TERMS. 33 



fact being that they exceed all other terms in that kind 

 of meaning, as I have elsewhere tried to show a . 



Abstract Terms. 



Comparison of different objects, and analysis of the 

 complex resemblances and differences which they present, 

 lead us to the conception of abstract qualities. We learn 

 to think of one object as not only different from another, 

 but as differing in some particular point, such as colour, 

 or weight, or size. We may then convert points of 

 agreement or difference into separate objects of thought 

 called qualities, and denoted by abstract terms. Thus 

 the term redness means something in which a number 

 of objects agree as to colour, and in virtue of which they 

 are called red. Eedness forms, in fact, the intensive 

 meaning of the term red. 



Abstract terms are strongly distinguished from general 

 terms by possessing only one kind of meaning ; for as 

 they denote qualities there is nothing which they can in 

 addition imply. The adjective red is the name of red 

 objects, but it implies the possession by them of the 

 quality redness ; but this latter term has one single 

 meaning the quality alone. Thus it arises that abstract 

 terms are incapable of number or plurality. Red objects 

 are numerically distinct each from each, and there are a 

 multitude of such objects ; but redness is a single exis 

 tence which runs through all those objects, and is the 

 same in one as it is in another. It is true that we may 

 speak of rednesses, meaning different kinds or tints of 

 redness, just as we may speak of colours, meaning dif 

 ferent kinds of colours. But in distinguishing kinds, 



a J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Book I. chap. ii. section 5. Jevons 

 Elementary Lessons in Logic/ pp. 41-43; Pure Logic, p. 6. See 

 also Shedden s Elements of Logic/ London, 1864, pp. 14, &c. 



D 



