238 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



mode or degree of resemblance the best authorities, 

 or even they themselves, require as a warrant for 

 using the name. This rough, general impression of 

 resemblance is, however, made up of particular cir- 

 cumstances of resemblance; and into these it is the 

 business of the logician to analyze it; to ascertain 

 what points of resemblance among the different things 

 commonly called by the name, have produced upon 

 the common mind this vague feeling of likeness ; have 

 given to the things the similarity of aspect, which has 

 made them a class, and has caused the same name to 

 be bestowed upon them. 



But although general names are imposed by the 

 vulgar without any more definite connotation than 

 that of a vague resemblance ; general propositions come 

 in time to be made, in which predicates are applied to 

 those names, that is, general assertions are made con- 

 cerning the whole of the things which are denoted by 

 the name. And since by each of these propositions 

 some attribute, more or less precisely conceived, is of 

 course predicated, the idea of these various attributes 

 thus becomes associated with the name, and in a sort 

 of uncertain way it comes to connote them ; there is 

 a hesitation to apply the name in any new case in 

 which any of the attributes familiarly predicated of 

 the class does not exist. And thus, to common 

 minds, the propositions which they are in the habit of 

 hearing or uttering concerning a class, make up in a 

 loose way a sort of connotation for the class-name. 

 Let us take, for instance, the word Civilized. How 

 few could be found, even among the most educated 

 persons, who would undertake to say exactly what the 

 term Civilized connotes. Yet there is a feeling in 

 the minds of all who use it, that they are using it 

 with a meaning; and this meaning is made up, in a 



