26 SIGNS AND THEIR LAWS. [CHAP. II. 



(1.) In the first place, a sign is an arbitrary mark. It is 

 clearly indifferent what particular word or token we associate 

 with a given idea, provided that the association once made is 

 permanent. The Romans expressed by the word " civitas" what 

 we designate by the word " state." But both they and we 

 might equally well have employed any other word to represent 

 the same conception. Nothing, indeed, in the nature of Language 

 would prevent us from using a mere letter in the same sense. 

 Were this done, the laws according to which that letter would 

 require to be used would be essentially the same with the laws 

 which govern the use of " civitas" in the Latin, and of " state" 

 in the English language, so far at least as the use of those words 

 is regulated by any general principles common to all languages 

 alike. 



(2.) In the second place, it is necessary that each sign should 

 possess, within the limits of the same discourse or process of 

 reasoning, a fixed interpretation. The necessity of this condi- 

 tion is obvious, and seems to be founded in the very nature of the 

 subject. There exists, however, a dispute as to the precise nature 

 of the representative office of words or symbols used as names in 

 the processes of reasoning. By some it is maintained, that they 

 represent the conceptions of the mind alone ; by others, that they 

 represent things. The question is not of great importance here, 

 as its decision cannot affect the laws according to which signs 

 are employed. I apprehend, however, that the general answer 

 to this and such like questions is, that in the processes of reason- 

 ing, signs stand in the place and fulfil the office of the concep- 

 tions and operations of the mind ; but that as those conceptions 

 and operations represent things, and the connexions and relations 

 of things, so signs represent things with their connexions and re- 

 lations ; and lastly, that as signs stand in the place of the con- 

 ceptions and operations of the mind, they are subject to the laws 

 of those conceptions and operations. This view will be more 

 fully elucidated in the next chapter ; but it here serves to explain 

 the third of those particulars involved in the definition of a sign, 

 viz., its subjection to fixed laws of combination depending upon 

 the nature of its interpretation. 



4. The analysis and classification of those signs by which the 



