THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 83 



III. ATTRIBUTES: AND, FIRST, QUALITIES. 



9. From what has already been said of Sub- 

 stance, what is to be said of Attribute is easily 

 deducible. For if we know not, and cannot know, 

 anything of bodies but the sensations which they 

 excite in us or others, those sensations must be all 

 that we can, at bottom, mean by their attributes ; 

 and the distinction which we verbally make between 

 the properties of things and the sensations we receive 

 from them, must originate in the convenience of dis- 

 course rather than in the nature of what is denoted 

 by the terms. 



Attributes are usually distributed under the three 

 heads of Quality, Quantity, and Relation. We shall 

 come to the two latter presently : in the first place 

 we shall confine ourselves to the former. 



Let us take, then, as our example, one of what 

 are termed the sensible qualities of objects, and let 

 that example be whiteness. When we ascribe white- 

 ness to any substance, as, for instance, snow ; when 

 we say that snow has the quality whiteness, what do 

 we really assert ? Simply, that when snow is present 

 o our organs, we have a particular sensation, which 

 A T e are accustomed to call the sensation of white. 

 But how do I know that snow is present ? Obviously 

 >y the sensations which I derive from it, and not 

 otherwise. I infer that the object is present, because 

 it gives me a certain assemblage or series of sensa- 

 tions. And when I ascribe to it the attribute white- 

 ness, my meaning is only, that, of the sensations 

 composing this group or series, that which I call the 

 sensation of white colour is one. 



This is one view which may be taken of the 

 subject. But there is also another, and a different 



G 2 



