14 



NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



first person who had ever turned an 

 inquiring eye upon nature. What 

 does any one's personal knowledge of 

 Things amount to, after subtracting 

 all which he has acquired by means 

 of the words of other people ? Even 

 after he has learned as much as people 

 usually do learn from others, will the 

 notions of things contained in his 

 individual mind afford as sufficient a 

 basis for a catalogue raisonne as the 

 notions which are in the minds of all 

 mankind ? 



In any enumeration and classifica- 

 tion of Things, which does not set 

 out from their names, no varieties of 

 things will of course be comprehended 

 but those recognised by the particular 

 inquirer ; and it will still remain to 

 be established, by a subsequent exami- 

 nation of names, that the enumeration 

 has omitted nothing which ought to 

 have been included. But if we begin 

 with names, and use them as our clue 

 to the things, we bring at once before 

 us all the distinctions which have 

 been recognised, not by a single 

 inquirer, but by all inquirers taken 

 together. It doubtless may, and I 

 believe it will, be found, that man- 

 kind have multiplied the varieties 

 unnecessarily, and have imagined dis- 

 tinctions among things, where there 

 were only distinctions in the manner 

 of naming them. But we are not 

 entitled to assume this in the com- 

 mencement. We must begin by re- 

 cognising the distinctions made by 

 ordinary language. If some of these 

 appear, on a close examination, not to 

 be fundamental, the enumeration of 

 the different kinds of realities may be 

 abridged accordingly. But to impose 

 upon the facts in the first instance 

 the yoke of a theory, while the 

 grounds of the theory are reserved for 

 discussion in a subsequent stage, is 

 not a course which a logician can 

 reasonably adopt. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF NAMES. 



§ I. "A NAME," says Hobbes,* ** is 

 a word taken at pleasure to serve for 

 a mark which may raise in our mind 

 a thought like to some thought we 

 had before, and which being pro- 

 nounced to others, may be to them 

 a sign of what thought the speaker 

 had f before in his mind." This 

 simple definition of a name, as a word 

 (or set of words) serving the double 

 purpose of a mark to recall to our- 

 selves the likeness of a former thought, 

 and a sign to make it known to others, 

 appears unexceptionable. Names, 

 indeed, do much more than this ; but 

 whatever else they do, grows out of, 

 and is the result of this : as will 

 appear in its proper place. 



Are names more properly said to 

 be the names of things, or of our 

 ideas of things ? The first is the ex- 

 pression in common use ; the last is 

 that of some metaphysicians, who con- 

 ceived that in adopting it they were 

 introducing a highly important dis- 

 tinction. The eminent thinker, just 

 quoted, seems to countenance the 

 latter opinion. " But seeing," he con- 

 tinues, " names ordered in speech (as 

 is defined) are signs of our concep- 

 tions, it is manifest they are not signs 

 of the things themselves ; for that 

 the sound of this word stone should 

 be the sign of a stone, cannot be 

 understood in any sense but this, that 

 he that hears it collects that he that 

 pronounces it thinks of a stone." 



If it be merely meant that the con- 

 ception alone, and not the thing itself,. 

 is recalled by the name, or imparted 

 to the hearer, this of course cannot, 

 be denied. Nevertheless, there seems, 

 good reason for adhering to the. 

 common usage, and calling (as indeed 

 Hobbes himself does in other places), 

 the word sun the name of the sun^ 



* Computation or Logic, chap. ii. 



t In the original "had, or had not."- 

 These last words, as involving a subtlety- 

 foreign to onr present purpose, I have for-, 

 borne to quote... 



