THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 69 



our subject, and pass to the third and only remaining class or 

 division of Nameable Things. 



III. ATTRIBUTES: AND, FIRST, QOALITIES. 



9. From what has already been said of Substance, 

 what is to be said of Attribute is easily deducible. For if we 

 know not, and cannot know, anything of bodies but the sensa 

 tions which they excite in us or in others, those sensations 

 must be all that we can, at bottom, mean by their attributes ; 

 and the distinction which we verbally make between the pro 

 perties of things and the sensations we receive from them, 

 must originate in the convenience of discourse rather than in 

 the nature of what is signified by the terms. 



Attributes are usually distributed under the three heads of 

 Quality, Quantity, and Relation. We shall come to the two 

 latter presently : in the first place we shall confine ourselves 

 to the former. 



Let us take, then, as our example, one of what are termed 

 the sensible qualities of objects, and let that example be white 

 ness. When we ascribe whiteness to any substance, as, for 

 instance, snow ; when we say that snow has the quality white 

 ness, what do we really assert ? Simply, that when snow is 

 present to our organs, we have a particular sensation, which 

 we are accustomed to call the sensation of white. But how do 

 I know that snow is present ? Obviously by the sensations 

 which I derive from it, and not otherwise. I infer that the 

 object is present, because it gives me a certain assemblage or 

 series of sensations. And when I ascribe to it the attribute 

 whiteness, my meaning is only, that, of the sensations com 

 posing this group or series, that which I call the sensation of 

 white colour is one. 



This is one view which may be taken of the subject But 

 there is also another and a different view. It may be said, that 

 it is true we know nothing of sensible objects, except the sen 

 sations they excite in us ; that the fact of our receiving from 

 snow the particular sensation which is called a sensation of 



