218 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



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 any 

 thing, no other person knows, nor does the speaker him 

 self 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 he observed, that general propositions of 

 which no one can tell exactly what they assert, cannot pos 

 sibly 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 ascer 

 tained 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 pre 

 sent 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 our 

 selves, 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 asso 

 ciations 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 



