THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 73 



sentence, according as you are speaking of substances 

 or of attributes. Such definitions are rather lessons 

 of English, or of Greek, Latin, or German, than of 

 mental philosophy. An attribute, say the school 

 logicians, must be the attribute of something : colour, 

 for example, must be the colour of something ; good- 

 ness must be the goodness of something : and if this 

 something should cease to exist, or should cease to be 

 connected with the attribute, the existence of the 

 attribute would be at an end. A substance, on the 

 contrary, is self-existent ; in speaking about it, we 

 need not put of after its name. A stone is not the 

 stone of any thing; the moon is not the moon of any- 

 thing, but simply the moon. Unless, indeed, the 

 name which we choose to give to the substance be a 

 relative name ; if so, it must be followed either by of, 

 or by some other particle, implying, as that preposi- 

 tion does, a reference to something else : but then the 

 other characteristic peculiarity of an attribute would 

 fail ; the something might be destroyed, and the 

 substance might still subsist. Thus, a father must be 

 the father of something, and so far resembles an 

 attribute, in being referred to something besides 

 himself: if there were no child, there would be no 

 father : but this, when we look into the matter, only 

 means that we should not call him father. The man 

 called father might still exist, though the child were 

 annihilated ; and there would be no contradiction in 

 supposing him to exist, although the whole universe 

 except himself were destroyed. But destroy all white 

 substances, and where would be the attribute white- 

 ness ? Whiteness, without any white thing, is a 

 contradiction in terms. 



This is the nearest approach to a solution of the 

 difficulty, that will be found in the common treatises 



