CHAPTER IV.
OF THE REQUISITES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DEFINITION.
[§ 1.] In order that we may possess a language perfectly suitable for the investigation and expression of general truths, there are two principal, and several minor, requisites. The first is, that every general name should have a meaning, steadily fixed, and precisely determined. When, by the fulfilment of this condition, such names as we possess are fitted for the due performance of their functions, the next requisite, and the second in order of importance, is that we should possess a name wherever one is needed; wherever there is anything to be designated by it, which it is of importance to express.
The former of these requisites is that to which our attention will be exclusively directed in the present chapter.
[§ 2.] Every general name, then, must have a certain and knowable meaning. Now the meaning (as has so often been explained) of a general connotative name, resides in the connotation; in the attribute on account of which, and to express which, the name is given. Thus, the name animal being given to all things which possess the attributes of sensation and voluntary motion, the word connotes those attributes exclusively, and they constitute the whole of its meaning. If the name be abstract, its denotation is the same with the connotation of the corresponding concrete: it designates directly the attribute, which the concrete term implies. To give a precise meaning to general names is, then, to fix with steadiness the attribute or attributes connoted by each concrete general name, and denoted by the corresponding abstract. Since abstract names, in the order of their creation, do not precede but follow concrete ones, as is proved by the etymological fact that they are almost always derived from them; we may consider their meaning as determined by, and dependent on, the meaning of their concrete: and thus the problem of giving a distinct meaning to general language, is all included in that of giving a precise connotation to all concrete general names.
This is not difficult in the case of new names; of the technical terms created by scientific inquirers for the purposes of science or art. But when a name is in common use, the difficulty is greater; the problem in this case not being that of choosing a convenient connotation for the name, but of ascertaining and fixing the connotation with which it is already used. That this can ever be a matter of doubt, is a sort of paradox. But the vulgar (including in that term all who have not accurate habits of thought) seldom know exactly what assertion they intend to make, what common property they mean to express, when they apply the same name to a number of different things. All which the name expresses with them, when they predicate it of an object, is a confused feeling of resemblance between that object and some of the other things which they have been accustomed to denote by the name. They have applied the name Stone to various objects previously seen; they see a new object, which appears to them somewhat like the former, and they call it a stone, without asking themselves in what respect it is like, or what mode or degree of resemblance the best authorities, or even they themselves, require as a warrant for using the name. This rough general impression of resemblance is, however, made up of particular circumstances of resemblance; and into these it is the business of the logician to analyse it; to ascertain what points of resemblance among the different things commonly called by the name, have produced in the common mind this vague feeling of likeness; have given to the things the similarity of aspect, which has made them a class, and has caused the same name to be bestowed upon them.
But though general names are imposed by the vulgar without any more definite connotation than that of a vague resemblance; general propositions come in time to be made, in which predicates are applied to those names, that is, general assertions are made concerning the whole of the things which are denoted by the name. And since by each of these propositions some attribute, more or less precisely conceived, is of course predicated, the ideas of these various attributes thus become associated with the name, and in a sort of uncertain way it comes to connote them; there is a hesitation to apply the name in any new case in which any of the attributes familiarly predicated of the class do not exist. And thus, to common minds, the propositions which they are in the habit of hearing or uttering concerning a class, make up in a loose way a sort of connotation for the class-name. Let us take, for instance, the word Civilized. How few could be found, even among the most educated persons, who would undertake to say exactly what the term Civilized connotes. Yet there is a feeling in the minds of all who use it, that they are using it with a meaning; and this meaning is made up, in a confused manner, of everything which they have heard or read that civilized men, or civilized communities, are, or may be expected to be.
It is at this stage, probably, in the progress of a concrete name, that the corresponding abstract name generally comes into use. Under the notion that the concrete name must of course convey a meaning, or in other words, that there is some property common to all things which it denotes, people give a name to this common property; from the concrete Civilized, they form the abstract Civilization. But since most people have never compared the different things which are called by the concrete name, in such a manner as to ascertain what properties these things have in common, or whether they have any; each is thrown back upon the marks by which he himself has been accustomed to be guided in his application of the term: and these, being merely vague hearsays and current phrases, are not the same in any two persons, nor in the same person at different times. Hence the word (as Civilization, for example) which professes to be the designation of the unknown common property, conveys scarcely to any two minds the same idea. No two persons agree in the things they predicate of it; and when it is itself predicated of anything, no other person knows, nor does the speaker himself know with precision, what he means to assert. Many other words which could be named, as the word honour, or the word gentleman, exemplify this uncertainty still more strikingly.
It needs scarcely be observed, that general propositions of which no one can tell exactly what they assert, cannot possibly have been brought to the test of a correct induction. Whether a name is to be used as an instrument of thinking, or as a means of communicating the result of thought, it is imperative to determine exactly the attribute or attributes which it is to express: to give it, in short, a fixed and ascertained connotation.
[§ 3.] It would, however, be a complete misunderstanding of the proper office of a logician in dealing with terms already in use, if we were to think that because a name has not at present an ascertained connotation, it is competent to any one to give it such a connotation at his own choice. The meaning of a term actually in use is not an arbitrary quantity to be fixed, but an unknown quantity to be sought.
In the first place, it is obviously desirable to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of the associations already connected with the name; not enjoining the employment of it in a manner which conflicts with all previous habits, and especially not so as to require the rupture of those strongest of all associations between names, which are created by familiarity with propositions in which they are predicated of one another. A philosopher would have little chance of having his example followed, if he were to give such a meaning to his terms as should require us to call the North American Indians a civilized people, or the higher classes in France or England savages; or to say that civilized people live by hunting, and savages by agriculture. Were there no other reason, the extreme difficulty of effecting so complete a revolution in speech would be more than a sufficient one. The endeavour should be, that all generally received propositions into which the term enters, should be at least as true after its meaning is fixed, as they were before; and that the concrete name, therefore, should not receive such a connotation as shall prevent it from denoting things which, in common language, it is currently affirmed of. The fixed and precise connotation which it receives, should not be in deviation from, but in agreement (as far as it goes) with, the vague and fluctuating connotation which the term already had.