48 



NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



habitually a part of this person's 

 sentient existence ; and the idea of 

 those feelings of his, excites the senti- 

 ment of approbation in ourselves or 

 others. 



As we thus ascribe attributes to 

 minds on the ground of ideas and 

 emotions, so may we to bodies on 

 similar grounds, and not solely on the 

 ground of sensations : as in speaking 

 of the beauty of a statue ; since this 

 attribute is grounded on the peculiar 

 feeling of pleasure which the statue 

 produces in our minds ; which is not 

 a sensation, but an emotion. 



YTT. Geneeal Kesults. 



§ 15. Our survey of the varieties of 

 Things which have been, or which are 

 capable of being, named — which have 

 been, or are capable of being, either 

 predicated of other Things, or them- 

 selves made the subject of predica- 

 tions — is now concluded. 



Our enumeration commenced with 

 Feelings. These we scrupulously dis- 

 tinguished from the objects which 

 excite them, and from the organs by 

 which they are, or may be supposed 

 to be, conveyed. Feelings are of 

 four sorts : Sensations, Thoughts, 

 Emotions, and Volitions. What are 

 called Perceptions are merely a par- 

 ticular case of Belief, and belief is a 

 kind of thought. Actions are merely 

 volitions followed by an effect. 



After Feelings we proceeded to 

 Substances. These are either Bodies 

 or Minds. Without entering into 

 the grounds of the metaphysical 

 doubts which have been raised con- 

 cerning the existence of Matter and 

 Mind as objective realities, we stated 

 as sufficient for us the conclusion in 

 which the best thinkers are now for 

 the most part agreed, that all we can 

 know of Matter is the sensations 

 which it gives us, and the order of 

 occurrence of those sensations ; and 

 that while the substance Body is the 

 unknown cause of our sensations, the 

 substance Mind is the unknown re- 

 cipient. 



The only remaining class of Name- 

 able Things is attributes ; and these 

 are of three kinds, Quality, Relation, 

 and Quantity. Qualities, like sub- 

 stances, are known to us no otherwise 

 than by the sensations or other states 

 of consciousness which they excite : 

 and while, in compliance with com- 

 mon usage, we have continued to 

 speak of them as a distinct class of 

 Things, we showed that in predicating 

 them no one means to predicate any- 

 thing but those sensations or states 

 of consciousness, on which they may 

 be said to be grounded, and by which 

 alone they can be defined or described. 

 Relations, except the simple cases of 

 likeness and unlikeness, succession and 

 simultaneity, are similarly grounded 

 on some fact or phenomenon, that 

 is, on some series of sensations 

 or states of consciousness, more or 

 less complicated. The third species 

 of Attribute, Quantity, is also mani- 

 festly grounded on something in our 

 sensations or states of feeling, since 

 there is an indubitable difference in 

 the sensations excited by a larger and 

 a smaller bulk, or by a greater or a 

 less degree of intensity, in any object 

 of sense or of consciousness. All 

 attributes, therefore, are to us nothing 

 but either our sensations and other 

 states of feeling, or something inex- 

 tricably involved therein ; and to this 

 even the peculiar and simple relations 

 just adverted to are not exceptions. 

 Those peculiar relations, however, are 

 so important, and, even if they might 

 in strictness be classed among states 

 of consciousness, are so fundamentally 

 distinct from any other of those 

 states, that it would be a vain subtlety 

 to bring them under that common 

 description, and it is necessary that 

 they should be classed apart.* 



* Professor Bain {Logic, i. 45) defines 

 attributes as "points of community among 

 classes." This definition expresses well 

 one point of view, but is liable to the 

 objection that it applies only to the attri- 

 butes of classes ; though an object, unique 

 in its kind, may be said to have attributes. 

 Moreover, the definition is not ultimate, 

 since the points of community themselves 



