G'2 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



substances. But substances are not all that exist ; 

 attributes, if such things are to be spoken of, must 

 be said to exist ; feelings also exist. Yet when we 

 speak of an object, or of a thing, we are almost always 

 supposed to mean a substance. There seems a kind 

 of contradiction in using such an expression as that 

 one thing is merely an attribute of another thing. 

 And the announcement of a Classification of Things 

 would, I believe, prepare most readers for an enume- 

 ration like those in natural history, beginning with the 

 great divisions of animal, vegetable, and mineral, and 

 subdividing them into classes and orders. If, reject- 

 ing the word Thing, we endeavour to find another of 

 a more general import, or at least more exclusively 

 confined to that general import, a word denoting all 

 that exists, and connoting only simple existence ; no 

 word might be presumed fitter for such a purpose than 

 being : originally the present participle of a verb which 

 in one of its meanings is exactly equivalent to the 

 verb exist ; and therefore suitable, even by its gram- 

 matical formation, to be the concrete of the abstract 

 existence. But this word, strange as the fact may 

 appear, is still more completely spoiled for the pur- 

 pose which it seemed expressly made for,, than the 

 word Thing. Being is, by custom, exactly synony- 

 mous with substance; except that it is free from a 

 slight taint of a second ambiguity ; being applied im- 

 partially to matter and to mind, while substance, 

 though originally and in strictness applicable to both, 

 is apt to suggest in preference the idea of matter. 

 Attributes are never called Beings ; nor are Feelings. 

 A Being is that which excites feelings, and which 

 possesses attributes. The soul is called a Being ; 

 God and angels are called Beings ; but if we were to 

 say, extension, colour, wisdom, virtue are beings, we 



