DEFINITION. 115 



cording to the recommendation in a previous page, substitute means for is. 

 We then have — 



Dragon is a icord meaning a thing which breathes flame : 



Dragon is a word meaning a serpent : 

 From which the conchision is, 



Some loord or words which mean a serpent, also mean a thing which 

 breathes flame : 

 where the conclusion (as well as the premises) is true, and is the only "kind 

 of conclusion which can ever follow from a definition, namely, a proposition 

 relating to the meaning of words. 



There is still another shape into which we may transform this syllogism. 

 We may suppose the middle term to be the designation neither of a thing 

 nor of a name, but of an idea. We then have — 



The idea of a dragon is an idea of a thing which breathes flame : 



The idea of a dragon is an idea of a serpent : 



Therefore, there is an idea of a serpent, which is an idea of a 

 thing breathing flame. 

 Here the conclusion is true, and also the premises ; but the premises are 

 not definitions. They are propositions affirming that an idea existing in 

 the mind, includes certain ideal elements. The truth of the conclusion fol- 

 lows from the existence of the psychological phenomenon called the idea of 

 a dragon ; and therefore still from the tacit assumption of a matter of fact.* 

 When, as in this last syllogism, the conclusion is a proposition respecting 

 an idea, the assumption on which it depends may be merely that of the ex- 

 istence of an idea. But when the conclusion is a proposition concerning a 

 Thing, the postulate involved in the definition which stands as the apparent 

 premise, is the existence of a thing conformable to the definition, and not 

 merely of an idea conformable to it. This assumption of real existence we 

 always convey the impression that we intend to make, when we profess to 

 define any name which is already known to be a name of really existing 

 objects. On this account it is, that the assumption was not necessarily 

 implied in the definition of a dragon, while there was no doubt of its be- 

 ing included in the definition of a circle. 



* In the only attempt which, so far as I know, has been made to refute the preceding argu- 

 mentation, it is maintained that in the first form of the syllogism, 



A dragon is a thing which breathes flame, 



A dragon is a serpent, 



Therefore some serpent or serpents breathe flame, 

 "there is just as much truth in the conclusion as there is in the premises, or rather, no more 

 in the latter than in the former. If the general name serpent includes both real and imaginary 

 sei"pents, there is no falsity in the conclusion ; if not, there is falsity in the minor premise." 



Let us, then, try to set out the syllogism on the hypothesis that the name serpent includes 

 imaginary serpents. We shall find that it is now necessary to alter the predicates ; for it can 

 not be asserted that an imaginary creature breathes flame ; in predicating of it such a fact, we 

 assert by the most positive implication that it is real, and not imaginary. The conclusion must 

 run thus, "Some sei-pent or serpents either do or are imagined to breathe flame." And to 

 prove this conclusion by the instance of dragons, the premises must be, A dragon is imagined 

 as breathing flame. A dragon is a (real or imaginary) serpent : from which it undoubtedly 

 follows, that there are serpents which are imagined to breathe flame ; but the major premise 

 is not a definition, nor part of a definition ; which is all that I am concerned to prove. 



Let us now examine the other assertion — that if the word serpent stands for none but real 

 serpents, the minor premise (a dragon is a serpent) is false. This is exactly what I have my- 

 self said of the premise, considered as a statement of fact : but it is not false as part of the 

 definition of a dragon ; and since the premises, or one of them, must be false ^Jtafupncijision 

 being so), the real premise can not be the definition, which is true, but the 

 which is false. ^ 



