TERMS. 27 



there be, or a group of any number of qualities, and yet 

 the law connecting the extension and intension will in- 

 fallibly apply. Taking the general name planet, we 

 increase its intension and decrease its extension by 

 prefixing the adjective exterior ; and if we further add 

 nearest to the earth, there remains but one planet, Mars, to 

 which the name can then be applied. Singular terms, 

 which denote a single individual only, come under the 

 same law of meaning as general names. They may be 

 regarded as general names of which the meaning in exten- 

 sion is reduced to a minimum. Logicians have erroneously 

 asserted, as it seems to me, that singular terms are devoid 

 of meaning in intension, the fact being that they exceed 

 all other terms in that kind of meaning, as I have else- 

 where tried to show. 1 



Abstract Terms. 



Comparison of objects, and analysis of the complex 

 resemblances and differences which they present, lead us 

 to the conception of abstract qualities. We learn to think 

 of one object as not only different from another, but as 

 differing in some particular point, such as colour, or 

 weight, or size. We may then convert points of agreement 

 or difference into separate objects of thought which we 

 call qualities and denote by abstract terms. Thus the term 

 redness means something in which a number of objects 

 agree as to colour, and in virtue of which they are called 

 red. Redness forms, in fact, the intensive meaning of the 

 term red. 



Abstract terms are strongly distinguished from general 

 terms by possessing only one kind of meaning ; for as they 

 denote qualities there is nothing which they cannot in 

 addition imply. The adjective " red " is the name of red 

 objects, but it implies the possession by them of the quality 



1 Jevons' Elementary Lessons in Logic, pp. 4143; Pure Logic, p. 6. 

 See also J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Book I. chap. ii. sections, and 

 Sliedden's Elements of Logic, London, 1864, pp. 14, &c. Professor 

 Robertson objects (Mind, vol. i. p. 210) that I confuse singular and 

 proper names ; if so, it is because I hold that the same remarks apply 

 to proper names, which do not seem to me to diifer logically from 

 singular names. . . - J ; 



