DEFINITION. 117 



sioni that our reasonings are grounded on the matters of fact postulated in 

 definitions, and not on the definitions themselves, entirely unaffected ; and 

 accordingly this conclusion is one which I have in common with Dr. Whe- 

 well, in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences : though, on the nature 

 of demonstrative truth. Dr. Whewell's opinions are greatly at variance with 

 mine. And here, as in many other instances, I gladly acknowledge that his 

 writings are eminently serviceable in clearing from confusion the initial 

 steps in the analysis of the mental processes, even where his views respect- 

 ing the ultimate analysis are such as (though with unfeigned respect) I can 

 not but regard as fundamentally erroneous. 



§ 7. Although, according to the opinion here presented, Definitions are 

 properly of names only, and not of things, it does not follow from this that 

 definitions are arbitrary. How to define a name, may not only be an in- 

 quiry of considerable difficulty and intricacy, but may involve considera- 

 tions going deep into tbe ^ature of the t hings which are denoted by the 

 name. Such, for instance, are the inquiries which form the subjects of the 

 most important of Plato's Dialogues ; as, " What is rhetoric ?" the toj)ic of 

 the Gorgias, or, "What is justice?" that of the Republic. Such, also, is 

 the question scornfully asked by Pilate, " What is truth ?" and the funda- 

 mental question with speculative moralists in all ages, " What is virtue ?" 



It would be a mistake to represent these difficult and noble inquiries as 

 having nothing in view beyond ascertaining the conventional meaning of 

 a name. They are inquiries not so much to determine what is, as what 

 should be, the meaning of a name ; which, like other practical questions of 

 terminology, requires for its solution that we should enter, and sometimes 

 enter very deeply, into the properties not merely of names but of the 

 things named. 



Although the meaning of every concrete general name resides in the at- 

 tributes which it connotes, the objects were named before the attributes; 

 as appears from the fact that in all languages, abstract names are mostly 

 compounds or other derivatives of the concrete names which correspond to 

 them. Connotative names, therefore, were, after proper names, the first 

 which were used : and in the simpler cases, no doubt, a distinct connotation 

 was present to the minds of those who first used the name, and was dis- 

 tinctly intended by them to be conveyed by it. The first person who used 

 the word white, as applied to snow or to any other object, knew, no doubt, 

 very well what quality he intended to predicate, and had a perfectly dis- 

 tinct conception in his mind of the attribute signified by the name. 



But where the resemblances and differences on which our classifications 

 are founded are not of this palpable and easily determinable kind ; especial- 

 ly where they consist not in any one quality but in a number of qualities, 

 the effects of which, being blended together, are not very easily discrimi- 

 nated, and referred each to its true source ; it often happens that names 

 are applied to namable objects, with no distinct connotation present to the 

 minds of those who apply them. They are only influenced by a general 

 .•esemblance between the new object and all or some of the old familiar 

 )bjects which they have been accustomed to call by that name. This, as 

 vve have seen, is the law which even the mind of the philosopher must fol- 

 ow, in giving names to the simple elementary feelings of our nature: but, 

 vhere the things to be named are complex wholes, a philosopher is not 

 content with noticing a general resemblance; he examines what the resem- 

 )lance consists in: and he only gives the same name to things which re- 



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