438 



OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION, 



instance, the word Civilised. How 

 few could be found, even among the 

 most educated persons, who would 

 undertake to say exactly what the 

 term Civilised connotes. Yet there 

 is a feeling in the minds of all who 

 use it that they are using it with a 

 meaning ; and this meaning is made 

 up, in a confused manner, of every- 

 thing which they have heard or read 

 that civilised men or civilised com- 

 munities are or may be expected to 

 be. 



It is at this stage, probably, in the 

 progress of a concrete name, that the 

 corresponding abstract name gener- 

 ally comes into use. Under the no- 

 tion that the concrete name must of 

 course convey a meaning, or, in other 

 words, that there is some property 

 common to all things which it denotes, 

 people give a name to this common 

 property ; from the concrete Civilised, 

 they form the abstract Civilisation. 

 But since most people have never 

 compared the different things which 

 are called by the concrete name, in 

 such a manner as to ascertain what 

 properties these things have in com- 

 mon, or whether they have any ; each 

 is thrown back upon the marks by 

 which he himself has been accustomed 

 to be guided in his application of the 

 term ; and these, being merely vague 

 hearsays and current phrases, are not 

 the same in any two persons, nor in 

 the same person at different times. 

 Hence the word (as Civilisation, for 

 example) which professes to be the 

 designation of the unknown common 

 property, conve3's scarcely to any two 

 minds the same idea. No two per- 

 sons agree in the things they predi- 

 cate of it ; and when it is itself predi- 

 cated of anything, no other person 

 knows, nor does the speaker himself 

 know with precision, what he means 

 to assert. Many other words which 

 could be named, as the word honour, 

 or the word gentleman, exemplify this 

 uncertainty still more strikingly. 



It needs scarcely be observed that 

 general propositions, of which no one 

 can tell exactly what they assert, 



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isfnt 



cannot possibly have been brougl 

 to the test of a correct induction. 

 Whether a name is to be used as 

 an instrument of thinking, or as a 

 means of communicating the result 

 of thought, it is imperative to deter- 

 mine exactly the attribute or attri- 

 butes which it is to express : to give 

 it, in short, a fixed and ascertained 

 connotation. 



§ 3. It would, however, be a com- 

 plete misunderstanding of the proper 

 office of a logician in dealing with 

 terms already in use, if we were to 

 think that because a name has not at 

 present an ascertained connotation, it 

 is competent to any one to give it 

 such a connotation at his own choice. 

 The meaning of a term actually in 

 use is not an arbitrary quantity to be 

 fixed, but an unknown quantity to be 

 sought. 



In the first place, it is obviously 

 desirable to avail ourselves, as far as 

 possible, of the associations already 

 connected with the name ; not en- 

 joining the employment of it in a. 

 manner which conflicts with all pre- 

 vious habits, and especially not so as 

 to require the rupture of those strong- 

 est of all associations between names, 

 which are created by familiarity with 

 propositions in which they are predi- 

 cated of one another. A philosopher 

 would have little chance of having 

 his example followed if he were t»> 

 give such a meaning to his terms as 

 should require us to call the North 

 American Indians a civilised people, 

 or the higher classes in Europe sa- 

 vages ; or to say that civilised people 

 live by hunting, and savages by agri- 

 culture. Were there no other reason, 

 the extreme difficulty of effecting so 

 complete a revolution in speech would 

 be more than a sufficient one. The 

 endeavour should be that all generally 

 received propositions into which the 

 term enters should be at least as true 

 after its meaning is fixed as they 

 were before ; and that the concrete 

 name, therefore, should not receive 

 such a connotation as shall prevent it 



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