186 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



not express a complication of attributes, but a single 

 attribute, we must remember that every attribute is 

 grounded upon some fact or phenomenon, from which 

 and which alone it derives its meaning. To that fact 

 or phenomenon, called in a former chapter the 

 foundation of the attribute, we must, therefore, have 

 recourse for its definition. Now, the foundation of 

 the attribute may be a phenomenon of any degree of 

 complexity, consisting of many different parts, either 

 coexistent or in succession. To obtain a definition of 

 the attribute, we must analyse the phenomenon into 

 these parts. Eloquence, for example, is the name of 

 one attribute only; but this attribute is grounded 

 upon external effects of a complicated nature, flowing 

 from acts of the person to whom we ascribe the 

 attribute ; and by resolving this phenomenon of 

 causation into its two parts, the cause and the effect, 

 we obtain a definition of eloquence, viz., the power of 

 influencing the affections of human beings by means of 

 speech or writing. 



A name, therefore, whether concrete or abstract, 

 admits of definition, provided we are able to analyse, 

 that is, to distinguish into parts, the attribute or set of 

 attributes which constitute the meaning both of the 

 concrete name and of the corresponding abstract: 

 if a set of attributes, by enumerating them ; if a 

 single attribute, by dissecting the fact or phenomenon 

 whether of perception or of internal consciousness, 

 which is the foundation of the attribute. But, further, 

 even when the fact is one of our simple feelings or 

 states of consciousness, and therefore unsusceptible 

 of analysis, the names both of the object and of the 

 attribute still admit of definition ; or, rather, would do 

 so if all our simple feelings had names. Whiteness 

 may be defined, the property or power of exciting the 



