400 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIAUY TO INDUCTION. 



making in particular cages all sucli inferences as the previous experi- 

 ence will warrant. But we can only secure its being remembered, 

 oj give ourselves even a chance of carrying in our memory any con- 

 siderable number of such uniformities, by registering them through, the 

 medium of permanent signs; which (being from the nature of the case, 

 signs not of an individual fact but of an uniformity, that is, of an indefi- 

 nite number of facts similar to one another) are general signs ; uni- 

 versals; general names, and general propositions. 



§ 4. And here I cannot omit to notice an oversight committed by 

 some eminent metapbysicians ; who have said that the cause of our 

 using generalnames is the infinite multitude of individual objects, which, 

 making it impossible to have a name for each, compels us to make 

 one name serve for many. This is a very limited view of the func- 

 tion of general names. Even if there were a name for every individual 

 object, we should require general names as much as we now do. 

 Without them we could not express the result of a single comparison, 

 nor record any one of the uniformities existing in nature ; and should 

 be hardly better off in respect to Induction than if we had no names 

 at all. With none but names of individuals (or, in other words, proper 

 names), we might by pronouncing the name, suggest the idea of the ob- 

 ject, but we could not assert a single proposition ; except the unmean- 

 ing ones formed by predicating two proper names one of another. It is 

 only by means of general names that we can convey any information, 

 predicate any attribute, even of an individual, much more of a class. 

 Rigorously speaking we could get on without any other general names 

 than the abstract names of attributes ; all our propositions might be of 

 the form " such an individual object possesses such an attribute," or 

 " such an attribute is always (or never) conjoined with such another 

 attribute." In fact, however, mankind have always given general 

 names to objects as well as attributes, and indeed before attributes: 

 but the general names given to objects imply attributes, derive their 

 whole meaning from attributes ; and are chiefly usefiil as the language 

 by means of which we predicate the attributes which they connote. 



It remains to be considered what principles are to be adhered to in 

 giving general names, so that these names, and the general propositions 

 in which they fill a place, may conduce most to the purposes of Induc- 

 tion. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE REQUISITES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE ; AND THE PRINCIPLES OF 

 DEFINITION. 



§ 1. In order that we may possess a language perfectly suitable for 

 the investigation and expression of general truths, there are two prin- 

 cipal, and several minor, requisites. The first is, that every general 

 name should have a meaning, steadily fixed, and precisely determined. 

 When, by the fulfilment of this condition, such names as we possess 

 are fitted for the due performance of their functions, the next requisite, 

 and the second in order of importance, is that we should possess a 



