narrow conceptions. All the vocables of a language may be more or less familiar to us, and yet we may not have learnt it as an instrument of thought. Outside the very limited range of names for what we see and use in the daily routine of life, food and clothes and the common occupations of men, words have little meaning for us, and are the vehicles merely of thin preconceptions and raw prejudices.
The remedy for "abstract" thinking is more thinking, and in pursuing this two aims may be specified for the sake of clearness, though they are closely allied, and progress towards both may often be made by one and the same operation. (1) We want to reach a clear and full conception of the meaning of names as used now or at a given time. Let us call this the Verification of the Meaning. (2) We want to fix such conceptions, and if necessary readjust their boundaries. This is the province of Definition, which cannot be effectually performed without Scientific Classification or Division.
I.—Verification of the Meaning—Dialectic.
This can only be done by assembling the objects to which the words are applied, and considering what they have in common. To ascertain the actual connotation we must run over the actual denotation. And since in such an operation two or more minds are better than one, discussion or dialectic is both more fruitful and more stimulating than solitary reflection or reading.
The first to practise this process on a memorable scale, and with a distinct method and purpose, was Socrates. To insist upon the necessity of clear conceptions, and to assist by his dialectic procedure in forming them, was his contribution to philosophy.
His plan was to take a common name, profess ignorance of its meaning, and ask his interlocutor whether he would apply it in such and such an instance, producing one after another. According to Xenophon's Memorabilia he habitually chose the commonest names, good, unjust, fitting, and so forth, and tried to set men thinking about them, and helped them by his questions to form an intelligent conception of the meaning.
For example, what is the meaning of injustice? Would you say that the man who cheats or deceives is unjust? Suppose a man deceives his enemies, is there any injustice in that? Can the definition be that a man who deceives his friends is unjust? But there are cases where friends are deceived for their own good: are these cases of injustice? A general may inspirit his soldiers by a falsehood. A man may cajole a weapon out of his friend's hand when he sees him about to commit suicide. A father may deceive his son into taking medicine. Would you call these men unjust? By some such process of interrogation we are brought to the definition that a man is unjust who deceives his friends to their hurt.
Observe that in much of his dialectic the aim of Socrates was merely to bring out the meaning lying vague and latent, as it were, in the common mind. His object was simply what we have called the verification of the meaning. And a dialectic that confines itself to the consideration of what is ordinarily meant as distinct from what ought to be meant may often serve a useful purpose. Disputes about words are not always as idle as is sometimes supposed. Mr. H. Sidgwick truly remarks (à propos of the terms of Political Economy) that there is often more profit in seeking a definition than in finding it. Conceptions are not merely cleared but deepened by the process. Mr. Sidgwick's remarks are so happy that I must take leave to quote them: they apply not merely to the verification of ordinary meaning but also to the study of special uses by authorities, and the reasons for those special uses.
"The truth is—as most readers of Plato know, only it is a truth difficult to retain and apply—that what we gain by discussing a definition is often but slightly represented in the superior fitness of the formula that we ultimately adopt; it consists chiefly in the greater clearness and fulness in which the characteristics of the matter to which the formula refers have been brought before the mind in the process of seeking for it. While we are apparently aiming at definitions of terms, our attention should be really fixed on distinctions and relations of fact. These latter are what we are concerned to know, contemplate, and as far as possible arrange and systematise; and in subjects where we cannot present them to the mind in ordinary fulness by the exercise of the organs of sense, there is no way of surveying them so convenient as that of reflecting on our use of common terms.... In comparing different definitions our aim should be far less to decide which we ought to adopt, than to apprehend and duly consider the grounds on which each has commended itself to reflective minds. We shall generally find that each writer has noted some relation, some resemblance or difference, which others have overlooked; and we shall gain in completeness, and often in precision, of view by following him in his observations, whether or not we follow him in his conclusions."[2]
Mr. Sidgwick's own discussions of Wealth, Value, and Money are models. A clue is often found to the meaning in examining startlingly discrepant statements connected with the same leading word. Thus we find some authorities declaring that "style" cannot be taught or learnt, while others declare that it can. But on trying to ascertain what they mean by "style," we find that those who say it cannot be taught mean either a certain marked individual character or manner of writing—as in Buffon's saying, Le style c'est l'homme même—or a certain felicity and dignity of expression, while those who say style can be taught mean lucid method in the structure of sentences or in the arrangement of a discourse. Again in discussions on the rank of poets, we find different conceptions of what constitutes greatness in poetry lying at the root of the inclusion of this or the other poet among great poets. We find one poet excluded from the first rank of greatness because his poetry was not serious; another because his poetry was not widely popular; another because he wrote comparatively little; another because he wrote only songs or odes and never attempted drama or epic. These various opinions point to different conceptions of what constitutes greatness in poets, different connotations of "great poet". Comparing different opinions concerning "education" we may be led to ask whether it means more than instruction in the details of certain subjects, whether it does not also import the formation of a disposition to learn or an interest in learning or instruction in a certain method of learning.
Historically, dialectic turning on the use of words preceded the attempt to formulate principles of Definition, and attempts at precise definition led to Division and Classification, that is to systematic arrangement of the objects to be defined. Attempt to define any such word as "education," and you gradually become sensible of the needs in respect of method that forced themselves upon mankind in the history of thought. You soon become aware that you cannot define it by itself alone; that you are beset by a swarm of more or less synonymous words, instruction, discipline, culture, training, and so on; that these various words represent distinctions and relations among things more or less allied; and that, if each must be fixed to a definite meaning, this must be done with reference to one another and to the whole department of things that they cover.
The first memorable attempts at scientific arrangement were Aristotle's treatises on Ethics and Politics, which had been the subjects of active dialectic for at least a century before. That these the most difficult of all departments to subject to scientific treatment should have been the first chosen was due simply to their preponderating interest: "The proper study of mankind is man". The systems of what are known as the Natural Sciences are of modern origin: the first, that of Botany, dates from Cesalpinus in the sixteenth century. But the principles on which Aristotle proceeded in dividing and defining, principles which have gradually themselves been more precisely formulated, are principles applicable to all systematic arrangements for purposes of orderly study. I give them in the precise formulæ which they have gradually assumed in the tradition of Logic. The principles of Division are often given in Formal Logic, and the principles of Classification in Inductive Logic, but there is no valid reason for the separation. The classification of objects in the Natural Sciences, of animals, plants, and stones, with a view to the thorough study of them in form, structure, and function, is more complex than classifications for more limited purposes, and the tendency is to restrict the word classification to these elaborate systems. But really they are only a series of divisions and subdivisions, and the same principles apply to each of the subordinate divisions as well as to the division of the whole department of study.
II.—Principles of Division or Classification and Definition.
Confusion in the boundaries of names arises from confused ideas regarding the resemblances and differences of things. As a protective against this confusion, things must be clearly distinguished in their points of likeness and difference, and this leads to their arrangement in systems, that is, to division and classification. A name is not secure against variation until it has a distinct place in such a system as a symbol for clearly distinguished attributes. Nor must we forget, further, that systems have their day, that the best system attainable is only temporary, and may have to be recast to correspond with changes of things and of man's way of looking at them.
The leading principles of Division may be stated as follows:—
I. Every division is made on the ground of differences in some attribute common to all the members of the whole to be divided.
This is merely a way of stating what a logical division is. It is a division of a generic whole or genus, an indefinite number of objects thought of together as possessing some common character or attribute. All have this attribute, which is technically called the fundamentum divisionis, or generic attribute. But the whole is divisible into smaller groups (species), each of which possesses the common character with a difference (differentia). Thus, mankind may be divided into White men, Black men, Yellow men, on ground of the differences in the colour of their skins: all have skins of some colour: this is the fundamentum divisionis: but each subdivision or species has a different colour: this is the differentia. Rectilineal figures are divided into triangles, quadrangles, pentagons, etc., on the ground of differences in the number of angles.
Unless there is a fund. div., i.e., unless the differences are differences in a common character, the division is not a logical division. To divide men into Europeans, opticians, tailors, blondes, brunettes, and dyspeptics is not to make a logical division. This is seen more clearly in connexion with the second condition of a perfect division.
II. In a perfect division, the subdivisions or species are mutually exclusive.
Every object possessing the common character should be in one or other of the groups, and none should be in more than one.
Confusion between classes, or overlapping, may arise from two causes. It may be due (1) to faulty division, to want of unity in the fundamentum divisionis; (2) to the indistinct character of the objects to be defined.
(1) Unless the division is based upon a single ground, unless each species is based upon some mode of the generic character, confusion is almost certain to arise. Suppose the field to be divided, the objects to be classified, are three-sided rectilineal plane figures, each group must be based upon some modification of the three sides. Divide them into equilateral, isosceles, and scalene according as the three sides are all of equal length, or two of equal length, or each of different length, and you have a perfect division. Similarly you can divide them perfectly according to the character of the angles into acute-angled, right-angled and obtuse-angled. But if you do not keep to a single basis, as in dividing them into equilateral, isosceles, scalene, and right-angled, you have a cross-division. The same triangle might be both right-angled and isosceles.
(2) Overlapping, however, may be unavoidable in practice owing to the nature of the objects. There may be objects in which the dividing characters are not distinctly marked, objects that possess the differentiæ of more than one group in a greater or less degree. Things are not always marked off from one another by hard and fast lines. They shade into one another by imperceptible gradations. A clear separation of them may be impossible. In that case you must allow a certain indeterminate margin between your classes, and sometimes it may be necessary to put an object into more than one class.
To insist that there is no essential difference unless a clear demarcation can be made is a fallacy. A sophistical trick called the Sorites or Heap from the classical example of it was based upon this difficulty of drawing sharp lines of definition. Assuming that it is possible to say how many stones constitute a heap, you begin by asking whether three stones form a heap. If your respondent says No, you ask whether four stones form a heap, then five, and so on and he is puzzled to say when the addition of a single stone makes that a heap which was not a heap before. Or you may begin by asking whether twenty stones form a heap, then nineteen, then eighteen, and so on, the difficulty being to say when what was a heap ceases to be so.
Where the objects classified are mixed states or affections, the products of interacting factors, or differently interlaced or interfused growths from common roots, as in the case of virtues, or emotions, or literary qualities, sharp demarcations are impossible. To distinguish between wit and humour, or humour and pathos, or pathos and sublimity is difficult because the same composition may partake of more than one character. The specific characters cannot be made rigidly exclusive one of another.
Even in the natural sciences, where the individuals are concrete objects of perception, it may be difficult to decide in which of two opposed groups an object should be included. Sydney Smith has commemorated the perplexities of Naturalists over the newly discovered animals and plants of Botany Bay, in especial with the Ornithorynchus,—"a quadruped as big as a large cat, with the eyes, colour, and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet of a duck—puzzling Dr. Shaw, and rendering the latter half of his life miserable, from his utter inability to determine whether it was a bird or a beast".
III. The classes in any scheme of division should be of co-ordinate rank.
The classes may be mutually exclusive, and yet the division imperfect, owing to their not being of equal rank. Thus in the ordinary division of the Parts of Speech, parts, that is, of a sentence, Prepositions and Conjunctions are not co-ordinate in respect of function, which is the basis of the division, with Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, and Adverbs. The preposition is a part of a phrase which serves the same function as an adjective, e.g., royal army, army of the king; it is thus functionally part of a part, or a particle. So with the conjunction: it also is a part of a part, i.e., part of a clause serving the function of adjective or adverb.
IV. The basis of division (fundamentum divisionis) should be an attribute admitting of important differences.
The importance of the attribute chosen as basis may vary with the purpose of the division. An attribute that is of no importance in one division, may be important enough to be the basis of another division. Thus in a division of houses according to their architectural attributes, the number of windows or the rent is of little importance; but if houses are taxed or rated according to the number of windows or the rent, these attributes become important enough to be a basis of division for purposes of taxation or rating. They then admit of important differences.
That the importance is relative to the purpose of the division should be borne in mind because there is a tendency to regard attributes that are of importance in any familiar or pre-eminent division as if they had an absolute importance. In short, disregard of this relativity is a fallacy to be guarded against.
In the sciences, the purpose being the attainment and preservation of knowledge, the objects of study are divided so as to serve that purpose. Groups must be formed so as to bring together the objects that have most in common. The question, Who are to be placed together? in any arrangement for purposes of study, receives the same answer for individuals and for classes that have to be grouped into higher classes, namely, Those that have most in common. This is what Dr. Bain happily calls "the golden rule" of scientific classification: "Of the various groupings of resembling things, preference is given to such as have the greatest number of attributes in common". I slightly modify Dr. Bain's statement: he says "the most numerous and the most important attributes in common". But for scientific purposes number of attributes constitutes importance, as is well recognised by Dr. Fowler when he says that the test of importance in an attribute proposed as a basis of classification is the number of other attributes of which it is an index or invariable accompaniment. Thus in Zoology the squirrel, the rat, and the beaver are classed together as Rodents, the difference between their teeth and the teeth of other Mammalia being the basis of division, because the difference in teeth is accompanied by differences in many other properties. So the hedge-hog, the shrew-mouse, and the mole, though very unlike in outward appearance and habits, are classed together as Insectivora, the difference in what they feed on being accompanied by a number of other differences.
The Principles of Definition. The word "definition" as used in Logic shows the usual tendency of words to wander from a strict meaning and become ambiguous. Throughout most of its uses it retains this much of a common signification, the fixing or determining of the boundaries of a class[3] by making clear its constituent attributes. Now in this making clear two processes may be distinguished, a material process and a verbal process. We have (1) the clearing up of the common attributes by a careful examination of the objects included in the class: and we have (2) the statement of these common attributes in language. The rules of definition given by Dr. Bain, who devotes a separate Book in his Logic to the subject of Definition, concern the first of these processes: the rules more commonly given concern mainly the second.
One eminent merit in Dr. Bain's treatment is that it recognises the close connexion between Definition and Classification. His cardinal rules are reduced to two.
I. Assemble for comparison representative individuals of the class.
II. Assemble for comparison representative individuals of the contrasted class or classes.
Seeing that the contrasted classes are contrasted on some basis of division, this is in effect to recognise that you cannot clearly define any class except in a scheme of classification. You must have a wide genus with its fundamentum divisionis, and, within this, species distinguished by their several differentiæ.
Next, as to the verbal process, rules are commonly laid down mostly of a trifling and obvious character. That "a definition should state neither more nor less than the common attributes of the class," or than the attributes signified by the class-name, is sometimes given as a rule of definition. This is really an explanation of what a definition is, a definition of a definition. And as far as mere statement goes it is not strictly accurate, for when the attributes of a genus are known it is not necessary to give all the attributes of the species, which include the generic attributes as well, but it is sufficient to give the generic name and the differentia. Thus Poetry may be defined as "a Fine Art having metrical language as its instrument". This is technically known as definition per genus et differentiam. This mode of statement is a recognition of the connexion between Definition and Division.
The rule that "a definition should not be a synonymous repetition of the name of the class to be defined," is too obvious to require formal statement. To describe a Viceroy as a man who exercises viceregal functions, may have point as an epigram in the case of a faineant viceroy, but it is not a definition.
So with the rule that "a definition should not be couched in ambiguous unfamiliar, or figurative language". To call the camel "the ship of the desert" is a suggestive and luminous description of a property, but it is not a definition. So with the noble description of Faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". But if one wonders why so obvious a "rule" should be laid down, the answer is that it has its historical origin in the caprices of two classes of offenders, mystical philosophers and pompous lexicographers.[4]
That "the definition should be simply convertible with the term for the class defined," so that we may say, for example, either: "Wine is the juice of the grape," or, "The juice of the grape is wine," is an obvious corollary from the nature of definition, but should hardly be dignified with the name of a "rule".
The Principles of Naming. Rules have been formulated for the choice of names in scientific definition and classification, but it may be doubted whether such choice can be reduced to precise rule. It is enough to draw attention to certain considerations obvious enough on reflection.
We may take for granted that there should be distinct names for every defining attribute (a Terminology) and for every group or class (a Nomenclature). What about the selection of the names? Suppose an investigator is struck with likenesses and differences that seem to him important enough to be the basis of a new division, how should he be guided in his choice of names for the new groups that he proposes? Should he coin new names, or should he take old names and try to fit them with new definitions?
The balance of advantages is probably in favour of Dr. Whewell's dictum that "in framing scientific terms, the appropriation of old words is preferable to the invention of new ones". Only care must be taken to keep as close as possible to the current meaning of the old word, and not to run counter to strong associations. This is an obvious precept with a view to avoiding confusion. Suppose, for example, that in dividing Governments you take the distribution of political power as your basis of division and come to the conclusion that the most important differences are whether this power is vested in a few or in the majority of the community. You want names to fix this broad division. You decide instead of coining the new word Pollarchy to express the opposite of Oligarchy to use the old words Republic and Oligarchy. You would find, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis found, that however carefully you defined the word Republic, a division under which the British Government had to be ranked among Republics would not be generally understood and accepted. Using the word in the sense explained above, Mr. Bagehot maintained that the constitution of Great Britain was more Republican than that of the United States, but his meaning was not taken except by a few.
The difficulty in choosing between new words and old words to express new meanings is hardly felt in the exact sciences. It is at least at a minimum. The innovator may encounter violent prejudice, but, arguing with experts, he can at least make sure of being understood, if his new division is based upon real and important differences. But in other subjects the difficulty of transmitting truth or of expressing it in language suited for precise transmission, is almost greater than the difficulty of arriving at truth. Between new names and old names redefined, the possessor of fresh knowledge, assuming it to be perfectly verified, is in a quandary. The objects with which he deals are already named in accordance with loose divisions resting on strong prejudices. The names in current use are absolutely incapable of conveying his meaning. He must redefine them if he is to use them. But in that case he runs the risk of being misunderstood from people being too impatient to master his redefinition. His right to redefine may even be challenged without any reference to the facts to be expressed: he may simply be accused of circulating false linguistic coin, of debasing the verbal currency. The other alternative open to him is to coin new words. In that case he runs the risk of not being read at all. His contribution to verified knowledge is passed by as pedantic and unintelligible. There is no simple rule of safety: between Scylla and Charybdis the mariner must steer as best he may. Practically the advantage lies with old words redefined, because thereby discussion is provoked and discussion clears the air.
Whether it is best to attempt a formal definition or to use words in a private, peculiar, or esoteric sense, and leave this to be gathered by the reader from the general tenor of your utterances, is a question of policy outside the limits of Logic. It is for the logician to expound the method of Definition and the conditions of its application: how far there are subjects that do not admit of its application profitably must be decided on other grounds. But it is probably true that no man who declines to be bound by a formal definition of his terms is capable of carrying them in a clear unambiguous sense through a heated controversy.
[Footnote 1:] Except, perhaps, in new offices to which the name is extended, such as Clerk of School Board. The name, bearing its most simple and common meaning, may cause popular misapprehension of the nature of the duties. Any uncertainty in meaning may be dangerous in practice: elections have been affected by the ambiguity of this word.
[Footnote 2:] Sidgwick's Political Economy, pp. 52-3. Ed. 1883.
[Footnote 3:] Some logicians, however, speak of defining a thing, and illustrate this as if by a thing they meant a concrete individual, the realistic treatment of Universals lending itself to such expressions. But though the authority of Aristotle might be claimed for this, it is better to confine the name in strictness to the main process of defining a class. Since, however, the method is the same whether it is an individual or a class that we want to make distinct, there is no harm in the extension of the word definition to both varieties. See Davidson's Logic of Definition, chap. ii.
[Footnote 4:] See Davidson's Logic of Definition, chap. iii.
Chapter II.
THE FIVE PREDICABLES.—VERBAL AND REAL PREDICATION.
We give a separate chapter to this topic out of respect for the space that it occupies in the history of Logic. But except as an exercise in subtle distinction for its own sake, all that falls to be said about the Predicables might be given as a simple appendix to the chapter on Definition.
Primarily, the Five Predicables or Heads of Predicables—Genus, Species, Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens—are not predicables at all, but merely a list or enumeration of terms used in dividing and defining on the basis of attributes. They have no meaning except in connexion with a fixed scheme of division. Given such a scheme, and we can distinguish in it the whole to be divided (the genus), the subordinate divisions (the species), the attribute or combination of attributes on which each species is constituted (the differentia), and other attributes, which belong to some or all of the individuals but are not reckoned for purposes of division and definition (Propria and Accidentia). The list is not itself a logical division: it is heterogeneous, not homogeneous; the two first are names of classes, the three last of attributes. But corresponding to it we might make a homogeneous division of attributes, as follows:—
The origin of the title Predicables as applied to these five terms is curious, and may be worth noting as an instance of the difficulty of keeping names precise, and of the confusion arising from forgetting the purpose of a name. Porphyry in his εἰσαγωγὴ or Introduction explains the five words (φωναὶ) simply as terms that it is useful for various purposes to know, expressly mentioning definition and division. But he casually remarks that Singular names, "This man," "Socrates," can be predicated only of one individual, whereas Genera, Species, Differentiæ, etc., are predicables of many. That is to say he describes them as Predicables simply by contradistinction from Singular names. A name, however, was wanted for the five terms taken all together, and since they are not a logical division, but merely a list of terms used in dividing and defining, there was no apt general designation for them such as would occur spontaneously. Thus it became the custom to refer to them as the Predicables, a means of reference to them collectively being desiderated, while the meaning of this descriptive title was forgotten.
To call the five divisional elements or Divisoria Predicables is to present them as a division of Predicate Terms on the basis of their relation to the Subject Term: to suggest that every Predicate Term must be either a Genus or a Species, or a Differentia, or a Proprium, or an Accidens of the Subject Term. They are sometimes criticised as such, and it is rightly pointed out that the Predicate is never a species of or with reference to the Subject. But, in truth, the five so-called Predicables were never meant as a division of predicates in relation to the subject: it is only the title that makes this misleading suggestion.
To complete the confusion it so happens that Aristotle used three of the Five terms in what was virtually a division of Predicates inasmuch as it was a division of Problems or Questions. In expounding the methods of Dialectic in the Topica he divided Problems into four classes according to the relation of the Predicate to the Subject. The Predicate must either be simply convertible with the subject or not. If simply convertible, the two must be coextensive, and the Predicate must be either a Proprium or the Definition. If not simply convertible, the Predicate must either be part of the Definition or not. If part of the Definition it must be either a Generic Property or a Differentia (both of which in this connexion Aristotle includes under Genus): if not part of the Definition, it is an Accident. Aristotle thus arrives at a fourfold division of Problems or Predicates:—γένος (Genus, including Differentia, διαφορὰ); ὄρος (Definition); τὸ ἴδιον (Proprium); and τὸ συμβεβηκὸς (Accidens). The object of it was to provide a basis for his systematic exposition; each of the four kinds admitted of differences in dialectic method. For us it is a matter of simple curiosity and ingenuity. It serves as a monument of how much Greek dialectic turned on Definition, and it corresponds exactly to the division of attributes into Defining and Non-defining given above. It is sometimes said that Aristotle showed a more scientific mind than Porphyry in making the Predicables four instead of five. This is true if Porphyry's list had been meant as a division of attributes: but it was not so meant.
The distinction between Verbal or Analytic and Real or Synthetic Predication corresponds to the distinction between Defining and Non-defining attributes, and also has no significance except with reference to some scheme of Division, scientific and precise or loose and popular.
When a proposition predicates of a subject something contained in the full notion, concept, or definition of the subject term, it is called Verbal, Analytic, or Explicative: verbal, inasmuch as it merely explains the meaning of a name; explicative for the same reason; analytic, inasmuch as it unties the bundle of attributes held together in the concept and pays out one, or all one by one.
When the attributes of the Predicate are not contained in the concept of the Subject, the proposition is called Real, Synthetic, or Ampliative, for parallel reasons.
Thus: "A triangle is a three-sided rectilinear figure" is Verbal or Analytic; "Triangles have three angles together equal to two right angles," or "Triangles are studied in schools," is Real or Synthetic.
According to this distinction, predications of the whole Definition or of a Generic attribute or of a Specific attribute are Verbal; predications of Accident are Real. A nice point is whether Propria are Verbal or Real. They can hardly be classed with Verbal, inasmuch as one may know the full meaning of the name without knowing them: but it might be argued that they are Analytic, inasmuch as they are implicitly contained in the defining attributes as being deducible from them.
Observe, however, that the whole distinction is really valid only in relation to some fixed or accepted scheme of classification or division. Otherwise, what is Verbal or Analytic to one man may be Real or Synthetic to another. It might even be argued that every proposition is Analytic to the man who utters it and Synthetic to the man who receives it. We must make some analysis of a whole of thought before paying it out in words: and in the process of apprehending the meaning of what we hear or read we must add the other members of the sentence on to the subject. Whether or not this is super-subtle, it clearly holds good that what is Verbal (in the sense defined) to the learned man of science may be Real to the learner. That the horse has six incisors in each jaw or that the domestic dog has a curly tail, is a Verbal Proposition to the Natural Historian, a mere exposition of defining marks; but the plain man has a notion of horse or dog into which this defining attribute does not enter, and to him accordingly the proposition is Real.
But what of propositions that the plain man would at once recognise as Verbal? Charles Lamb, for example, remarks that the statement that "a good name shows the estimation in which a man is held in the world" is a verbal proposition. Where is the fixed scheme of division there? The answer is that by a fixed scheme of division we do not necessarily mean a scheme that is rigidly, definitely and precisely fixed. To make such schemes is the business of Science. But the ordinary vocabulary of common intercourse as a matter of fact proceeds upon schemes of division, though the names used in common speech are not always scientifically accurate, not always the best that could be devised for the easy acquisition and sure transmission of thorough knowledge. The plain man's vocabulary, though often twisted aside by such causes as we have specified, is roughly moulded on the most marked distinguishing attributes of things. This was practically recognised by Aristotle when he made one of his modes of definition consist in something like what we have called verifying the meaning of a name, ascertaining the attributes that it signifies in common speech or in the speech of sensible men. This is to ascertain the essence, οὐσία, or Substantia, of things, the most salient attributes that strike the common eye either at once or after the closer inspection that comes of long companionship, and form the basis of the ordinary vocabulary. "Properly speaking," Mansel says,[1] "All Definition is an inquiry into Attributes. Our complex notions of Substances can only be resolved into various Attributes, with the addition of an unknown substratum: a something to which we are compelled to regard these attributes as belonging. Man, for example, is analysed into Animality, Rationality, and the something which exhibits these phenomena. Pursue the analysis and the result is the same. We have a something corporeal, animated, sensible, rational. An unknown constant must always be added to complete the integration." This "unknown constant" was what Locke called the Real Essence, as distinguished from the Nominal Essence, or complex of attributes. It is upon this nominal essence, upon divisions of things according to attributes, that common speech rests, and if it involves many cross-divisions, this is because the divisions have been made for limited and conflicting purposes.
[Footnote 1:] Aldrich's Compendium, Appendix, Note C. The reader may be referred to Mansel's Notes A and C for valuable historical notices of the Predicables and Definition.
Chapter III.
ARISTOTLE'S CATEGORIES.
In deference to tradition a place must be found in every logical treatise for Aristotle's Categories. No writing of the same length has exercised a tithe of its influence on human thought. It governed scholastic thought and expression for many centuries, being from its shortness and consequent easiness of transcription one of the few books in every educated man's library. It still regulates the subdivisions of Parts of Speech in our grammars. Its universality of acceptance is shown in the fact that the words category (κατηγορία) and predicament, its Latin translation, have passed into common speech.
The Categories have been much criticised and often condemned as a division, but, strange to say, few have inquired what they originally professed to be a division of, or what was the original author's basis of division. Whether the basis is itself important, is another question: but to call the division imperfect, without reference to the author's intention, is merely confusing, and serves only to illustrate the fact that the same objects may be differently divided on different principles of division. Ramus was right in saying that the Categories had no logical significance, inasmuch as they could not be made a basis for departments of logical method; and Kant and Mill in saying that they had no philosophical significance, inasmuch as they are founded upon no theory of Knowing and Being: but this is to condemn them for not being what they were never intended to be.
The sentence in which Aristotle states the objects to be divided, and his division of them is so brief and bold that bearing in mind the subsequent history of the Categories, one first comes upon it with a certain surprise. He says simply:—
"Of things expressed without syntax (i.e., single words), each signifies either substance, or quantity, or quality, or relation, or place, or time, or disposition (i.e., attitude or internal arrangement), or appurtenance, or action (doing), or suffering (being done to)."[1]
The objects, then, that Aristotle proposed to classify were single words (the themata simplicia of the Schoolmen). He explains that by "out of syntax" (ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς)[*] he means without reference to truth or falsehood: there can be no declaration of truth or falsehood without a sentence, a combination, or syntax: "man runs" is either true or false, "man" by itself, "runs" by itself, is neither. His division, therefore, was a division of single words according to their differences of signification, and without reference to the truth or falsehood of their predication.[2]
Signification was thus the basis of division. But according to what differences? The Categories themselves are so abstract that this question might be discussed on their bare titles interminably. But often when abstract terms are doubtful, an author's intention may be gathered from his examples. And when Aristotle's examples are ranged in a table, certain principles of subdivision leap to the eyes. Thus:—
| Substance (οὐσία) (Substantia) | Man (ἄνθρωπος) |  | Common Noun |  | Substance |
| Quantity (ποσὸν) (Quantitas) Quality (ποιὸν) (Qualitas) Relation (πρός τι) (Relatio) | Five-feet-five (τρίπηχυ) Scholarly (γραμματικὸν) Bigger (μεῖζον) |  | Adjective |  | Permanent Attribute |
| Place (ποῦ) (Ubi) Time (ποτὲ) (Quando) | In-the-Lyceum (ἐν Λυκείῳ) Yesterday (χθὲς) |  | Adverb |  | Temporary Attribute |
| Disposition (κεῖσθαι) (Positio) Appurtenance (ἔχειν) (Habitus) Action (ποιεῖν) (Actio) Passion (πάσχειν) (Passio) | Reclines (ἀνάκειται) Has-shoes-on (ὑποδέδεται) Cuts (τέμνει) Is cut (τέμνεται) |  | Verb |
In looking at the examples, our first impression is that Aristotle has fallen into a confusion. He professes to classify words out of syntax, yet he gives words with the marks of syntax on them. Thus his division is accidentally grammatical, a division of parts of speech, parts of a sentence, into Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Verbs. And his subdivisions of these parts are still followed in our grammars. But really it is not the grammatical function that he attends to, but the signification: and looking further at the examples, we see what differences of signification he had in his mind. It is differences relative to a concrete individual, differences in the words applied to him according as they signify the substance of him or his attributes, permanent or temporary.
Take any concrete thing, Socrates, this book, this table. It must be some kind of a thing, a man, a book. It must have some size or quantity, six feet high, three inches broad. It must have some quality, white, learned, hard. It must have relations with other things, half this, double that, the son of a father. It must be somewhere, at some time, in some attitude, with some "havings," appendages, appurtenances, or belongings, doing something, or having something done to it. Can you conceive any name (simple or composite) applicable to any object of perception, whose signification does not fall into one or other of these classes? If you cannot, the categories are justified as an exhaustive division of significations. They are a complete list of the most general resemblances among individual things, in other words, of the summa genera, the genera generalissima of predicates concerning this, that or the other concrete individual. No individual thing is sui generis: everything is like other things: the categories are the most general likenesses.
The categories are exhaustive, but do they fulfil another requisite of a good division—are they mutually exclusive? Aristotle himself raised this question, and some of his answers to difficulties are instructive. Particularly his discussion of the distinction between Second Substances or Essences and Qualities. Here he approximates to the modern doctrine of the distinction between Substance and Attribute as set forth in our quotation from Mansel at p. 110. Aristotle's Second Essences (δεύτεραι οὐσίαι) are common nouns or general names, Species and Genera, man, horse, animal, as distinguished from Singular names, this man, this horse, which he calls First Substances (πρῶται οὐσίαι), essences par excellence, to which real existence in the highest sense is attributed. Common nouns are put in the First Category because they are predicated in answer to the question, What is this? But he raises the difficulty whether they may not rather be regarded as being in the Third Category, that of Quality (τὸ ποιὸν). When we say, "This is a man," do we not declare what sort of a thing he is? do we not declare his Quality? If Aristotle had gone farther along this line, he would have arrived at the modern point of view that a man is a man in virtue of his possessing certain attributes, that general names are applied in virtue of their connotation. This would have been to make the line of distinction between the First Category and the Third pass between First Essence and Second, ranking the Second Essences with Qualities. But Aristotle did not get out of the difficulty in this way. He solved it by falling back on the differences in common speech. "Man" does not signify the quality simply, as "whiteness" does. "Whiteness" signifies nothing but the quality. That is to say, there is no separate name in common speech for the common attributes of man. His further obscure remark that general names "define quality round essence" περὶ οὐσίαν, inasmuch as they signify what sort a certain essence is, and that genera make this definition more widely than species, bore fruit in the mediæval discussions between Realists and Nominalists by which the signification of general names was cleared up.
Another difficulty about the mutual exclusiveness of the Categories was started by Aristotle in connexion with the Fourth Category, Relation (πρός τι Ad aliquid, To something). Mill remarks that "that could not be a very comprehensive view of the nature of Relation which would exclude action, passivity, and local situation from that Category," and many commentators, from Simplicius down to Hamilton, have remarked that all the last six Categories might be included under Relation. This is so far correct that the word Relation is one of the vaguest and most extensive of words; but the criticism ignores the strictness with which Aristotle confined himself in his Categories to the forms of common speech. It is clear from his examples that in his Fourth Category he was thinking only of "relation" as definitely expressed in common speech. In his meaning, any word is a relative which is joined with another in a sentence by means of a preposition or a case-inflection. Thus "disposition" is a relative: it is the disposition of something. This kind of relation is perfect when the related terms reciprocate grammatically; thus "master," "servant," since we can say either "the master of the servant," or "the servant of the master". In mediæval logic the term Relata was confined to these perfect cases, but the Category had a wider scope with Aristotle. And he expressly raised the question whether a word might not have as much right to be put in another Category as in this. Indeed, he went further than his critics in his suggestions of what Relation might be made to include. Thus: "big" signifies Quality; yet a thing is big with reference to something else, and is so far a Relative. Knowledge must be knowledge of something, and is a relative: why then should we put "knowing" (i.e., learned) in the Category of Quality. "Hope" is a relative, as being the hope of a man and the hope of something. Yet we say, "I have hope," and there hope would be in the category of Having, Appurtenance. For the solution of all such difficulties, Aristotle falls back upon the forms of common speech, and decides the place of words in his categories according to them. This was hardly consistent with his proposal to deal with separate words out of syntax, if by this was meant anything more than dealing with them without reference to truth or falsehood. He did not and could not succeed in dealing with separate words otherwise than as parts of sentences, owing their signification to their position as parts of a transient plexus of thought. In so far as words have their being in common speech, and it is their being in this sense that Aristotle considers in the Categories, it is a transient being. What being they represent besides is, in the words of Porphyry, a very deep affair, and one that needs other and greater investigation.
[Footnote 1:] τῶν κατὰ μηδεμίαν συμπλοκὴν λεγομένων ἕκαστον ἢτοι οὐσίαν σημαίνει, ἢ ποσὸν, ἢ ποιὸν, ἢ πρός τι, ἢ ποῦ, ἢ ποτὲ, ἢ κεῖσθαι, ἢ ἔχειν, ἢ ποιεῖν, ἢ πάσχειν (Categ. ii. 5.)
[Footnote 2:] To describe the Categories as a grammatical division, as Mansel does in his instructive Appendix C to Aldrich, is a little misleading without a qualification. They are non-logical inasmuch as they have no bearing on any logical purpose. But they are grammatical only in so far as they are concerned with words. They are not grammatical in the sense of being concerned with the function of words in predication. The unit of grammar in this sense is the sentence, a combination of words in syntax; and it is expressly with words out of syntax that Aristotle deals, with single words not in relation to the other parts of a sentence, but in relation to the things signified. In any strict definition of the provinces of Grammar and Logic, the Categories are neither grammatical nor logical: the grammarians have appropriated them for the subdivision of certain parts of the sentence, but with no more right than the logicians. They really form a treatise by themselves, which is in the main ontological, a discussion of substances and attributes as underlying the forms of common speech. In saying this I use the word substance in the modern sense: but it must be remembered that Aristotle's οὐσία, translated substantia, covered the word as well as the thing signified, and that his Categories are primarily classes of words. The union between names and things would seem to have been closer in the Greek mind than we can now realise. To get at it we must note that every separate word τὸ λεγόμενον is conceived as having a being or thing τὸ ὄν corresponding to it, so that beings or things τὰ ὄντα are coextensive with single words: a being or thing is whatever receives a separate name. This is clear and simple enough, but perplexity begins when we try to distinguish between this nameable being and concrete being, which last is Aristotle's category of οὐσία, the being signified by a Proper or a Common as distinguished from an Abstract Noun. As we shall see, it is relatively to the highest sense of this last kind of being, namely, the being signified by a Proper name, that he considers the other kinds of being.
Chapter IV.
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT UNIVERSALS. —DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE RELATION OF GENERAL NAMES TO THOUGHT AND TO REALITY.
In the opening sentences of his Isagoge, before giving his simple explanation of the Five Predicables, Porphyry mentions certain questions concerning Genera and Species, which he passes over as being too difficult for the beginner. "Concerning genera and species," he says, "the question whether they subsist (i.e., have real substance), or whether they lie in the mere thoughts only, or whether, granting them to subsist, they are corporeal or incorporeal, or whether they subsist apart, or in sensible things and cohering round them—this I shall pass over, such a question being a very deep affair and one that needs other and greater investigation."
This passage, written about the end of the third century, A.D., is a kind of isthmus between Greek Philosophy and Mediæval: it summarises questions which had been turned over on every side and most intricately discussed by Plato and Aristotle and their successors, and the bald summary became a starting-point for equally intricate discussions among the Schoolmen, among whom every conceivable variety of doctrine found champions. The dispute became known as the dispute about Universals, and three ultra-typical forms of doctrine were developed, known respectively as Realism, Nominalism, and Conceptualism. Undoubtedly the dispute, with all its waste of ingenuity, had a clearing effect, and we may fairly try now what Porphyry shrank from, to gather some simple results for the better understanding of general names and their relations to thoughts and to things. The rival schools had each some aspect of the general name in view, which their exaggeration served to render more distinct.
What does a general name signify? For logical purposes it is sufficient to answer—the points of resemblance as grasped in the mind, fixed by a name applicable to each of the resembling individuals. This is the signification of the general name logically, its connotation or concept, the identical element of objective reference in all uses of a general name.
But other questions may be asked that cannot be so simply answered. What is this concept in thought? What is there in our minds corresponding to the general name when we utter it? How is its signification conceived? What is the signification psychologically?
We may ask, further, What is there in nature that the general name signifies? What is its relation to reality? What corresponds to it in the real world? Has the unity that it represents among individuals no existence except in the mind? Calling this unity, this one in the many, the Universal (Universale, τὸ πᾶν), what is the Universal ontologically?
It was this ontological question that was so hotly and bewilderingly debated among the Schoolmen. Before giving the ultra-typical answers to it, it may be well to note how this question was mixed up with still other questions of Theology and Cosmogony. Recognising that there is a unity signified by the general name, we may go on to inquire into the ground of the unity. Why are things essentially like one another? How is the unity maintained? How is it continued? Where does the common pattern come from? The question of the nature of the Universal thus links itself with metaphysical theories of the construction of the world, or even with the Darwinian theory of the origin of species.
Passing by these remoter questions, we may give the answers of the three extreme schools to the ontological question, What is a Universal?
The answer of the Ultra-Realists, broadly put, was that a Universal is a substance having an independent existence in nature.
Of the Ultra-Nominalists, that the Universal is a name and nothing else, vox et præterea nihil; that this name is the only unity among the individuals of a species, all that they have in common.
Of the Ultra-Conceptualists, that the individuals have more in common than the name, that they have the name plus the meaning, vox + significatio, but that the Universals, the genera and species, exist only in the mind.
Now these extreme doctrines, as literally interpreted by opponents, are so easily refuted and so manifestly untenable, that it may be doubted whether they were ever held by any thinker, and therefore I call them Ultra-Realism, Ultra-Nominalism, and Ultra-Conceptualism. They are mere exaggerations or caricatures, set up by opponents because they can be easily knocked down.
To the Ultra-Realists, it is sufficient to say that if there existed anywhere a substance having all the common attributes of a species and only these, having none of the attributes peculiar to any of the individuals of that species, corresponding to the general name as an individual corresponds to a Proper or Singular name, it would not be the Universal, the unity pervading the individuals, but only another individual.
To the Ultra-Nominalists, it is sufficient to say that the individuals must have more in common than the name, because the name is not applied arbitrarily, but on some ground. The individuals must have in common that on account of which they receive the common name: to call them by the same name is not to make them of the same species.
To the Ultra-Conceptualists, it is sufficient to say that when we employ a general name, as when we say "Socrates is a man," we do not refer to any passing thought or state of mind, but to certain attributes independent of what is passing in our minds. We cannot make a thing of this or that species by merely thinking of it as such.
The ultra-forms of these doctrines are thus easily shown to be inadequate, yet each of the three, Realism, Nominalism, and Conceptualism, represents a phase of the whole truth.
Thus, take Realism. Although it is not true that there is anything in reality corresponding to the general name such as there is corresponding to the singular name, the general name merely signifying attributes of what the singular name signifies, it does not follow, as the opponents of Ultra-Realism hastily assume, that there is nothing in the real world corresponding to the general name. Three senses may be particularised in which Realism is justified.
(1) The points of resemblance from which the concept is formed are as real as the individuals themselves. It is true in a sense that it is our thought that gives unity to the individuals of a class, that gathers the many into one, and so far the Conceptualists are right. Still we should not gather them into one if they did not resemble one another: that is the reason why we think of them together: and the respects in which they resemble one another are as much independent of us and our thinking as the individuals themselves, as much beyond the power of our thought to change. We must go behind the activity of the mind in unifying to the reason for the unification: and the ground of unity is found in what really exists. We do not confer the unity: we do not make all men or all dogs alike: we find them so. The curly tails in a thousand domestic dogs, which serve to distinguish them from wolves and foxes, are as real as the thousand individual domestic dogs. In this sense the Aristotelian doctrine, Universalia in re, expresses a plain truth.
(2) The Platonic doctrine, formulated by the Schoolmen as Universalia ante rem, has also a plain validity. Individuals come and go, but the type, the Universal, is more abiding. Men are born and die: man remains throughout. The snows of last year have vanished, but snow is still a reality to be faced. Wisdom does not perish with the wise men of any generation. In this plain sense, at least, it is true that Universals exist before Individuals, have a greater permanence, or, if we like to say so, a higher, as it is a more enduring, reality.
(3) Further, the "idea," concept, or universal, though it cannot be separated from the individual, and whether or not we ascribe to it the separate suprasensual existence of the archetypal forms of Plato's poetical fancy, is a very potent factor in the real world. Ideals of conduct, of manners, of art, of policy, have a traditional life: they do not pass away with the individuals in whom they have existed, in whom they are temporarily materialised: they survive as potent influences from age to age. The "idea" of Chaucer's Man of Law, who always "seemed busier than he was," is still with us. Mediæval conceptions of chivalry still govern conduct. The Universal enters into the Individual, takes possession of him, makes of him its temporary manifestation.
Nevertheless, the Nominalists are right in insisting on the importance of names. What we call the real world is a common object of perception and knowledge to you and me: we cannot arrive at a knowledge of it without some means of communication with one another: our means of communication is language. It may be doubted whether even thinking could go far without symbols with the help of which conceptions may be made definite. A concept cannot be explained without reference to a symbol. There is even a sense in which the Ultra-Nominalist doctrine that the individuals in a class have nothing in common but the name is tenable. Denotability by the same name is the only respect in which those individuals are absolutely identical: in this sense the name alone is common to them, though it is applied in virtue of their resemblance to one another.
Finally, the Conceptualists are right in insisting on the mind's activity in connexion with general names. Genera and species are not mere arbitrary subjective collections: the union is determined by the characters of the things collected. Still it is with the concept in each man's mind that the name is connected: it is by the activity of thought in recognising likenesses and forming concepts that we are able to master the diversity of our impressions, to introduce unity into the manifold of sense, to reduce our various recollections to order and coherence.
So much for the Ontological question. Now for the Psychological. What is in the mind when we employ a general name? What is the Universal psychologically? How is it conceived?
What breeds confusion in these subtle inquiries is the want of fixed unambiguous names for the things to be distinguished. It is only by means of such names that we can hold on to the distinctions, and keep from puzzling ourselves. Now there are three things to be distinguished in this inquiry, which we may call the Concept, the Conception, and the Conceptual or Generic Image. Let us call them by these names, and proceed to explain them.
By the Concept, I understand the meaning of the general name, what the general name signifies: by the Conception, the mental act or state of him who conceives this meaning. The concept of "triangle," i.e., what you and I mean by the word, is not my act of mind or your act of mind when we think or speak of a triangle. The Conception, which is this act, is an event or incident in our mental history, a psychical act or state, a distinct occurrence, a particular fact in time as much as the battle of Waterloo. The concept is the objective reference of the name, which is the same, or at least is understood to be the same, every time we use it. I make a figure on paper with ink or on a blackboard with chalk, and recognise or conceive it as a triangle: you also conceive it as such: we do the same to-morrow: we did the same yesterday: each act of conception is a different event, but the concept is the same throughout.
Now the psychological question about the Universal is, What is this conception? We cannot define it positively further than by saying that it consists in realising the meaning of a general name: the act being unique, we can only make it intelligible by producing an example of it. But we may define it negatively by distinguishing it from the conceptual image. Whenever we conceive anything, "man," "horse," there is generally present to our minds an image of a man or horse, with accidents of size, colour, position or other categories. But this conceptual image is not the concept, and the mental act of forming it is not conception.
This distinction between mental picturing or imaging and the conception of common attributes is variously expressed. The correlative terms Intuitive and Symbolical Thinking, Presentative and Representative Knowledge have been employed.[1] But whatever terms we use, the distinction itself is vital, and the want of it leads to confusion.
Thus the fact that we cannot form a conceptual image composed solely of common attributes has been used to support the argument of Ultra-Nominalism, that the individuals classed under a common name have nothing in common but the name. What the word "dog" signifies, i.e., the "concept" of dog, is neither big nor little, neither black nor tan, neither here nor there, neither Newfoundland, nor Retriever, nor Terrier, nor Greyhound, nor Pug, nor Bulldog. The concept consists only of the attributes common to all dogs apart from any that are peculiar to any variety or any individual. Now we cannot form any such conceptual image. Our conceptual image is always of some definite size and shape. Therefore, it is argued, we cannot conceive what a dog means, and dogs have nothing in common but the name. This, however, does not follow. The concept is not the conceptual image, and forming the image is not conception. We may even, as in the case of a chiliagon, or thousand-sided figure, conceive the meaning without being able to form any definite image.
How then, do we ordinarily proceed in conceiving, if we cannot picture the common attributes alone and apart from particulars? We attend, or strive to attend, only to those aspects of an image which it has in common with the individual things denoted. And if we want to make our conception definite, we pass in review an indefinite number of the individuals, case after case.
A minor psychological question concerns the nature of the conceptual image. Is it a copy of some particular impression, or a confused blur or blend of many? Possibly neither: possibly it is something like one of Mr. Galton's composite photographs, photographs produced by exposing the same surface to the impressions of a number of different photographs in succession. If the individuals are nearly alike, the result is an image that is not an exact copy of any one of the components and yet is perfectly distinct. Possibly the image that comes into our mind's eye when we hear such a word as "horse" or "man" is of this character, the result of the impressions of a number of similar things, but not identical with any one. As, however, different persons have different conceptual images of the same concept, so we may have different conceptual images at different times. It is only the concept that remains the same.
But how, it may be asked, can the concept remain the same? If the universal or concept psychologically is an intellectual act, repeated every time we conceive, what guarantee have we for the permanence of the concept? Does this theory not do away with all possibility of defining and fixing concepts?
This brings us back to the doctrine already laid down about the truth of Realism. The theory of the concept is not exhausted when it is viewed only psychologically, as a psychic act. If we would understand it fully, we must consider the act in its relations to the real experience of ourselves and others. To fix this act, we give it a separate name, calling it the conception: and then we must go behind the activity of the mind to the objects on which it is exercised. The element of fixity is found in them. And here also the truth of Nominalism comes in. By means of words we enter into communication with other minds. It is thus that we discover what is real, and what is merely personal to ourselves.
[Footnote 1:] The only objection to these terms is that they have slipped from their moorings in philosophical usage. Thus instead of Leibnitz's use of Intuitive and Symbolical, which corresponds to the above distinction between Imaging and Conception, Mr. Jevons employs the terms to express a distinction among conceptions proper. We can understand what a chiliagon means, but we cannot form an image of it in our minds, except in a very confused and imperfect way; whereas we can form a distinct image of a triangle. Mr. Jevons would call the conception of the triangle Intuitive, of the chiliagon Symbolical.
Again, while Mansel uses the words Presentative and Representative to express our distinction, a more common usage is to call actual Perception Presentative Knowledge, and ideation or recollection in idea Representative.