100 



NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



answered negatively, there remains a 

 fourth, often more arduous than all the 

 rest, namely, how best to form a class 

 artificially, which the name may de- 

 note. 



And here it is fitting to remark, 

 that the study of the spontaneous 

 growth of languages is of the utmost 

 importance to those who would logi- 

 cally remodel them. The classifica- 

 tions rudely made by established lan- 

 guage, when retouched, as they almost 

 all require to be, by the hands of the 

 logician, are often in themselves excel- 

 lently suited to his purposes. As 

 compared with the classifications of a 

 philosopher, they are like the custo- 

 mary law of a country, which has 

 grown up as it were spontaneously, 

 compared with laws methodised and 

 digested into a code : the former are 

 a far less perfect instrument than the 

 latter ; but being the result of a long, 

 though unscientific, course of experi- 

 ence, they contain a mass of materials 

 which may be made very usefully 

 available in the formation of the 

 systematic body of written law. In 

 like manner, the established grouping 

 of objects under a common name, even 

 when founded only on a gross and 

 general resemblance, is evidence, in 

 the first place, that the resemblance 

 is obvious, and therefore considerable ; 

 and, in the next place, that it is a 

 resemblance which has struck great 

 numbers of persons during a series of 

 years and ages. Even when a name, 

 by successive extensions, has come to 

 be applied to things among which 

 there does not exist this gross resem- 

 blance common to them all, still at 

 every step in its progress we shall 

 find such a resemblance. And these 

 transitions of the meaning of words 

 are often an index to real connections 

 between the things denoted by them, 

 which might otherwise escape the 

 notice of thinkers ; of those at least 

 who, from using a different language, 

 or from any difference in their habitual 

 associations, have fixed their attention 

 in preference on some other aspect of 

 the things. The history of philosophy 



abounds in examples of such over- 

 sights, committed for want of perceiv- 

 ing the hidden link that connected to- 

 gether the seemingly disparate mean- 

 ings of some ambiguous word.* 



Whenever the inquiry into the 

 definition of the name of any real 

 object consists of anything else than 

 a mere comparison of authorities, we 

 tacitly assume that a meaning must 

 be found for the name, compatible 

 with its continuing to denote, if pos- 

 sible all, but at any rate the greater 

 or the more important part, of the 

 things of which it is commonly pre- 

 dicated. The inquiry, therefore, into 

 the definition, is an inquiry into the 

 resemblances and differences among 

 those things : whether there be any 

 resemblance running through them 

 all ; if not, through what portion of 

 them such a general resemblance can 

 be traced : and finally, what are the 

 common attributes, the possession of 

 which gives to them all, or to that 

 portion of them, the character of re- 

 semblance which has led to their 

 being classed together. Wh^n these 

 common attributes have been ascer- 

 tained and specified, the name which 

 belongs in common to the resembling 

 objects acquires a distinct instead of 

 a vague connotation ; and by possess- 



* " Few people " (I have said in another 

 place) "have reflected how great a know- 

 ledge of Things is required to enable a man 

 to aflSmi that any given argument turns 

 wholly upon words. There is, perhaps, 

 not one of the leading terms of philosophy 

 which is not used in almost innumerable 

 shades of meaning, to express ideas more 

 or less widely different from one another. 

 Between two of ttiese ideas a sagacious and 

 penetrating mind will discern, as it were 

 intuitively, an unobvious link of connec- 

 tion, upon which, though perhaps unable 

 to give a logical account of it, he will found 

 a perfectly valid argument, which his 

 critic, not having so keen an insight into 

 the Things, will mistake for a fallacy turn- 

 ing on the double meaning of a term. And 

 the greater the genius of him who thus 

 safely L aps over the chasm, the greater 

 will probably be the crowing and vainglory 

 of the mere logician, who, hobbling after 

 him, evinces his own superior wisdom by 

 pausing on its brink, and giving up as 

 desperate his proper business of bridging 

 it over. " 



