240 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



municating the result of thought, it is imperative to 

 determine exactly the attribute or attributes which it 

 is to express: to give it, in short, a fixed and ascer- 

 tained connotation. 



3. It would, however, be a complete misun- 

 derstanding of the proper office of a logician, in 

 dealing with terms already in use, if he were to think 

 that because a name has not at present an ascertained 

 connotation, it is competent to any one to give it 

 such a connotation at his own choice. The meaning 

 of a term actually in use is not an arbitrary quantity 

 to be fixed, but an unknown quantity to be sought. 



In the first place, it is obviously desirable to avail 

 ourselves, as far as possible, of the associations already 

 connected with the name; not enjoining the employ- 

 ment of it in a manner which conflicts with all previous 

 habits, and especially not so as to require the rupture 

 of those strongest of all associations between names, 

 which are created by familiarity with propositions 

 in which they are predicated of one another. A phi- 

 losopher would have little chance of having his 

 example followed, if he were to give such a meaning 

 to his terms as should require us to call the North 

 American Indians a civilized people, or the higher 

 classes in France or England savages ; or to say that 

 civilized people live by hunting, and savages by 

 agriculture. Were there no other reason, the extreme 

 difficulty of effecting so complete a revolution in 

 speech, would be more than a sufficient one. The 

 endeavour should be, that all generally received pro- 

 positions into which the term enters, should be at 

 least as true after its meaning is fixed, as they were 

 before; and that the concrete name (therefore) should 

 not receive such a connotation as shall prevent it 



