DEFINITION. 103 



what particular sphere, objects will be really found possessing 

 such attributes ; or (ff) to remove ambiguity as to what are the 

 objects to which we wish our terms to refer, by pointing out or 

 in some way exemplifying those objects, without raising any 

 analogous question as to what precisely is the nature of those 

 objects or what the proper attributes to include in the connota 

 tion of their class names : and regarding as real those definitions 

 whether intensive or extensive which appear from the context 

 or subject-matter to carry with them the implicit (and often 

 highly contentious) assertion that there does really exist, in the 

 sphere to which we claim such definition to refer, an object or 

 class of objects possessing precisely the attributes contained in 

 our definition. 1 



Some light may be thrown on the question, whether or not 

 definitions imply the existence of the things defined, by a glance 

 at what are called Verbal Disputes. A purely verbal dispute is 

 of course a dispute that arises solely from a misunderstanding 

 about the meaning of words, where there is no difference of 

 view as to facts between the disputants : the sort of disputes 

 which the Scholastics sought to avoid by enforcing the maxim, 

 Initium disputandi, deflnitio nominis. Logicians have held the 

 most widely divergent views about the extent of such disputes, 

 some maintaining, with Locke, &quot;that the greatest part of the 

 disputes in the world are merely verbal,&quot; others, with De 

 Quincey, that &quot; they have never in the whole course of their 

 lives met with such a thing as a merely verbal dispute&quot;. 2 The 

 truth lies much nearer the latter extreme than the former, 

 for when different people attach different meanings to the same 

 term the cause of such difference of usage will almost invariably 

 be found to be a difference of view about facts. In fixing the 

 connotation of names, in attaching meanings to terms, people are 

 guided by what they consider to be facts (31, 32), and by their 

 interpretation of the latter : and it is just precisely because all 

 do not agree in their admission of alleged facts, and in their inter 

 pretations of admitted facts, that differences in connotation and 

 definition leading to ambiguity, equivocation, and so-called verbal 

 disputes arise. But it is an undeniable fact that many disputes 



1 In case of Exemplification the claim would be that the selection of individuals 

 made, is a typical -selection : that the class exemplified does possess in common 

 those attributes, and those only, possessed in common by the smaller group. 



2 VENN, op. cit., p. 295. Cf. KEYNES, op. cit. t p. 50, footnote. 



