270 Objective Treatment of Logic. [CHAP. xi. 



to deserve that name at all. It may be first suggested to 

 him along with the proof which establishes it, he not having 

 had occasion to think of it before. It thus comes at a single 

 step out of the obscurity of the unknown into the full pos 

 session of its rights as a fact, skipping practically the inter 

 mediate or hypothetical stage altogether. The original in 

 vestigator himself may have long pondered over it, and kept 

 it present to his mind, in this its dubious stage, but finally 

 have given it to the world with that amount of evidence 

 which raises it at once in the minds of others to the level of 

 commonly accepted facts. 



Still this doubtful stage exists in every hypothesis, 

 though for logical purposes, and to most minds, it exists 

 in a very fugitive way only. When attention has been 

 directed to it, it may be also detected elsewhere in Logic. 

 Take the case, for instance, of the reference of names. 

 Mill gives the examples of the sun, and a battle, as dis 

 tinguished from the ideas of them which we, or children, 

 may entertain. Here the distinction is plain and obvious 

 enough. But if, on the other hand, we take the case of 

 things whose existence is doubtful or disputed, the difficulty 

 above mentioned begins to show itself. The case of merely 

 extinct things, or such as have not yet come into existence, 

 offers indeed no trouble, since of course actually present 

 existence is not necessary to constitute a fact. The usual 

 distinction may even be retained also in the case of mythical 

 existences. Centaur and Griffin have as universally recog 

 nised a significance amongst the poets, painters, and heralds 

 as lion and leopard have. Hence we may claim, even here, 

 that our conceptions shall be truthful, consistent with 

 fact/ and so on, by which we mean that they are to be in 

 accordance with universal convention upon such subjects. 

 Necessary and universal accordance is sometimes claimed 



