Now, then, let the word, man, be supposed, first of all, the name of an individual; it becomes associated with the idea of the individual, and acquires the power of calling up that idea. Let us next suppose it applied to one other individual, and no more: it becomes associated with this other idea; and it now has the power of calling up either. The following is, then, a very natural train:—1, The name occurs; 2, the name 268 suggests the idea of one of the individuals; 3, that idea suggests the name back again; 4, the name suggests the idea of the second individual. All this may pass, and, after sufficient repetition, does pass, with the rapidity of lightning. Suppose, now, that the name is associated, with the ideas not of two individuals, but of many; the same train may go on; the name exciting the idea of one individual, that idea the name, the name another individual, and so on, to an indefinite extent; all in that small portion of time of which the mind takes no account. The combination thus formed stands in need of a name. And the name, man, while it is the name of every individual included in the process, is also the name of the whole combination; that is, of a very complex idea.
One other question, respecting classification, may still seem to require solution; namely, what it is by which we are determined in placing such and such things together in a class in preference to others; what, in other words, is the principle of Classification? I answer, that, as it is for the purpose of naming, of naming with greater facility, that we form classes at all; so it is in furtherance of that same facility that such and such things only are included in one class, such and such in another. Experience teaches what sort of grouping answers the purposes of naming best; under the suggestions of that experience, the application of a general word is tacitly and without much of reflection regulated; and by this process, and no other, it is, that Classification is performed. It is the aggregation of an indefinite number of individuals, by their association with a particular name.
It may seem that this answer is still very general 269 and that to make the explanation sufficient, the suggestions by which experience recommends this or that classification should be particularized. For the purpose of the present chapter, however, namely, to shew that the business of Classification is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into association, the observation, though general, is full and satisfactory. The detail of the purposes to be answered by general terms belongs more properly to the next head of Discourse, and as far as the development of the mental phenomena seems to require it, will there be presented.
It may still be useful to advert to the three principal cases into which Classification may be resolved; 1, that of objects considered as synchronical; 2, that of objects considered as successive; 3, that of feelings. The first is exemplified in the common classes of sensible objects, as men, horses, trees, and so on; and requires no further explanation. The second is exemplified in the classes of events, denoted by such words, as Birth, Death, Snowing, Thundering, Freezing, Flying, Creeping. By these words there is always denoted one antecedent and one consequent, generally more, sometimes a long train of them. And it is obvious that each of them is, at once, the name of each instance individually, and of all taken generally together. Thus, Freezing, is not the name of an individual instance of freezing only, but of that and of all other instances of Freezing. The same is the case with other words of a still more general, and thence more obscure signification, as Gravitation, Attraction, Motion, Force, &c.; which words have this additional source of confusion, that they are 270 ambiguous, being both abstract and concrete. When we say that there is a third case of classification, relating to Feelings, it does not mean that the two former do not relate to feelings: for when we say, that we classify objects, as men, horses, &c.;—or events, as the sequences named births, deaths, and so on;—it is obvious that our operation is about our own feelings, and nothing else; as the objects, and their successions, are, to us, the feelings merely which we thus designate. But as there are feelings which we do thus designate; and feelings which we do not; it is convenient, for the purpose of teaching, to treat of them apart. The Feelings, of this latter kind, which we classify, are either single feelings, or trains. Thus, Pain is the name of a single feeling, and the name both of an individual instance, and of indefinite instances, forming a most extensive class. Memory is the name not of a single feeling or idea, but of a train; and it is the name not only of a single instance, but of all instances of such a train, that is, of a class. The same is the case with Belief. It is the name of a train consisting of a certain number of links; and it is the name not only of an individual instance of such trains, but of all instances, forming an extensive class. Imagination is another instance of the same sort of classification. So also is Judgment, and Reasoning, and Doubting, and we might name many more.
It is easy to see, among the principles of Association, what particular principle it is, which is mainly concerned in Classification, and by which we are rendered capable of that mighty operation; on which, as its basis, the whole of our intellectual structure is reared. That principle is Resemblance. It seems to 271 be similarity or resemblance which, when we have applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another, and another, till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by the common relation of every part of the aggregate to one and the same name. Similarity, or Resemblance, we must regard as an Idea familiar and sufficiently understood for the illustration at present required. It will itself be strictly analysed, at a [subsequent] part of this Inquiry.
So deeply was the sagacious mind of Plato, far more philosophical than that of any who succeeded him, during many ages, struck with the importance of Classification, that he seems to have regarded it as the sum of all philosophy; which he described, as being the faculty of seeing “the ONE in the MANY, and the MANY in the ONE;” a phrase which, when stripped from the subtleties of the sophists whom he exposed, and from the mystical visions of his successors, of which he never dreamed, is really a striking expression of what in classification is the matter of fact. His error lay, in misconceiving the ONE; which he took, not for the aggregate, but something pervading the aggregate.[79] [80]
[79] The two chapters (VII. and VIII.) of Mr. James Mill’s Analysis are highly instructive, and exhibit all his customary force and perspicuity. But in respect to Classification and Abstraction, I think that the ancient philosophers of the Sokratic school generally, are entitled to more credit than he allows them; and moreover that in respect to the difference of opinion between Plato and Aristotle, he has assigned an undue superiority to the former at the expense of the latter.
The reader would take very inadequate measure of these 272 ancient philosophers, if he judged them from the two citations out of Harris and Cudworth, produced by Mr. James Mill as setting forth the most successful speculations of the ancient world. Both these passages are brought to illustrate “the mystical jargon” (p. 253) with which the ancients are said to have obscured a clear and simple subject. The mysticism in both citations is to a certain extent real; but it depends also in part on the use of a terminology now obsolete, rather than on confusion of ideas. In regard to the citation from Harris, it is a passage in which that author passes into theology, and includes God and Immortality: topics upon which mystical language can seldom be avoided: moreover, if we compare the remarks on Harris ([p. 251]) with [p. 271], we shall find Mr. James Mill ridiculing as mystical, when used by Harris, the same language (about “the One in the Many”) which, when employed by Plato, he eulogises as follows—“a phrase which, when stripped from the subtleties of the sophists whom he (Plato) exposed, and from the mystical visions of his successors, of which he never dreamed, is really a striking expression of what in classification is the matter of fact.”
I wish I could concur with Mr. James Mill in exonerating Plato from these mystical visions, and imputing them exclusively to his successors. But I find them too manifestly proclaimed in the Timæus, Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion, Republic, and other dialogues, to admit of such an acquittal: I also find subtleties quite as perplexing as those of any sophist whom he exposed. Along with these elements, the dialogues undoubtedly present others entirely disparate, much sounder and nobler. I have in another work endeavoured to render a faithful account of the multifarious Platonic aggregate, stamped in all its parts,—whether of negative dialectic, poetical fancy, or ethical dogmatism,—with the unrivalled genius of expression belonging to the author. The misfortune is that his Neo-Platonic successors selected by preference his dreams and visions for their amplifying comment and eulogy, leaving comparatively unnoticed the instructive lessons of philosophy 273 accompanying them. To this extent the Neo-Platonists fully deserve the criticism here bestowed on them.
The long passage, extracted in the Analysis from Cudworth, contains two grave mis-statements, respecting both Plato and Aristotle; which deserve the more attention because they seem to have misled Mr. James Mill himself. Respecting Universals, Cudworth, after saying that they do not exist in the individual sensibles, proceeds as follows ([p. 255]-256)—