JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY TESTED. 



523 



are told ' that " the general names given to ob- 

 jects imply attributes, derive their whole meaning 

 from attributes ; and are chiefly useful as the lan- 

 guage by means of which we predicate the attri- 

 butes which they connote." Again, in the chap- 

 ter on the " Requisites of a Philosophical Lan- 

 guage," he says : 2 



" Now the meaning (as has so often been ex- 

 plained) of a general eonnotative name resides 

 in the connotation ; in the attribute on account of 

 which, and to express which, the name is given. 

 Thus, the name of 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 meanings." 



Now, the attribute, as tee learned at starting, is 

 but another name for a Resemblance, and yet a 

 proposition of which the predicate is a general 

 name, does not, properly speaking, assert resem- 

 blance at all. 



The inconsistency is still more striking when 

 we turn to another work, namely, John Stuart 

 .Mill's edition of his father's "Analysis of the 

 Human Mind." Here, in a note 3 on the subject 

 of classification, Mill objects to his father's ultra- 

 nominalist doctrine, that " men were led to class 

 solely for the purpose of economizing in the use 

 of names." Mill proceeds to remark 4 that " we 

 could not have dispensed with names to mark the 

 points in which different individuals resemble one 

 another : and these are class-names." Referring 

 to his father's peculiar expression — " individual 

 qualities " — he remarks very properly : 



" It is not individual qualities that we ever 

 have occasion to predicate. . . . We never have 

 occasion to predicate of an object the individual 

 and instantaneous impressions which it produces 

 in us. The only meaning of predicating a qual- 

 ity at all, is to affirm a resemblance. "When we 

 ascribe a quality to an object, we intend to assert 

 that the object affects us in a manner similar to 

 that in which we are affected by a known class of 

 objects." 



A few lines farther down he proceeds : 



" Qualities, therefore, cannot be predicated 

 without general names ; nor, consequently, with- 

 out classification. "Wherever there is a general 

 name there is a class ; classification, and general 

 names, are things exactly coextensive." 



1 Book IV., chapter iii., eight lines from end of 

 chapter. 



2 Book IV., chapter iv., section 2, second line. 



3 VoL i., p. 260. 



4 Page 261. 



This is, no doubt, quite the true doctrine ; but 

 what becomes of the paragraph already quoted, 

 which appeared in eight editions of the " System 

 of Logic," during Mill's lifetime ? In that para- 

 graph he asserted that propositions referring an 

 object to a class because they possess the attri- 

 butes constituting the class, do not, properly 

 speaking, assert resemblance at all. Now, when 

 commenting on his father's doctrine, Mill says 

 that the only meaning of predicating a quality at 

 all, is to affirm a resemblance. 



In a later note in the same volume Mill is, if 

 possible, still more explicit in his assertion that 

 the predication of general names is a matter of 

 attributes and resemblances. He begins thus : 1 



" Rejecting the notion that classes and classi- 

 fication would not have existed but for the neces- 

 sity of economizing names, we may say that ob- 

 jects are formed into classes on account of their 

 resemblance." 



On the next page he says in the most distinct 

 manner : 



"Still, a class-name stands in a very different 

 relation to the very definite resemblances which it 

 is intended to mark, from that in which it stands 

 to the various accessory circumstances which may 

 form part of the image it calls up. There are cer- 

 tain attributes common to the entire class, which 

 the class -name was either deliberately selected 

 as a mark of, or, at all events, which guide us in 

 the application of it. These attributes are the real 

 meaning of the class-name — are what we intend 

 to ascribe to an object when we call it by that 

 name." 



There can be no possible mistake about Mill's 

 meaning now. The class-name is intended to mark 

 definite resemblances. These resemblances must 

 be the attributes which the class-name was either 

 deliberately selected as a mark of, or which guide 

 us in the application of it. These attributes are 

 the real meaning of the class-naine — are what we 

 intend to ascribe to an object, when we call it by 

 that name. Yet we were told in the passage of 

 the " System of Logic " to which I invited the 

 reader's special attention, that propositions in 

 which objects are referred to a class, because 

 they possess the attributes constituting the class, 

 are so far from asserting nothing but resem- 

 blance, that they do not, properly speaking, as- 

 sert resemblance at all. A class-name is now 

 spoken of as intended to mark definite resem- 

 blances. Previously we ware informed that, in 

 saying, " Gold is a metal," I do not assert re- 



1 James Mill's "Analysis of the Human Mind," 

 new editioD, vol. i., p. 283. 



