an individual; it becomes associated with the idea of the
individual, and acquires the power of calling up that idea. Let us
next suppose it applied to one other individual, and no more: it
becomes associated with this other idea; and it now has the power of
calling up either. The following is, then, a very natural train:--
1, The name occurs; 2, the name {268} suggests the idea of one of the
individuals; 3, that idea suggests the name back again; 4, the name
suggests the idea of the second individual. All this may pass, and,
after sufficient repetition, does pass, with the rapidity of
lightning. Suppose, now, that the name is associated, with the ideas
not of two individuals, but of many; the same train may go on; the
name exciting the idea of one individual, that idea the name, the
name another individual, and so on, to an indefinite extent; all in
that small portion of time of which the mind takes no account. The
combination thus formed stands in need of a name. And the name, man,
while it is the name of every individual included in the process, is
also the name of the whole combination; that is, of a very complex
idea.
One other question, respecting classification, may still seem to
require solution; namely, what it is by which we are determined in
placing such and such things together in a class in preference to
others; what, in other words, is the principle of Classification?
I answer, that, as it is for the purpose of naming, of naming with
greater facility, that we form classes at all; so it is in
furtherance of that same facility that such and such things only are
included in one class, such and such in another. Experience teaches
what sort of grouping answers the purposes of naming best; under the
suggestions of that experience, the application of a general word is
tacitly and without much of reflection regulated; and by this
process, and no other, it is, that Classification is performed. It
is the aggregation of an indefinite number of individuals, by their
association with a particular name.
It may seem that this answer is still very general {269} and that to
make the explanation sufficient, the suggestions by which experience
recommends this or that classification should be particularized. For
the purpose of the present chapter, however, namely, to shew that
the business of Classification is merely a process of naming, and is
all resolvable into association, the observation, though general, is
full and satisfactory. The detail of the purposes to be answered by
general terms belongs more properly to the next head of Discourse,
and as far as the development of the mental phenomena seems to
require it, will there be presented.
It may still be useful to advert to the three principal cases into
which Classification may be resolved; 1, that of objects considered
as synchronical; 2, that of objects considered as successive;
3, that of feelings. The first is exemplified in the common classes
of sensible objects, as men, horses, trees, and so on; and requires
no further explanation. The second is exemplified in the classes of
events, denoted by such words, as Birth, Death, Snowing, Thundering,
Freezing, Flying, Creeping. By these words there is always denoted
one antecedent and one consequent, generally more, sometimes a long
train of them. And it is obvious that each of them is, at once, the
name of each instance individually, and of all taken generally
together. Thus, Freezing, is not the name of an individual instance
of freezing only, but of that and of all other instances of
Freezing. The same is the case with other words of a still more
general, and thence more obscure signification, as Gravitation,
Attraction, Motion, Force, &c.; which words have this additional
source of confusion, that they are {270} ambiguous, being both
abstract and concrete. When we say that there is a third case of
classification, relating to Feelings, it does not mean that the two
former do not relate to feelings: for when we say, that we classify
objects, as men, horses, &c.;--or events, as the sequences named
births, deaths, and so on;--it is obvious that our operation is
about our own feelings, and nothing else; as the objects, and their
successions, are, to us, the feelings merely which we thus
designate. But as there are feelings which we do thus designate; and
feelings which we do not; it is convenient, for the purpose of
teaching, to treat of them apart. The Feelings, of this latter kind,
which we classify, are either single feelings, or trains. Thus, Pain
is the name of a single feeling, and the name both of an individual
instance, and of indefinite instances, forming a most extensive
class. Memory is the name not of a single feeling or idea, but of a
train; and it is the name not only of a single instance, but of all
instances of such a train, that is, of a class. The same is the case
with Belief. It is the name of a train consisting of a certain
number of links; and it is the name not only of an individual
instance of such trains, but of all instances, forming an extensive
class. Imagination is another instance of the same sort of
classification. So also is Judgment, and Reasoning, and Doubting,
and we might name many more.
It is easy to see, among the principles of Association, what
particular principle it is, which is mainly concerned in
Classification, and by which we are rendered capable of that mighty
operation; on which, as its basis, the whole of our intellectual
structure is reared. That principle is Resemblance. It seems to
{271} be similarity or resemblance which, when we have applied a
name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another, and
another, till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by
the common relation of every part of the aggregate to one and the
same name. Similarity, or Resemblance, we must regard as an Idea
familiar and sufficiently understood for the illustration at present
required. It will itself be strictly analysed, at a subsequent part
of this Inquiry.
So deeply was the sagacious mind of Plato, far more philosophical
than that of any who succeeded him, during many ages, struck with
the importance of Classification, that he seems to have regarded it
as the sum of all philosophy; which he described, as being the
faculty of seeing "the ONE in the MANY, and the MANY in the ONE;" a
phrase which, when stripped from the subtleties of the sophists whom
he exposed, and from the mystical visions of his successors, of
which he never dreamed, is really a striking expression of what in
classification is the matter of fact. His error lay, in
misconceiving the ONE; which he took, not for the aggregate, but
something pervading the aggregate.[79] [80]
[Grote's footnote 79: The two chapters (VII. and VIII.) of Mr. James
Mill's Analysis are highly instructive, and exhibit all his
customary force and perspicuity. But in respect to Classification
and Abstraction, I think that the ancient philosophers of the
Sokratic school generally, are entitled to more credit than he
allows them; and moreover that in respect to the difference of
opinion between Plato and Aristotle, he has assigned an undue
superiority to the former at the expense of the latter.
The reader would take very inadequate measure of these {272} ancient
philosophers, if he judged them from the two citations out of Harris
and Cudworth, produced by Mr. James Mill as setting forth the most
successful speculations of the ancient world. Both these passages
are brought to illustrate "the mystical jargon" (p. 253) with which
the ancients are said to have obscured a clear and simple subject.
The mysticism in both citations is to a certain extent real; but it
depends also in part on the use of a terminology now obsolete,
rather than on confusion of ideas. In regard to the citation from
Harris, it is a passage in which that author passes into theology,
and includes God and Immortality: topics upon which mystical
language can seldom be avoided: moreover, if we compare the remarks
on Harris (p. 251) with p. 271, we shall find Mr. James Mill
ridiculing as mystical, when used by Harris, the same language
(about "the One in the Many") which, when employed by Plato, he
eulogises as follows--"a phrase which, when stripped from the
subtleties of the sophists whom he (Plato) exposed, and from the
mystical visions of his successors, of which he never dreamed, is
really a striking expression of what in classification is the matter
of fact."
I wish I could concur with Mr. James Mill in exonerating Plato from
these mystical visions, and imputing them exclusively to his
successors. But I find them too manifestly proclaimed in the Timæus,
Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion, Republic, and other dialogues, to admit
of such an acquittal: I also find subtleties quite as perplexing as
those of any sophist whom he exposed. Along with these elements, the
dialogues undoubtedly present others entirely disparate, much
sounder and nobler. I have in another work endeavoured to render a
faithful account of the multifarious Platonic aggregate, stamped in
all its parts,--whether of negative dialectic, poetical fancy, or
ethical dogmatism,--with the unrivalled genius of expression
belonging to the author. The misfortune is that his Neo-Platonic
successors selected by preference his dreams and visions for their
amplifying comment and eulogy, leaving comparatively unnoticed the
instructive lessons of philosophy {273} accompanying them. To this
extent the Neo-Platonists fully deserve the criticism here bestowed
on them.
The long passage, extracted in the Analysis from Cudworth, contains
two grave mis-statements, respecting both Plato and Aristotle; which
deserve the more attention because they seem to have misled Mr.
James Mill himself. Respecting Universals, Cudworth, after saying
that they do not exist in the individual sensibles, proceeds as
follows (p. 255-256)--
1. "Neither, in the next place, do they exist somewhere else apart
from the individual sensibles, and without the mind: which is that
opinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or
unskilfully attributes to Plato.
2. "Wherefore these intelligible ideas or essences of things, those
forms by which we understand all things, exist nowhere but in the
mind itself: for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates,
in Plato's Parmenides, that these things are nothing but _noëmata_:
these species or ideas are all of them nothing but _noëmata_, or
notions that exist nowhere but in the soul itself."
Now, neither of these assertions of Cudworth will be found accurate:
neither the "determination" which he ascribes to the Platonic
Sokrates--nor the censure of "unjust or unskilful" which he attaches
to Aristotle. It is indeed true that the opinion here mentioned is
enunciated by Sokrates in Plato's Parmenides. But far from being
given as a "determination," it is enunciated only to be refuted and
dropt.[a] In that dialogue, Sokrates is introduced as a youthful and
ardent aspirant in philosophy, maintaining the genuine Platonic
theory of self-existent and separate Ideas. He finds himself unable
to repel several acute objections tendered against the theory by the
veteran Parmenides: he is driven from position to position: and one
among them, not more tenable than the rest, is the suggestion cited
by Cudworth. Yet Parmenides, though his objections remain unanswered
and though he alludes to others {274} not specified,--concludes by
declaring[b] that nevertheless the Platonic theory of Ideas cannot
be abandoned: it must be upheld as a postulate essential to the
possibility of general reasoning and philosophy.
[Footnote a: Plato Parmenid. p. 132, C, D.]
[Footnote b: Plato Parmenid. p. 135, B, C.
I have given an account of this acute but perplexing dialogue, in
the twenty-fifth chapter of my work on Plato and the other
Companions of Sokrates.]
Even in the Parmenides itself, therefore, where Plato accumulates
objections against the theory of separate and self-existent Ideas,
we still find him reiterating his adherence to it. And when we turn
to his other dialogues, Phædrus, Phædon, Symposion, Republic,
Kratylus, &c., we see that theory so emphatically proclaimed and so
largely illustrated, that I wonder how Cudworth can blame Aristotle
for imputing it to him.
It is by Cudworth, probably, that Mr. James Mill has been misled,
when he says--p. 249--"At bottom, Aristotle's [Greek: ei)=dos] is
the same as with Plato's [Greek: i)de/a], though Aristotle makes a
great affair of some very trifling differences, which he creates and
sets up between them."--I have pointed out Cudworth's mistake, and I
maintain that the difference between Plato and Aristotle on this
subject was grave and material. The latter denied, what the former
affirmed, self-existence and substantiality of the Universal Ideas,
apart from and independent of particulars.
Having cited with some comments the extracts from Cudworth and
Harris, Mr. James Mill observes, "Under the influence of such
notions as these, men were led away from the real object of
Classification, which remained, till a late period of metaphysical
enquiry, not at all understood. Yet the truth appears by no means
difficult to find, if we only observe the steps by which the mind
acquires its knowledge, and the exigencies which give occasion to
the contrivances to which it resorts" (p. 259).--He then proceeds,
clearly and forcibly, to announce his own theory of classification,
intended to dispel the mystery with which others have surrounded
{275} it (p. 264). "The word _man_ is first applied to an
individual: it is first associated with the idea of that individual,
and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him: it is next
applied to another individual, and acquires the power of calling up
the idea of him: so of another and another, till it has acquired the
power of calling up an indefinite number of those ideas
indifferently. What happens? It does call up an indefinite number of
the ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs: and calling them up
in close combination, it forms them into a species of complex idea."
"It thus appears that the word _man_ is not a word having a very
simple idea, as was the opinion of the Realists: nor a word having
no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists: but a word calling
up an indefinite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws of
association, and forming them into one very complex and indistinct,
but not therefore unintelligible, idea" (p. 265).--"As it is for the
purpose of naming, and of naming with greater facility, that we form
classes at all; so it is in furtherance of that same facility that
such and such things only are included in one class, such and such
things in another. Experience teaches us what sort of grouping
answers this purpose best: under the suggestions of that experience,
the application of a general word is tacitly and without much of
reflection regulated: and by this process and no other, it is, that
Classification is performed. It is the aggregation of an indefinite
number of individuals, by their association with a particular name"
(p. 268).--"It is Similarity or Resemblance, which, when we have
applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another
and another till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by
the common relation of the aggregate to one and the same name" (p.
271).
Such is the theory of Mr. James Mill. Its great peculiarity is that
it neither includes nor alludes to Abstraction. It admits in
Classification nothing more than the one common name associated with
an aggregate indefinite and indistinct, of similar concrete
individuals. I shall now consider the manner {276} in which the
Greek philosophers of the fourth century B.C. dealt with the same
subject, and how far they merit the censure of having imported
unnecessary mystery into it.
It is impossible to understand Plato unless we take our departure
from his master Sokrates. Now it is precisely in regard to
Classification, and the meaning and comprehension of general terms,
that the originality and dialectical acuteness of Sokrates were most
conspicuously manifested. He was the first philosopher (as
Aristotle[c] tells us) who set before himself the Universal as an
express object of investigation,--and who applied himself to find
out and test the definition of universal terms. He wrote nothing;
but he passed most part of his long life in public, and in talking
indiscriminately with every one. Oral colloquy, and cross-examining
interrogation, were carried by him to a pitch of excellence never
equalled. Not only did he disclaim all power of teaching, but he
explicitly avowed his own ignorance; professing to be a mere seeker
of truth from others who knew better, and to be anxious only for
answers such as would stand an accurate scrutiny. To this peculiar
scheme--the topics on which he talked were adapted: for he avoided
all recondite themes, and discussed only matters relating to man and
society: such as What is the Holy? What is the Unholy? What are the
Beautiful and the Mean the Just and Unjust? Temperance? Madness?
Courage? Cowardice? A City? A man fit for citizenship? Command of
Men? A man fit for commanding men? Such is the specimen-list given
by Xenophon[d] of the themes chosen by Sokrates. We see that they
are all general, and embodied in universal terms. But the terms as
well as the themes were familiar to all: every man believed himself
thoroughly to understand the meaning of the former--every one had
convictions ready-made and decided on the latter. When Sokrates
first opened the colloquy, respondents were surprised to be
questioned about such subjects, upon which they presumed {277} that
every one must know as well as themselves. But this confidence
speedily vanished when they came to be tested by inductive[e]
interrogatories: citation of appropriate particulars, included or
not included in the generalities which they laid down. The result
proved that they could not answer the questions without speedily
contradicting themselves: that they did not understand the
comprehension of their own universal terms: and that upon all these
matters, on which they talked so confidently, they had never applied
themselves deliberately to learn, nor could they say how their
judgments had been acquired or certified.[f]
[Footnote c: Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.]
[Footnote d: Xenophon, Memorab. I., 1--16.]
[Footnote e: So Aristotle calls them--[Greek: lo/gous
e(paktikou/s].--Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.]
[Footnote f: Xenophon, Memorab. IV. 2--13--30--36.]
The conviction formed in the mind of Sokrates, after long
persistence in such colloquial cross-examination, is consigned in
his defence before the Athenian judicature, pronounced a month
before his death. He declared that what he found every where was
real ignorance, combined with false persuasion of knowledge: that
this was the chronic malady of the human mind, which it had been his
mission to expose: that no man was willing to learn, because no man
believed that he stood in need of learning: that, accordingly, the
first step indispensable to all effective teaching, was to make the
pupil a willing learner, by disabusing his mind of the false
persuasion of knowledge, and by imparting to him the stimulus
arising from a painful consciousness of ignorance.
Such was the remarkable psychological scrutiny instituted by
Sokrates on his countrymen, and the verdict which it suggested to
him. I have already observed that his great intellectual bent was to
ascertain the definition of general terms, and to follow these out
to a comprehensive and consistent classification.[g] It must be
added that no man was ever less inclined to mysticism than Sokrates:
and that he was thus {278} exempt from those misleading influences
which (according to Mr. James Mill, p. 260) "have led men away from
the real object of Classification, and prevented them from
understanding it till a late period in metaphysical enquiry."
Sokrates did not come before his countrymen with classifications of
his own, originated or improved--nor did he teach them how the
process ought to be conducted. His purpose was, to test and
appreciate that Classification which he found ready-made and current
among them. He pronounced it to be worthless and illusory.
[Footnote g: Xenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV. *6. 1--7--10--15.
[Greek: ô(=n e(/neka skopô=n su\n toi=s sunou=sin, ti/ e(/kaston
ei)/ê tô=n o)/ntôn, ou)de/pote e)/lêge].]
Now I wish to point out that what Sokrates thus depreciated, is
exactly that which this Chapter of the Analysis lays before us as
Classification generally. I agree with the Analysis that
Classification, up to a certain point, grows out of the principle of
Association and the exigencies of the human mind, by steps
instructively set forth in that work. But such natural growth
reaches no higher standard than that which Sokrates tested and found
so lamentably deficient, even among a public of unusual
intelligence. It does not deserve the name of a "mighty operation"
(bestowed upon it by Mr. James Mill, p. 270). It is a rudimentary
procedure, indispensable as a basis on which to build, and sufficing
in the main for social communication, when no science or reasoned
truth is required: but failing altogether to realise what has been
understood by philosophers, from Sokrates downward, as the true and
full purpose of Classification. So long as the Class is conceived to
be only what the Analysis describes, an indistinct aggregate of
resembling individuals denoted by the same name, without clearly
understanding wherein the resemblance consists, or what facts and
attributes are _connoted_ by the name[h] (I use the word _connote_,
{279} not in the sense of the Analysis, but in the sense of Mr. John
Stuart Mill)--so long will Classification continue to be, as
Sokrates entitled it, a large persuasion of knowledge with little
reality to sustain it.
[Footnote h: The necessity of determining the _connotation_ of the
Class-term is distinctly put forward by Sokrates--Xenophon, Memorab.
III. 14, 2. [Greek: lo/gô| o)/ntos peri\ o)noma/tôn, iph' oi(ô=|
e)/rgô| e(/kaston ei)/ê--E)/choimen a)\n (e)\phê) ei)pei=n, e)pi\
poiô=| pote\ e)/rgô| a)/nthrôpos o)pso/phagos kalei=tai?] &c., also
the remarkable passage IV., 6. 13--15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B.
[Greek: tou)/noma mo/non e)/chomen koinê=| to\ de\ e)/rgon, e)ph'
ô(=| kalou=men], &c.]
I pass now from Sokrates to Plato. It is true, as we read in the
Analysis, (p. 271) that Plato "was so deeply struck with the
importance of Classification, that he seems to have regarded it as
the sum of all philosophy." But what Plato thus admired was not the
Classification that he found prevalent around him, such as this
chapter of the Analysis depicts. Here Plato perfectly agreed with
Sokrates. Among his immortal dialogues, several of the very best are
devoted to the illustration of the Sokratic point of view: to the
cross-examination and exposure of the minds around him, instructed
as well as vulgar, in respect to the general terms familiarly used
in speech. The Platonic questions and answers are framed to shew how
little the respondents understand beneath those current generalities
on which every one talks with confidence and fluency--and how little
they can avoid contradiction or inconsistency, when their
class-terms are confronted with particulars. In fact, Plato goes so
far as to intimate that these uncertified classifications,--
generated in each man's mind by merely learning the application of
words, and imbibed unconsciously, without special teaching, through
the contagion of ordinary society--are rather worse than ignorance:
inasmuch as they are accompanied by a false persuasion of knowledge.
It would be (in the opinion of Plato) a comparative improvement,
if this state of mental confusion, creating a false persuasion of
knowledge, were broken up; and if there were substituted in place
thereof positive ignorance, together with the naked and painful
consciousness of being really ignorant. Only in this way could the
mind of the learner be stimulated to active effort in the acquisition
of genuine knowledge.[i]
[Footnote i: Plato, Sophistes, p. 230--231. Symposion, p. 204 A,
Menon p. 84, A. D.]
Accordingly, when it is said that Plato was "deeply struck {280}
with the importance of Classification," we must understand the
phrase as applying to Classification, not as he found it prevalent,
but as he idealized it. And the scheme that he imagined was not
merely different from that which he found, but in direct repugnance
to it. He denounced altogether the aggregate of individuals; he
declared the class-constituent to reside in a reality apart from
them, separate and self-existent--the Idea or Form. He enjoined the
student of philosophy to fix his contemplation on these Class-Ideas,
the real Realities, in their own luminous region: and for that
purpose, to turn his back upon the phenomenal particulars, which
were mere transitory, shadowy, incoherent projections of these
Ideas[j]--and from the study of which no true knowledge could be
obtained. Of the two statements in the Analysis--(p. 271) that
"Plato never dreamed of the mystical visions of his successors," and
that "his error (respecting Classification) lay in misconceiving the
One; which he took, not for the aggregate, but something pervading
the aggregate"--neither one nor the other appears to me accurate. In
regard to the second of the two, indeed, you may find various
passages of Plato which, if construed separately, would countenance
it: for Plato does not always talk Realism--nor always consistently
with himself. But still his capital and peculiar theory was,
Realism. The Platonic One was not something pervading the aggregate
of particulars, but an independent and immutable reality, apart from
the aggregate: and Plato, when he thus conceived {281} the One,
illustrating it by the vast hypotheses embodied in the Republic,
Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion, Menon, &c., is the true originator of
those "mystical visions" against which the Analysis justly protests.
Such visions were doubtless suggested to Plato by "his deep sense of
the importance of Classification:" but they are his own, though
continued and amplified, without his decorative genius, by
Neo-Platonic successors. His theory of classification was the first
ever propounded; and that theory was Realism. The doctrine here
ascribed to him by Mr. James Mill is much more Aristotelian than
Platonic. The main issue raised by Aristotle against Plato was, upon
the essential separation, and separate objective existence, of the
Abstract and Universal: Plato affirmed it, Aristotle denied it.[k]
Aristotle recognised no reality apart from the Particular, to which
the Universal was attached as a predicate, either essential or
accidental to its subject. The Aristotelian Universal may thus be
called, in relation to a body of similar particulars, not the
aggregate but something pervading the aggregate. But this is not
Plato's view: it is the negation of the Platonic Realism.
[Footnote j: This is what we read in the memorable simile of the
Cave, in Plato, Republic, VII., p. 514--519. The language used
throughout this simile is [Greek: peria/gein, periakti/on,
periagôgê/], &c. He supposes that the natural state of man is to
have his face and vision towards the particular phenomena, and his
back towards the universal realities: the great problem is, how to
make the man face about, turn his back towards phenomena, and his
eyes towards Universals--[Greek: ta\ o)/nta--ta\ noêta/]. Nothing
can be learnt from observation however *acute, of the phenomena.
The same point is enforced with all the charm of Platonic expression
in Republ. V. 478, 479, VI., 493, 494. Symposion, p. 210--211,
Phædon, p. 74--75.]
[Footnote k: According to Plato, it is [Greek: to\ e(\n
_para\ ta\ polla/_]. According to Aristotle, it is [Greek: e(\n
_kata\ pollô=n_--e(\n kai\ to\ au)to\ e)pi\ _pleio/nôn_
mê\ o(mô/numon e(\n _e)pi\_ pollô=n]. Analyt. Poster. I. 11, p.
77, a. 6. Metaphys. I. 9, p. 990, b. 7--13.
Whoever reads the portions of Plato's dialogues indicated in my last
preceding foot note, will see how material this difference is
between the two philosophers.
In the remarkable passage of the Analyt. Post. I. 24, p. 85, a. 30,
b. 20, Aristotle notices the Platonic hypothesis that the Universal
has real objective, separate, existence apart from its particulars
([Greek: to\ katho/lou e)pi\ ti para\ ta\ kath' e(/kasta]) as an
illusion, mischievous and misleading--frequent, but not unavoidable.
See the antithesis between Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of
Universals, more copiously explained in the recent work of Professor
Bain, Mental and Moral Science, Appendix, pp. 6--20.]
When we read in the Analysis (p. 265) that "the word _man_ is not a
word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the Realists;
nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists"
this language seems to me not well-chosen. {282} As to the
Realists--the Platonic Ideas are conceived as eternal, immutable,
grand, dignified, &c., but Aristotle[l] contends that they cannot
all be simple: for the Idea of Man (e.g.) can hardly be simple, when
there exists distinct Ideas of Animal and of Biped. As to the
Nominalists--we cannot surely say that they conceived the universal
term as "having no idea at all." A doctrine something like this is
ascribed (on no certain testimony) to Stilpon, in the generation
succeeding Aristotle: the word Man (Stilpon is said to have
affirmed[m]) did not mean John more than William or Thomas or
Richard, &c., therefore it did not mean either one of them:
therefore it had no meaning at all. So also William of Ockham is
said to have declared that Universal Terms were mere "flatus vocis:"
but this (as Prantl has shewn[n]) was a phrase fastened upon him by
his opponents, not employed by himself. Still less can it be
admitted that Hobbes and Berkeley conceived the Universal Term as
"having no idea at all." They denied indeed Universal Ideas in the
Realistic sense: they also denied what Berkeley calls "determinate
abstract Ideas:" but both of them explained (Berkeley especially)
that the Universal term meant, any particular idea, considered as
representing or standing for all other particular ideas of the same
sort.[o] Whether this be the best and most complete explanation or
not, it can hardly have been present to Mr. James Mill's mind, when
he said that the Universal term had no idea at all in the opinion of
the Nominalists.
[Footnote l: Aristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.]
[Footnote m: See Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates,
Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.]
[Footnote n: Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19, p.
327.]
[Footnote o: Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction,
Sect. 12, 15, 16.]
There is one other remark to be made, respecting the view of
Classification presented in the eighth Chapter of the Analysis. We
read in the beginning of that Chapter--p. 249--"Forming a class of
things is a mode of regarding them. But what is meant by a mode of
regarding things? This is mysterious: {283} and is as mysteriously
explained, when it is said to be the taking into view the
particulars in which individuals agree. For what is there which it
is possible for the mind to take into view, in that in which
individuals agree? Every colour is an individual colour, every size
is an individual size, every shape is an individual shape. But
things have no individual colour in common, no individual shape in
common, no individual size in common: that is to say, they have
neither shape, colour, nor size in common. What then is it which
they have in common which the mind can take into view? Those who
affirmed that it was something, could by no means tell. They
substituted words for things: using vague and mystical phrases,
which when examined meant nothing."
Here we find certain phrases, often used both in common speech and
in philosophy, condemned us mystical and obscure. In the next or
ninth Chapter (on Abstraction, p. 295 seq.), we shall see the
language substituted for them, and the theory by which the mystery
is supposed to be removed. I cannot but think that the theory of Mr.
James Mill himself is open to quite as many objections as that which
he impugns. He finds fault with those who affirm that the word
_cube_ or _sphere_ is applied to a great many different objects by
reason of the shape which they have in common; and that they may be
regarded so far forth as _cube_ or _sphere_. But surely this would
not have been considered as either incorrect or mysterious by any
philosopher, from Aristotle downward. When I am told that it is
incorrect, because the shape of each object is an _individual_
shape, I dissent from the reason given. In my judgment, the term
_individual_ is a term applicable, properly and specially, to a
concrete object--to that which Aristotle would have called a Hoc
Aliquid. The term is not applicable to a quality or attribute. The
same quality that belongs to one object, may also belong to an
indefinite number of others. It is this common quality that is
_connoted_ (in the sense of that word employed by Mr. John Stuart
Mill) by the class-term: and if there were no common quality, the
class-term would have no connotation. In other words, there would be
no class: nor {284} would it be correct to apply to any two objects
the same concrete appellative name.
But when we come to the following Chapter of the Analysis (ch. ix.
on Abstraction, p. 296), we read as follows--"Let us suppose that
we apply the adjective _black_ first to the word Man. We say 'black
man.' But we speedily see that _for the same reason_ for which we
say black man, we may say black horse, black cow, black coat, and so
on. The word _black_ is thus associated with innumerable
modifications of the sensation black. By frequent repetition, and
the gradual strengthening of the association, these modifications
are at last called up in such rapid succession that they appear
commingled, and no longer many ideas, but one. _Black_ is therefore
no longer an individual, but a general name. It marks not the
particular black of a particular individual, but the black of every
individual and of all individuals."
To say that we apply the word _black_ to the horse _for the same
reason_ as we applied it to the man, is surely equivalent to saying
that the colour of the horse is the same as that of the man: that
blackness is the colour which they have in common. It is quite true
that we begin by applying the name to one individual object, then
apply it to another, and another, &c.; but always for the same
reason--to designate (or _connote_, in the phraseology of Mr. John
Stuart Mill) the same colour in them all, and to denote the objects
considered under one and the same point of view. It may be that in
fact there are differences in shade of colour: but the class-name
leaves these out of sight. When we desire to call attention to them,
we employ other words in addition to it. Every attribute is
considered and named as One, which is or may be common to many
individual objects: the objects only are individual.
It is to be regretted, I think, that Mr. James Mill disconnected
Classification so pointedly from Abstraction, and insisted on
explaining the former without taking account of the latter. Such
disconnection is a novelty, as he himself states (p. 294): previous
expositors thought that "abstraction was included in
classification"--and, in my judgment, they were {285} right in
thinking so, if (with Mr. James Mill) we are to consider
Classification as a "great operation." An aggregate of concretes is
not sufficient to constitute a Class, in any scientific sense, or as
available in the march of reasoned truth. You must have, besides,
the peculiar mode of regarding the aggregate: (a phrase which Mr.
James Mill deprecates as mysterious, but which it is difficult to
exchange for any other words more intelligible) you must have "that
separating one or more of the ingredients of a complex idea from the
rest, which has received the name of Abstraction"--to repeat the
very just explanation given by him, p. 295--though that too, if we
look at p. 249, he seems to consider as tainted with mystery.
We proceed afterwards to some clear and good additional remarks--p.
298. A class-term, as _black_, "is associated with two
distinguishable things, but with the one much more than with the
other: the clusters, with which it is associated, are variable: the
peculiar sensation with which it is associated, is invariable. It is
constantly, and therefore much more strongly, associated with the
sensation, than with any of the clusters. It is at once a name of
the clusters and a name of the sensation: but it is more peculiarly
a name of the sensation." Again shortly afterwards, the abstract
term is justly described as "marking exclusively one part (of the
cluster), upon which such and such effects depend, no alteration
being supposed in any other part of it."[p]
[Footnote p: The abstract term is coined for the express purpose of
marking one part of a cluster simultaneously present to the mind,
and fixing attention upon it without the other parts--but the
concrete term is often made to serve the same purpose, by means of
the adverb quatenus, [Greek: ka/thoson, ê(=|] &c. These phrases are
frequent both in Plato and Aristotle: the stock of abstract terms
was in their day comparatively small. It is needless to multiply
illustrations of that which pervades the compositions of both: a
very good one appears in Plato, Republ. I., p. 340 D, 341 C, 342.]
This process of marking exclusively, and attending to, one constant
portion of a complex state of consciousness, amidst a {286} great
variety of variable adjuncts--is doubtless one fundamental
characteristic in Abstraction and Classification. A mystery was
spread around it by Plato--first through his ascribing to the
Constant a separate self-existence, apart from the Variables--still
more by his hyperbolical predicates respecting these self-existent
transcendental Entia. Plato[q] however in other passages gives many
just opinions, respecting Classification, which are no way founded
on Realism, and are equally admissible by Nominalists: and portions
of Aristotle may be indicated, which describe the process of
abstraction as clearly as any thing in Hobbes or Berkeley.[r]
[Footnote q: The two Platonic dialogues, Sophistes and Politikus,
(in which processes of Classification are worked out,) give
precepts, for correct and pertinent classification, not necessarily
involving the theory of Realism, but rather putting it out of sight;
though in one special part of the Sophistes, the debate is made to
turn upon it. The main purpose of Plato is to fix upon some fact or
phenomenon, clear and appropriate, as the groundwork for
distinguishing each class or sub-class--and to define thereby each
class-term (_i.e._, to determine its _connotation_, in the sense of
Mr. John Stuart Mill). Plato deprecates the mere following out of
resemblances as a most slippery proceeding ([Greek: o)listhêro/taton
ge/nos]--Sophist. 231 A). The commonly received classes carry with
them in his opinion, no real knowledge, but only the false
persuasion of knowledge: he wants to break them up and remodel
them.]
[Footnote r: See especially Aristot. De Memoriâ et Reminiscentiâ, c.
1, p. 449, b. 13. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 6, p. 445, b. 17. De Animâ
III. 8, p. 432, a. 9.]
One farther remark may be made upon these two Chapters of the
Analysis. Mr. James Mill seems to take little or no thought of
Classification and Abstraction, except as performed by Adjectives.
But the adjective presupposes a substantive, which is alike an
appellative; and which has already performed its duty in the way of
abstracting and classifying. This fact seems to be overlooked in the
language of some sentences in the present Chapter: for
example--"Some successions are found to depend upon the clusters
called _objects_, all taken together. Thus a tree, a man, a stone,
are the {287} antecedents of certain consequents, as such: and not
on account of any particular part of the cluster. Other consequents
depend not upon the whole cluster, but upon some particular part:
thus a tall tree produces certain effects which a tree not tall
cannot produce," &c.
I think that the phraseology of this passage is not quite clear.
"The whole cluster all taken together" is not a tree as such--a man
as such--a stone as such--but this particular man, tree, or stone,
as it stands: John, Thomas, Caius or Titius, clothed with all his
predicates, acting or suffering in some given manner. When we speak
of a man _as such_ or _quatenus man_--we do not include the whole
cluster, but only those attributes _connoted_ (in Mr. John Stuart
Mill's sense of the word) by the name _man_: we speak of him as a
member of the class _Man_. What I wish to point out is--That Man is
a class-term, just as much as _tall_ or _short_: only it is the
name of a larger class, while tall man is a smaller class under it.
The school-logicians did not consider substantives as connotative,
but only adjectives: Mr. James Mill has followed them as to this
extent of the word, though he has inverted their meaning of it (see
p. 299). Mr. John Stuart Mill, while declining to adopt the same
inversion, has enlarged the meaning of the word _connotative_, so as
to include appellative substantives as well as adjectives.--_G._]
[Editor's footnote 80: Rejecting the notion that classes and
classification would not have existed but for the necessity of
economizing names, we may say that objects are formed into classes
on account of their resemblance. It is natural to think of like
objects together; which is, indeed, one of the two fundamental laws
of association. But the resembling objects which are spontaneously
thought of together, are those which resemble each other obviously,
in their superficial aspect. These are the only classes which we
should form unpremeditatedly, and without the use of expedients. But
there are other resemblances which are not superficially obvious;
and many are not brought to light except by long experience, or
observation carefully directed to the purpose; being mostly
resemblances in the {288} manner in which the objects act on, or are
acted on by, other things. These more recondite resemblances are
often those which are of greatest importance to our interests. It is
important to us that we should think of those things together, which
agree in any particular that materially concerns us. For this
purpose, besides the classes which form themselves in our minds
spontaneously by the general law of association, we form other
classes artificially, that is, we take pains to associate mentally
together things which we wish to think of together, but which are
not sufficiently associated by the spontaneous action of association
by resemblance. The grand instrument we employ in forming these
artificial associations, is general names. We give a common name to
all the objects, we associate each of the objects with the name, and
by their common association with the name they are knit together in
close association with one another.
But in what manner does the name effect this purpose, of uniting
into one complex class-idea all the objects which agree with one
another in certain definite particulars? We effect this by
associating the name in a peculiarly strong and close manner with
those particulars. It is, of course, associated with the objects
also; and the name seldom or never calls up the ideas of the
class-characteristics unaccompanied by any other qualities of the
objects. All our ideas are of individuals, or of numbers of
individuals, and are clothed with more or fewer of the attributes
which are peculiar to the individuals thought of. Still, a
class-name stands in a very different relation to the definite
resemblances which it is intended to mark, from that in which it
stands to the various accessory circumstances which may form part of
the image it calls up. There are certain attributes common to the
entire class, which the class-name was either deliberately selected
as a mark of, or, at all events, which guide us in the application
of it. These attributes are the real meaning of the class-name--are
what we intend to ascribe to an object when we call it by that name.
With these the association of the name is close and strong: and the
employment of the same name by different {289} persons, provided
they employ it with a precise adherence to the meaning, ensures that
they shall all include these attributes in the complex idea which
they associate with the name. This is not the case with any of the
other qualities of the individual objects, even if they happen to be
common to all the objects, still less if they belong only to some of
them. The class-name calls up, in every mind that hears or uses it,
the idea of one or more individual objects, clothed more or less
copiously with other qualities than those marked by the name; but
these other qualities may, consistently with the purposes for which
the class is formed and the name given, be different with different
persons, and with the same person at different times. What images of
individual horses the word horse shall call up, depends on such
accidents as the person's taste in horses, the particular horses he
may happen to possess, the descriptions he last read, or the casual
peculiarities of the horses he recently saw. In general, therefore,
no very strong or permanent association, and especially no
association common to all who use the language, will be formed
between the word horse and any of the qualities of horses but those
expressly or tacitly recognised as the foundations of the class. The
complex ideas thus formed consisting of an inner nucleus of definite
elements always the same, imbedded in a generally much greater
number of elements indefinitely variable, are our ideas of classes;
the ideas connected with general names; what are called General
Notions: which are neither real objective entities, as the Realists
held, nor mere names, as supposed to be maintained by the
Nominalists, nor abstract ideas excluding all properties not common
to the class, such as Locke's famous Idea of a triangle that is
neither equilateral nor isosceles nor scalene. We cannot represent
to ourselves a triangle with no properties but those common to all
triangles: but we may represent it to ourselves sometimes in one of
those three forms, sometimes in another, being aware all the while
that all of them are equally consistent with its being a triangle.
One important consequence of these considerations is, that {290} the
meaning of a class-name is not the same thing with the complex idea
associated with it. The complex idea associated with the name man,
includes, in the mind of every one, innumerable simple ideas besides
those which the name is intended to mark, and in the absence of
which it would not be predicated. But this multitude of simple ideas
which help to swell the complex idea are infinitely variable, and
never exactly the same in any two persons, depending in each upon
the amount of his knowledge, and the nature, variety, and recent
date of his experience. They are therefore no part of the meaning of
the name. They are not the association common to all, which it was
intended to form, and which enables the name to be used by all in
the same manner, to be understood in a common sense by all, and to
serve, therefore, as a vehicle for the communication, between one
and another, of the same thoughts. What does this, is the nucleus of
more closely associated ideas, which is the constant element in the
complex idea of the class, both in the same mind at different times,
and in different minds.
It is proper to add, that the class-name is not solely a mark of the
distinguishing class-attributes, it is a mark also of the objects.
The name man does not merely signify the qualities of animal life,
rationality, and the human form, it signifies all individual men. It
even signifies these in a more direct way than it signifies the
attributes, for it is predicated of the men, but not predicated of
the attributes; just as the proper name of an individual man is
predicated of him. We say, This is a man, just as we say, This is
John Thompson: and if John Thompson is the name of one man, Man is,
in the same manner, a name of all men. A class name, being thus a
name of the various objects composing the class, signifies two
distinct things, in two different modes of signification. It
signifies the individual objects which are the class, and it
signifies the common attributes which constitute the class. It is
predicated only of the objects; but when predicated, it conveys the
information that these objects possess those attributes. Every
concrete class-name is thus a connotative name. It marks {291} both
the objects and their common attributes, or rather, that portion of
their common attributes in virtue of which they have been made into
a class. It _denotes_ the objects, and, in a mode of speech lately
revived from the old logicians, it _connotes_ the attributes. The
author of the Analysis employs the word connote in a different
manner; we shall presently examine which of the two is best.
We are now ready to consider whether the author's account of the
ideas connected with General Names is a true and sufficient one. It
is best expressed in his own words. "The word Man, we shall say, is
first applied to an individual; it is first associated with the idea
of that individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of
him; it is next applied to another individual, and acquires the
power of calling up the idea of him; so of another, and another,
till it has become associated with an indefinite number, and has
acquired the power of calling up an indefinite number of those ideas
indifferently. What happens? It does call up an indefinite number of
the ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs, and calling them up
in close connexion, it forms them into a species of complex idea. .
. . When the word man calls up the ideas of an indefinite number of
individuals, not only of all those to whom I have individually given
the name, but of all those to whom I have in imagination given it,
or imagine it will ever be given, and forms all those ideas into
one,--it is evidently a very complex idea, and therefore indistinct;
and this indistinctness has doubtless been the main cause of the
mystery which has appeared to belong to it. That this however is the
process, is an inevitable result of the laws of association."
In brief, my idea of a Man is a complex idea compounded of the ideas
of all the men I have ever known and of all those I have ever
imagined, knit together into a kind of unit by a close association.
The author's description of the manner in which the
class-association begins to be formed, is true and instructive; but
does any one's idea of a man actually include all that the author
{292} finds in it? By an inevitable result of the laws of
association, it is impossible to form an idea of a man in the
abstract; the class-attributes are always represented in the mind as
part of an image of an individual, either remembered or imagined;
this individual may vary from time to time, and several images of
individuals may present themselves either alternatively or in
succession: but is it necessary that the name should recal images of
all the men I ever knew or imagined, or even all of whom I retain a
remembrance? In no person who has seen or known many men, can this
be the case. Apart from the ideas of the common attributes, the
other ideas whether of attributes or of individual men, which enter
into the complex idea, are indefinitely variable not only in kind
but in quantity. Some people's complex idea of the class is
extremely meagre, that of others very ample. Sometimes we know a
class only from its definition, i.e. from an enumeration of its
class-attributes, as in the case of an object which we have only
read of in scientific books: in such a case the idea raised by the
class-name will not be limited to the class-attributes, for we are
unable to conceive any object otherwise than clothed with
miscellaneous attributes: but these, not being derived from
experience of the objects, may be such as the objects never had, nor
could have; while nevertheless the class, and the class-name, answer
their proper purpose; they cause us to group together all the things
possessing the class-attributes, and they inform us that we may
expect those attributes in anything of which that name is
predicated.
The defect, as it seems to me, of the view taken of General Names in
the text, is that it ignores this distinction between the meaning of
a general name, and the remainder of the idea which the general name
calls up. That remainder is uncertain, variable, scanty in some
cases, copious in others, and connected with the name by a very
slight tie of association, continually overcome by
counter-associations. The only part of the complex idea that is
permanent in the same mind, or common to several minds, consists of
the distinctive attributes marked by the class-name. Nothing else is
universally present, though {293} something else is always present:
but whatever else be present, it is through these only that the
class-name does its work, and effects the end of its existence. We
need not therefore be surprised that these attributes, being all
that is of importance in the complex idea, should for a long time
have been supposed to be all that is contained in it. The truest
doctrine which can be laid down on the subject seems to be
this--that the idea corresponding to a class-name is the idea of a
certain constant combination of class attributes, accompanied by a
miscellaneous and indefinitely variable collection of ideas of
individual objects belonging to the class.--_Ed._]
{294} CHAPTER IX.
ABSTRACTION.
"I think, too, that he (Mr. Locke) would have seen the advantage of
'thoroughly weighing,' not only (as he says) 'the imperfections of
Language;' but its _perfections_ also: For the perfections of
Language, not properly understood, have been one of the chief causes
of the imperfections of our knowledge."--_Diversions of Purley_, _by
John Horne Tooke, A.M._, i. 37.
THE two cases of Consciousness, CLASSIFICATION, and ABSTRACTION,
have not, generally, been well distinguished.
According to the common accounts of Classification, ABSTRACTION was
included in it. When it is said, that, in order to classify, we
leave out of view all the circumstances in which individuals differ,
and retain only those in which they agree; this separating one
portion of what is contained in a complex idea, and making it an
object of consideration by itself, is the process which is named
Abstraction, at least a main part of that process.
It is necessary now to inquire what are the purposes to which this
separating of the parts of a complex idea, and considering and
naming the separated parts by themselves, is subservient.
{295} We have already observed the following remarkable things in
the process of naming: 1, Assigning names of those clusters of ideas
called objects; as man, fish; 2, Generalizing those names, so as to
make them represent a class; 3, Framing adjectives by which minor
classes are cut out of larger.
Those adjectives are all names, of some separate portion of a
cluster, and are, therefore, all instruments of abstraction, or of
that separating one or more of the ingredients of a complex idea
from the rest, which has received the name of Abstraction. One
purpose of Abstraction, therefore, is the formation of those
_sub-species_, the formation of which is required for certain
purposes of speech.
These observations will be rendered familiar by examples. We say,
tall man, red flower, race horse. In my complex idea of a man, or
the cluster of ideas of sense to which I affix that mark, are
included, certain ideas of colour, of figure, size, and so on. By
the word tall, I single out a portion of those ideas, namely, the
part relating to size, or rather size in one direction, and mark the
separation by the sign or name. In my complex idea of a flower,
colour is always one of the ingredients. By applying the adjective
red, I single out this one from the rest, and point it out for
peculiar consideration. The explanation is obvious, and need not be
pursued in a greater number of instances.
Words of this description all denote differences; either such as
mark out species from genera, or such as mark out individuals from
species. Of this latter sort the number is very small; of which the
reason is obvious; individual differences are too numerous to {296}
receive names, and are marked by contrivances of abridgment which
will be spoken of hereafter.
To explain this notation of differences; the same examples will
suffice. In the phrase "tall man," the adjective "tall" marks the
difference between such a man, and "short man," or "middle-sized
man." Of the genus man, tall men are one species; and the difference
between them and the rest of the genus is marked by the word tall.
Of the genus flower, red flowers form a species, and the difference
between them and the rest of the genus is marked by the adjective
red. Of the genus horse, race horse forms a species, and the
difference between this species and the rest of the genus is marked
by the word race.
It is of importance further to observe, that adjectives singling out
ideas which are not differences, that is, ideas common to the whole
class, are useless: as, tangible wood; coloured man; sentient
animal. Such epithets express no more than what is expressed by the
name without them.
Another thing requiring the attention of the student is the mode in
which these differential adjectives are generalized. As the word
man, applied first to one individual, then to another, becomes
associated with every individual, and every variety of the species,
and calls them all up in one very complex idea; so are these
adjectives applied to one class after another, and by that means at
last call up a very complicated idea. Let us take the word "black"
for an example; and let us suppose that we apply this adjective
first to the word man. We say "black man." But we speedily see that
for the same reason for which we say black man we may say black
horse, black cow, {297} black coat, and so on. The word black is
thus associated with innumerable modifications of the sensation
black. By frequent repetition, and the gradual strengthening of the
association, these modifications are at last called up in such rapid
succession that they appear commingled, and no longer many ideas,
but one. Black is therefore no longer an individual but a general
name. It marks not the particular black of a particular individual;
but the black of every individual, and of all individuals.[81] The
same is the case {298} with all other words of the same class. Thus
I apply the word sweet, first to the lump of sugar in my mouth, next
to honey, next to grapes, and so on. It thus becomes associated with
numerous modifications of the sensation sweet; and when the
association is sufficiently strengthened by repetition, calls them
up in such close succession, that they are converted into one
complex idea. We are also to remember, that the idea and the name
have a mutual power over one another. As the word black calls up the
complex idea, so every modification of black calls up the name; and
in this, as in other cases, the name actually forms a part of the
complex idea.
[Editor's footnote 81: The example which the author has here
selected of a general name, sets in a strong light the imperfection
of the theory of general names, laid down by him in the preceding
chapter. A name like "black," which marks a simple sensation, is an
extreme case of the inapplicability of the theory. Can it be
maintained that the idea called up in our minds by the word black,
is an idea compounded of ideas of black men, black horses, black
cows, black coats, and the like? If I can trust my own
consciousness, the word need not, and generally does not, call up
any idea but that of a single black surface. It is still not an
abstract idea, but the idea of an individual object. It is not a
mere idea of colour; it is that, combined with ideas of extension
and figure, always present but extremely vague, because varying,
even from one moment to the next. These vague ideas of an uncertain
extension and figure, combined with the perfectly definite idea of a
single sensation of colour, are, to my consciousness, the sole
components of the complex idea associated with the word black. I am
unable to find in that complex idea the ideas of black men, horses,
or other definite things, though such ideas may of course be
recalled by it.
In such a case as this, the idea of a black colour fills by itself
the place of the inner nucleus of ideas knit together by a closer
association, which I have described as forming the permanent part of
our ideas of classes of objects, and the meaning of the
class-names.--_Ed._]
The next thing, which I shall observe, deserves in a high degree,
the attention of the learner. In the various applications of that
species of marks which we are now considering, they are associated
with two distinguishable things; but with the one much more than the
other. Thus, when we say black man, black horse, black coat, and so
of all other black things, the word black is associated with the
cluster, man, as often as black man is the expression; with the
cluster horse, as often as black horse is the expression, and so on
with infinite variety: but at the same time that it is associated
with each of those various clusters, it is also associated with the
peculiar sensation of colour which it is intended to mark. The
CLUSTERS, therefore, with which it is associated, are variable; the
PECULIAR SENSATION with which it is associated is invariable. It is
much more constantly, and therefore much more strongly associated
with the SENSATION than with any of the CLUSTERS. It is at once a
name of the clusters, and a name of the {299} sensation; but it is
more peculiarly a name of the SENSATION.
We have, in a preceding note, observed, that such words have been
called _connotative_; and I shall find much convenience in using the
term NOTATION to point out the sensation or sensations which are
peculiarly marked by such words, the term CONNOTATION to point out
the clusters which they mark along with this their principal meaning.
Thus the word, black, NOTES that of which black is more peculiarly
the name, a particular colour; it CONNOTES the clusters with the
names of which it is joined: in the expression, black man, it
connotes man; black horse, it connotes horse; and so of all other
cases. The ancient Logicians used these terms, in the inverse order;
very absurdly, in my opinion.[82]
[Editor's footnote 82: The word Connote, with its substantive
Connotation, was used by the old logicians in two senses; a wider,
and a narrower sense. The wider is that in which, up to this place,
the author of the Analysis has almost invariably used it; and is the
sense in which he defined it, in a note to section *5 of his first
chapter. "There is a large class of words which denote two things
both together; but the one perfectly distinguishable from the other.
Of these two things, also, it is observable, that such words express
the one primarily as it were; the other in a way which may be called
secondary. Thus white, in the phrase white horse, denotes two
things, the colour and the horse; but it denotes the colour
primarily, the horse secondarily. We shall find it very convenient
to say, therefore, that it _notes_ the primary, _connotes_ the
secondary signification."
This use of terms is attended with the difficulty, that it may often
be disputed which of the significations is primary and which
secondary. In the example given, most people would agree with the
author that the colour is the primary signification; the word being
associated with the objects, only through its previous association
with the colour. But take the other of the two words, horse. That
too is connotative, and in the same manner. It signifies any and
every individual horse, and it also signifies those attributes
common to horses, which led to their being classed together and
receiving that common name. Which, in this case, is the primary, and
which the secondary signification? The author would probably say,
that in this case, unlike the other, horse is the primary
signification, the attributes the secondary. Yet in this equally
with the former case, the attributes are the foundation of the
meaning: a thing is called a horse to express its resemblance to
other horses; and the resemblance consists of the common attributes.
The question might be discussed, pro and con, by many arguments,
without any conclusive result. The difference between primary and
secondary acceptations is too uncertain, and at best too
superficial, to be adopted as the logical foundation of the
distinction between the two modes of signification.
The author, however, has, throughout the preceding chapters,
regarded words as _connoting_ any number of things which though
included in their signification, are not, in his judgment, what they
primarily signify. He said, for example, that a verb notes an
action, and connotes the agent (as either me, thee, or some third
person), the number of agents (as one or more), the time (as past,
present, or future), and three modes, "that in which there is no
reference to anything preceding, that in which there is a reference
to something preceding, and that in which reference is made to the
will of one of the Persons." I cite this complicated case, to shew
by a striking example the great latitude with which the author uses
the word Connote.
But in the present chapter he follows the example of some of the old
logicians in adopting a second and more restricted meaning,
expressive of the peculiar connotation which belongs to all concrete
general names; viz. that twofold manner of signification, by which
every name of a class signifies, on the one hand, all and each of
the individual things composing the class, and on the other hand the
common attributes, in consideration of which the class is formed and
the name given, and which we intend to affirm of every object to
which we apply the name. It is difficult to overrate the importance
of keeping in view this distinction, or the danger of overlooking it
when not made prominent by an appropriate phrase. The word Connote,
which had been employed for this purpose, had fallen into disuse.
But, though agreeing with the old logicians in using the word
Connote to express this distinction, the author exactly reverses
their employment of it. In their phraseology, the class-name
connotes the attributes: in his, it notes the attributes, and
connotes the objects. And he declares that in his opinion, their
mode of employing the term is very absurd.
We have now to consider which of these two modes of employing it is
really the most appropriate.
A concrete general name may be correctly said to be a mark, in a
certain way, both for the objects and for their common attributes.
But which of the two is it conformable to usage to say that it is
the name of? Assuredly, the objects. It is they that are called by
the name. I am asked, what is this object called? and I answer, a
horse. I should not make this answer if I were asked what are these
attributes called. Again, I am asked, what is it that is called a
horse? and I answer, the object which you see; not the qualities
which you see. Let us now suppose that I am asked, what is it that
is called black; I answer, all _things_ that have this particular
colour. Black is a name of all black things. The name of the colour
is not black, but blackness. The name of a thing must be the name
which is predicated of the thing, as a proper name is predicated of
the person or place it belongs to. It is scarcely possible to speak
with precision, and adhere consistently to the same mode of speech,
if we call a word the name of any thing but that which it is
predicated of. Accordingly the old logicians, who had not yet
departed widely from the custom of common speech, considered all
concrete names as the names of objects, and called nothing the name
of an attribute but abstract names.
Now there is considerable incongruity in saying that a word
connotes, that is, signifies secondarily, the very thing which it is
a name of. To connote, is to mark something along with, or in
addition to, something else. A name can hardly be said to mark the
thing which it is a name of in addition to some other thing. If it
marks any other thing it marks it in addition to the thing of which
it is itself the name. In the present case, what is marked in
addition, is that which is the cause of giving the name; the
attributes, the possession of which by a thing entitles it to that
name. It therefore seems more conformable to the original
acceptation of the word Connote, that we should say of names like
man or black that they connote humanity or blackness, and denote, or
are names of, men and black objects; rather than, with the author of
the Analysis, that they note the attributes, and connote the things
which possess the attributes.
If this mode of using the terms is more consonant to propriety of
language, so also is it more scientifically convenient. It is of
extreme importance to have a technical expression exclusively
consecrated to signify the peculiar mode in which the name of a
class marks the attributes in virtue of which it is a class, and is
called by the name. The verb "to note," employed by the author of
the Analysis as the correlative of "to connote," is far too general
to be confined to so specific a use, nor does the author intend so
to confine it. "To connote," on the contrary, is a phrase which has
been handed down to us in this restricted acceptation, and is
perfectly fitted to be used as a technical term. There is no more
important use of a term than that of fixing attention upon something
which is in danger of not being sufficiently taken notice of. This
is emphatically the case with the attribute-signification of the
names of objects. That signification has not been seen clearly, and
what has been seen of it confusedly has bewildered or misled some of
the most distinguished philosophers. From Hobbes to Hamilton, those
who have attempted to penetrate the secret of the higher logical
operations of the intellect have continually missed the mark for
want of the light which a clear conception of the connotation of
general names spreads over the subject. There is no fact in
psychology which more requires a technical name; and it seems
eminently desirable that the words Connote and Connotative should be
exclusively employed for this purpose; and it is for this purpose
that I have myself invariably employed them.
In studying the Analysis, it is of course necessary to bear in mind
that the author does not use the words in this sense, but sometimes
in a sense much more vague and indefinite, and, when definite, in a
sense the reverse of this. It may seem an almost desperate
undertaking, in the case of an unfamiliar term, to attempt to
rectify the usage introduced by the actual reviver of the word: and
nothing could have induced me to attempt it, but a deliberate
conviction that such a technical expression is indispensable to
philosophy, and that the author's mode of employing these words
unfits them for the purpose for which they are needed, and for which
they are well adapted. I fear, however, that I have rarely succeeded
in associating the words with their precise meaning, anywhere but in
my own writings. The word Connote, not unfrequently meets us of late
in philosophical speculations, but almost always in a sense more lax
than the laxest in which it is employed in the Analysis, meaning no
more than to imply. To such an extent is this the case, that able
thinkers and writers do not always even confine the expression to
names, but actually speak of Things as connoting whatever, in their
opinion, the existence of the Things implies or presupposes.--_Ed._]
{300} In using these connotative names, it is often highly
convenient to drop the connotation; that is, to leave out the
connoted cluster.
{301} A mark is needed, to show when it is meant that the
connotation is dropped. A slight mark put upon the connotative term
answers the purpose; and shews {302} when it is not meant that
anything should be connoted. In regard to the word black, for
example, we merely annex to it the syllable _ness_; and it is
immediately {303} indicated that all connotation is dropped: so, in
sweetness; hardness; dryness; lightness. The new words, so formed,
are the words which have been denominated {304} ABSTRACT; as the
connotative terms from which they are formed have been denominated
CONCRETE; and, as these terms are in frequent use, it is necessary
that the meaning of them should be well remembered.
It is now also manifest what is the real nature of ABSTRACT terms; a
subject which has in general presented such an appearance of
mystery. They are simply the CONCRETE terms, with the connotation
dropped. And this has in it, surely, no mystery at all.[83]
[Editor's footnote 83: After having said that a concrete general
name notes an attribute, that this, one of the sensations in a
cluster, and connotes the objects which have the attribute, i.e. the
clusters of which that sensation forms a part; the author proceeds
to say that an abstract name is the concrete name with the
connotation dropped.
This seems a very indirect and circuitous mode of making us
understand what an abstract name signifies. Instead of aiming
directly at the mark, it goes round it. It tells us that one name
signifies a part of what another name signifies, leaving us to infer
what part. A connotative name with the connotation dropped, is a
phrase requiring to be completed by specifying what is the portion
of signification left. The concrete name with its connotation
signifies an attribute, and also the objects which have the
attribute. We are now instructed to drop the latter half of the
signification, the objects. What then remains? The attribute. Why
not then say at once that the abstract name is the name of the
attribute? Why tell us that _x_ is _a_ plus _b_ with _b_ dropped,
when it was as easy to tell us that _x_ is _a_?
The noticeable thing however is that if _a_ stands merely for the
sensation, _x_ really is a little more than _a_: the connotation (in
the author's sense of the term) of the concrete name is not _wholly_
dropped in the abstract name. The term blackness, and every other
abstract term, includes in its signification the existence of a
black object, though without declaring what it is. That is indeed
the distinction between the name of an attribute, and the name of a
kind or type of sensation. Names of sensations by themselves are not
abstract but concrete names. They mark the type of the sensation,
but they do not mark it as emanating from any object. "The sensation
of black" is a concrete name, which expresses the sensation apart
from all reference to an object. "Blackness" expresses the same
sensation with reference to an object, by which the sensation is
supposed to be excited. Abstract names thus still retain a limited
amount of connotation in both the author's senses of the term--the
vaguer and the more specific sense. It is only in the sense to which
I am anxious to restrict the term, that any abstract name is without
connotation.
An abstract name, then, may be defined as the name of an attribute;
and, in the ultimate analysis, as the name of one or more of the
sensations of a cluster; not by themselves, but considered as part
of any or all of the various clusters, into which that type of
sensations enters as a component part.--_Ed._]
{305} It hence, also, appears that there can be no ABSTRACT term
without an implied CONCRETE, though cases are not wanting, in which
there is much occasion for the ABSTRACT term but not much for the
CONCRETE; in which, therefore, the concrete is not in use, or is
supplied by another form of expression.
{306} In regular and capricious languages, as our own, the dropping
of the connotation of the concrete terms is not marked in a uniform
manner; and this requires some illustration. Thus, heavy is a
concrete term, and we shew the dropping of the connotation, by the
same mark as in the instances above, saying heaviness; but we have
another term which is exactly the equivalent of heaviness, and
frequently used as the abstract of heavy; that is, weight. Friend is
a concrete, connotative term, in the substantive form. Its
connotation is dropped by another mark, the syllable ship; thus,
friendship; in like manner, generalship; brothership; cousinship.
The syllable age is another of the marks we use for the same
purpose; pilotage, parsonage, stowage.
Among concrete connotative words, we have already had full
opportunity of observing that verbs constitute a principal class.
Those words all NOTE some _motion_ or _action_ and CONNOTE an
_actor_. There is the same frequency of occasion to leave out the
connotation in the case of this class of connotative words, as in
other classes. Accordingly ABSTRACT terms are formed from them, as
from the connotative adjectives and substantives. The infinitive
mood is such an abstract term; with this peculiarity, that, though
it leaves out the connotation of the _actor_, it retains the
connotation of _time_.[84] {307} It is convenient, however, to have
abstract terms from the verbs, which leave out also the connotation
of time; such are the substantive _amor_ from _amo_, _timor_ from
_timeo_, and so on.
[Editor's footnote 84: The infinitive mood does not always express
time. At least, it often expresses it aoristically, without
distinction of tense. "To love" is as abstract a name as "love," "to
fear," as "fear": they are applied equally to past, present, and
future. The infinitives of the past and future, as _amavisse_,
_amaturus esse_, do, however, include in their signification a
particular time.--_Ed._]
Verbs have not only an active but a passive form. In the passive
form, it is not the _action_, but the _bearing_ of the action, which
is NOTED; and not the _actor_, but the _bearer_ of the action, that
is CONNOTED. In this case, also, there is not less frequent occasion
to drop the connotation. By the simple contrivance of a slight
alteration in the connotative term, the important circumstance of
dropping the connotation is marked. In the case of the passive as
the active form of verbs, the infinitive mood drops the connotation
of the person, but retains that of the time. Other abstract terms,
formed from the passive voice, leave out the connotation both of
person and time. Thus from _legor_, there is _lectio_; from _optor_,
_optatio_; from _dicor_, _dictio_; and so on.
It is to be remarked that the Latin mode of forming abstract terms
from verbs, by the termination "tio," has been adopted to a great
extent in English. A large proportion of our abstract terms are thus
distinguished; as action, association, imagination, navigation,
mensuration, friction, motion, station, faction, legislation,
corruption, and many others.
It is also of extreme importance to mark a great defect and
imperfection, in this respect, of the Latin language. Such words as
_lectio_, _dictio_, _actio_, are derived with equal readiness either
from the supine, _lectum_, _dictum_, _actum_; or from the
participle, _lectus_, _dictus_, _actus_. The supine is _active_, the
participle, _passive_. From this circumstance probably it is, that
{308} these abstract terms in the Latin language possess both the
active and passive signification; and by this most unfortunate
ambiguity have proved a fertile source of obscurity and confusion.
This defect of the Latin language is the more to be lamented by us,
that it has infected our own language; for as we have borrowed from
the Latin language a great proportion of our abstract terms, we have
transplanted the mischievous equivocation along with them. This
ambiguity the Greek language happily avoided: thus it had [Greek:
pra=xis] and [Greek: pra=gma] the first for the active
signification of _actio_, the latter the passive.[85]
[Editor's footnote 85: I apprehend that [Greek: pra=gma] is not an
abstract but a concrete term, and does not express the attribute of
being done, but the thing done--the effect which results from the
completed action.--_Ed._]
Of the abstract terms, of genuine English growth, derived from the
concrete names of action, or verbs, the participle of the past tense
supplied a great number, merely dropping the adjective, and assuming
the substantive form. Thus, weight, a word which we had occasion to
notice before, is the participle weighed, with the connotation
dropped: stroke is merely struck; the _thing_ struck, the
connotation, being left out: thought is the past participle passive
of the verb to think, and differs from the participle in nothing,
but that the participle, the adjective, has the connotation; the
abstract, the substantive, has it not. Whether the concrete, or the
abstract, is the term employed, is in such cases always indicated by
the context; and, therefore, no particular mark to distinguish them
is required.
{309} In our non-inflected language, a facility is afforded in
forming a non-connotative from the connotative, in the active voice
of verbs; because the connotative word is always distinguished by
the presence of the persons of the verb, or that of some part of the
auxiliary verb. The same word, therefore, answers for the abstract,
as for the concrete; it being of course the abstract, when none of
the marks of the concrete are present. Thus the word love, is both
the verb or the connotative, and the substantive or the
non-connotative; thus also fear, walk, ride, stand, fight, smell,
taste, sleep, dream, drink, work, breath, and many others.
We have in English, formed from verbs, a great many abstracts or
non-connotatives, which terminate in "th," as truth, health, dearth,
stealth, death, strength. It may be disputed whether these words are
derived from one part of the verb or another; but, in all other
respects, the nature of them is not doubtful. The third person
singular of the present, indicative active, ends in "th;" and,
therefore, they may be said to be that part of the verb with the
connotation dropped. The termination, however, of the past
participle is "d," and we know that "th" and "d," are the same
letter under a slight difference of articulation; and, therefore,
they may just as well be derived from the past participle, and as
often at least as they have a passive signification, no doubt are.
Thus the verb trow, to think, has either troweth, or trowed; from
one of which, but more likely from the last, we have truth: the verb
to heal, has either healeth, or healed; from one of which, but more
likely the last, we have health: the verb to string has stringeth,
or stringed; {310} from one of which we have strength; thus from
dieth, or died, death; from stealeth, or stealed, stealth; mirth in
the same manner, from a verb now out of use; so heighth, length,
breadth.[86]
[Findlater's footnote 86: The abstracts in _-th_ belong to a very
early stage of the language. We cannot now form words like _health_,
_truth_, as we can abstracts in _-ness_. As in the case of
adjectives in _-en_ (_wooden_), and of preterites and participles
like _fell_, _fallen_, that particular part of the vital energy of
the language that produced them, is dead--ossified, as it were; and
we cannot exemplify their formation by any process now going on. To
account for many of them, we must suppose them formed from roots
different from any now existing as separate words--roots from which
the corresponding verbs and adjectives that we are acquainted with
have been themselves derived by augmentation or other change. This
being the case, it is impossible to say with certainty whether the
immediate root of any particular abstract in _-th_ was a verb, a
noun, or an adjective; and, indeed, the question need hardly be
raised, since a primitive root was of the nature of all three.
The structure of these derivatives is better seen in some of the
other Teutonic dialects than in the English or the Anglo-Saxon,
in which the affix is reduced to a mere consonant. Thus, for Eng.
_depth_ the Gothic has _diupi-tha_; for _heigh-th_, _hauhi-tha_.
In Old High German the affix _-tha_ becomes _-da_, and we have
_heili-da_ corresponding to Eng. _heal-th_; _strenki-da_, to
_streng-th_; besides a great number of analogous forms, such as
_evi-da_, "eternity" (from the same root as _ever_; compare Lat.
_aetas_ for _aevitas_). In modern German comparatively few of these
derivatives survive; and in those that do; the _-da_ of the Old
German has passed into _-de_, as in _ge-baer-de_, the way of
'bearing' oneself, behaviour; equivalent to Latin _habi-tus_. The
modern German equivalents of _bread-th_, _leng-th_, are _breit-e_,
_läng-e_; but in some of the popular dialects the older forms
_breite de_, _läng-de_ are still retained; and in Dutch _warm-te_
corresponds to _warm-th_, and _grôt-te_ is _great-ness_. When we
recollect that _th_ or _d_ in the Germanic languages represents in
such cases the _t_ of the Greek and Latin (compare Gr. [Greek:
me/lit (os)], honey with Goth. _milith_; Lat. _alter_ with Eng.
_other_), we cannot help seeing how analogous is the formation of
the class of words we are now considering to that of Latin past
participles (ama-tus, dic-tus, audi-tus). In the case of those
abstracts that seem to come more naturally from an adjective root
than from a verb, we can conceive the adjective formed on the
analogy of the past participle; just as there are in English
adjectives having no possible verbal root, yet simulating past
participles; as _able-bodi-ed_, _three-corner-ed_. The abstract noun
would appear to have been originally distinguished from the
participle, or participial adjective, by some additional affix, as
in lec-t-io. In Greek and Latin this additional affix very often
consisted in a reduplication of the formative element _t_, as if for
the purpose of denoting multitude, generality; as in Greek ([Greek:
neo/-têt-os]), Latin _juven-tut-is_, _sani-tat-is_. It is not
impossible that Goth. _diupi-tha_, O.H.G. _heili-da_ are
abbreviations of _diupi-tha-th_, _heili-da-d_, just as Lat.
_sani-tat_ has dwindled down in modern Ital. to _sani-tà_.
In a great many words essentially belonging to the same class both
in meaning and in mode of formation, the _-th_ has, for the sake of
euphony or from other causes, given place to _t_ or _d_. Thus _mood_
corresponds to Goth. _mo-th_, and means a motion (Lat. _motus_) or
affection (of the mind); _blood_, to Goth. _blo-th_; _theft_, is in
Ang. Sax. _theof-th_. _Mur-ther_, from a root akin to Lat. _mori_;
_burthen_, from the root of to _bear_, are of similar formation,
with additional affixes.
All these considerations would seem to put Horne Tooke's proposed
derivation of these abstracts from the third person singular of the
present indicative of the verb, completely out of court. The famous
case of _truth_ from _troweth_ is especially absurd. For one thing
the Ang. Sax. verb _treowan_ does not mean "to think," but "to
trust," "rely on," "believe." This implies a ground for the trust,
and that ground lies in the quality expressed by the adjective,
true. _Truth_ has the same relation, logically and etymologically,
to _true_, that _dearth_ has to _dear_, _health_ to _hale_.
Remarking on the identity in form between the Ang. Sax. _treow_,
"trust," "a treaty," and _treow_, "a tree," Jacob Grimm suggests
that they are radically related, and that the idea common to _tree_
and _true_ is firmness, fixedness. Thus the "true" would be the
"firm" the "fixed"--what may be relied on. This view is supported by
the analogy of the Lat. _robur_, which means both an oak and
strength.--_F._]
{311} It would be interesting to give a systematic account of the
non-connotatives, derived from English {312} verbs; and this ought
to be done; but for the present inquiry it would be an operation
misplaced. The nature of the words, and the mode of their
signification, is all which here is necessary to be understood.
One grand class of connotative terms is composed of such words as
the following: walking, running, flying, reading, striking; and we
have seen that, for a very obvious utility, a generical name was
invented, the word ACTING, which includes the whole of these
specific names; and to which the non-connotative, or abstract term
ACTION corresponds. There was equal occasion for a generical name to
include all the specific names belonging to the other class of
connotative terms; such as coloured, sapid, hard, soft, hot, cold,
and so on. But language has by no means been so happy in a general
name for this, as for the other class. The word SUCH, is a
connotative term, which includes them all, and indeed the other
class along with them; for when we apply the word SUCH to any thing,
we comprehend under it all the ideas of which the cluster {313} is
composed. But this is not all which is included under the word such.
It is a relative term, and always connotes so much of the meaning of
some other term. When we call a thing _such_, it is always
understood that it is such _as_ some other thing. Thus we say, John
is such as James. Corresponding with our "such as," the Latins had
_talis qualis_. If we could suppose _qualis_ to have been used
without any connotation of _talis_, _qualis_ would have been such a
word as the occasion which we are now considering would have
required. The Latins did not use _qualis_, in this sense, as a
general concrete, including all the other names of the properties of
objects other than actions. But they made from it, as if used in
that very sense, a non-connotative or abstract term, the word
QUALITY, which answers the same purpose with regard to both classes,
as action does to one of them. That is to say; it is a very general
non-connotative term, including under it the non-connotatives or
abstracts of hot, cold, hard, soft, long, short; and not only of all
other words of that description, but of acting, and its subordinates
also.
_Quantus_, is another concrete which has a double connotation like
_qualis_. It connotes not only the substantive with which it agrees,
but also, being a relative, the term _tantus_, which is its
correlate. By dropping both connotations, the abstract QUANTITY is
made; a general term, including under it the abstracts of all the
names by which the modifications of greater and less are
denominated; as large, small, a mile long, an inch thick, a handful,
a ton, and so on.
Much remains, beside what is here stated, of the full explanation of
the mode in which _talis qualis_, {314} _tantus quantus_, are made
conducive to the great purposes of marking. But this must be
reserved till we come to treat of RELATIVE TERMS, in general.
We have previously observed, that one of the purposes for which we
abstract, or sunder the parts of a complex idea, marked by a general
name, is, to form those adjectives, or connotative terms, which,
denoting differences, enable us to form, and to name, subordinate
classes. We now come to the next of the great purposes to which
abstraction is subservient, and it is one to which the whole of our
attention is due.
Of all the things in which we are interested, that is, on which our
happiness and misery depend, meaning here by things, both objects
and events, the most important by far are the successions of
objects; in other words, the effects which they produce. In reality,
objects are interesting to us, solely on account of the effects
which they produce, either on ourselves, or on other objects.
But an observation of the greatest importance readily occurs; that
of any cluster, composing our idea of an object, the effects or
consequents depend, in general, more upon one part of it than
another. If a stone is hot, it has certain effects or consequences;
if heavy, it has others, and so on. It is of great importance to us,
in respect to those successions, to be able to mark discriminately
the real antecedent; not the antecedent combined with a number of
things with which the consequent has nothing to do. I observe, that
other objects, as iron, lead, gold, produce similar effects with
stone; as often as the name _hot_ can, in like manner, be predicated
of them. In the several clusters therefore, hot stone, hot iron, hot
gold, {315} hot lead, there is a portion, the same in all, with
which, and not with the rest, the effects which I am contemplating
are connected. This part is marked by the word _hot_; which word,
however, in the case of each cluster, connotes also the other parts
of the cluster. It appears at once, how much convenience there must
be in dropping the connotation, and obtaining a word which, in each
of those cases, shall mark exclusively that part of the cluster on
which the effect depends. This is accomplished by the abstract or
non-connotative terms, heat, and weight.
Certain alterations, also, are observed in those parts of clusters
on which such and such effects depend; which alterations make
corresponding alterations in the effects, though no other alteration
is observable, in the cluster, to which such parts belong. Thus, if
a stone is more or less hot, the effects or successions are not the
same; so of iron, so of lead; but the same alteration in the same
part of each of those clusters, is followed by the same effects. It
is true, that we know nothing of the alteration in the cause, but by
the alteration in the effects; for we only say that a stone is
hotter, because it produces such other effects, either in our
sensations immediately, or in the sensations we receive from other
objects. It is, however, obvious that we have urgent use for the
means of marking, not only the alterations in the effects, but the
alterations in the antecedents. This we do, by supposing the
alterations to be those of increase and diminution, and marking them
by the distinction of lower and higher degrees. But, for this
purpose, it is obvious that we must have a term which is not
connotative; because we suppose no alteration in any {316} part of
the cluster but that which is not connoted; thus we can say, with
sufficient precision, that a greater or less degree of heat produces
such and such effects; but we cannot say, that a greater or less
degree of hot stone, of hot iron, of hot any thing else, produces
these effects.
This then, is another use, and evidently a most important use, of
abstract, non-connotative terms. They enable us to mark, with more
precision, those successions, in which our good and evil is wholly
contained.
This also enables us to understand, what it is which recommends such
and such aggregates, and not others, for classification. Those
successions of objects, in which we are interested, determine the
classifications which we form of them.
Some successions are found to depend upon the clusters, called
objects, all taken together. Thus a tree, a man, a stone, are the
antecedents of certain consequents, as such; and not on account of
any particular part of the cluster.
Other consequents depend not upon the whole of the cluster, but upon
some particular part: thus a tall tree, produces certain effects,
which a tree not tall, cannot produce; a strong man, produces
certain effects, which a man not strong cannot produce. When these
consequents are so important, as to deserve particular attention,
they and their antecedents must be marked. For this purpose, are
employed the connotative terms marking differences. These terms
enable us to group the clusters containing those antecedents into a
sub-class; and NON-CONNOTATIVE or ABSTRACT terms, derived from them,
enable {317} us to speak separately of that part of the cluster
which we have to mark as the precise antecedent of the consequent
which is engaging our attention.
It is presumed, that these illustrations will suffice, to enable the
reader to discern the real marking power of abstract terms, and also
to perceive the mode of their formation.
{318} CHAPTER X.
MEMORY.
"The science of metaphysics, as it regards the mind, is, in its most
important respects, a science of analysis; and we carry on our
analysis, only when we suspect that what is regarded by others as an
ultimate principle, admits of still finer evolution into principles
still more elementary."--_Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and
Effect_, _by Thomas Brown, M.D._ P. iv. s. i. p. 331.
IT has been already observed that if we had no other state of
consciousness than sensation, we never could have any knowledge,
excepting that of the present instant. The moment each of our
sensations ceased, it would be gone, for ever; and we should be as
if we had never been.
The same would be the case if we had only ideas in addition to
sensations. The sensation would be one state of consciousness, the
idea another state of consciousness. But if they were perfectly
insulated; the one having no connexion with the other; the idea,
after the sensation, would give me no more information, than one
sensation after another. We should still have the consciousness of
the present instant, and nothing more. We should be wholly incapable
of acquiring experience, and accommodating our actions {319} to the
laws of nature. Of course we could not continue to exist.
Even if our ideas were associated in trains, but only as they are in
Imagination, we should still be without the capacity of acquiring
knowledge. One idea, upon this supposition, would follow another.
But that would be all. Each of our successive states of
consciousness, the moment it ceased, would be gone for ever. Each of
those momentary states would be our whole being.
Such, however, is not the nature of man. We have states of
consciousness, which are connected with past states. I hear a
musical air; I recognise it as the air which was sung to me in my
infancy. I have an idea of a ghost; I recognise the terror with
which, when I was alone in the dark, that idea, in my childish
years, was accompanied. Uniting in this manner the present with the
past, and not otherwise, I am susceptible of knowledge; I am capable
of ascertaining the qualities of things; that is, their power of
affecting me; and of knowing in what circumstances what other
circumstances will take place. Suppose that my present state of
consciousness is the idea of putting my finger in the flame of the
candle. I recognise the act as a former act;[87] and this
recognition is followed {320} by another, namely, that of the pain
which I felt immediately after. This part of my constitution, which
is of so much importance to me, I find it useful to name. And the
name I give to it is MEMORY. When the memory of the past is
transferred into an anticipation of the future, by a process which
will be explained hereafter, it gets the name of experience; and all
our power of avoiding evil, and obtaining good, is derived from it.
Unless I remembered that my finger had been in the flame of the
candle; and unless I anticipated a similar consequent, from a
similar antecedent, I should touch the flame of the candle, after
being burned by it a hundred times, just as I should have done, if
neither burning nor any of its causes had ever formed part of my
consciousness.
[Bain's footnote 87: The recognition of an act as a former act, or
of a present sensation as having formerly occurred, is a
*phase of the intellectual power named consciousness of Agreement,
or Similarity, which is both an essential of our Knowledge, and a
means of mental Reproduction. The defectiveness of the author's
view of this function of the intellect has been elsewhere commented
on.--_B._]
Our inquiry is, what this part of our constitution, so highly
important to us, is composed of. All inquirers are agreed, that it
is complex; but what the elements are into which it may be resolved,
has not been very successfully made out.
It is proper to begin with the elements which are universally
acknowledged. Among them, it is certain, that IDEAS are the
fundamental part. Nothing is remembered but through its IDEA. The
memory, however, of a thing, and the idea of it, are not the same.
The idea may be without the memory; but the memory cannot be without
the idea. The idea of an elephant may occur to me, without the
thought of its having been an object of my senses. But I cannot have
the thought of its having been an object of my senses, without
having the idea of the animal at the {321} same time. The
consciousness, therefore, which I call memory, is an idea, but not
an idea alone; it is an idea and something more. So far is our
inquiry narrowed. What is that which, combined with an idea,
constitutes memory?
That memory may be, the idea must be. In what manner is the idea
produced?
We have already seen in what manner an idea is called into existence
by association. It is easy to prove that the idea which forms part
of memory is called up in the same way, and no other. If I think of
any case of memory, I shall always find that the idea, or the
sensation which preceded the memory, was one of those which are
calculated, according to the laws of association, to call up the
idea involved in that case of memory; and that it was by the
preceding idea, or sensation, that the idea of memory was in reality
brought into the mind. I have not seen a person with whom I was
formerly intimate for a number of years; nor have I, during all that
interval, had occasion to think of him. Some object which had been
frequently presented to my senses along with him, or the idea of
something with which I have strongly associated the idea of him,
occurs to me; instantly the memory of him exists. The friend with
whom I had often seen him in company, accidentally meets me; a
letter of his which had been long unobserved, falls under my eye; or
an observation which he was fond of producing, is repeated in my
hearing; these are circumstances all associated with the idea of the
individual in question; the idea of him is excited by them, and with
the mere idea of the {322} man, all the other circumstances which
constitute memory.
The necessary dependence of memory upon association, may be proved
still more rigidly in this way. It has been already observed, that
we cannot call up any idea by willing it. When we are said to will,
there must be in the mind, the idea of what is willed. "Will,
without an idea," are incongruous terms; as if one should say, "I
can will, and will nothing." But if the idea of the thing willed,
must be in the mind, as a condition of willing, to will to have an
idea in the mind, is to will to have that in it, which, by the
supposition, is in it already.
There is a state of mind familiar to all men, in which we are said
to try to remember. In this state, it is certain that we have not in
the mind the idea which we are trying to have in it. How then is it,
that we proceed in the course of our endeavour to procure its
introduction into the mind? If we have not the idea itself, we have
certain ideas connected with it. We run over those ideas, one after
another, in hopes that some one of them will suggest the idea we are
in quest of; and if any of them does, it is always one so connected
with it, as to call it up in the way of association. I meet an old
acquaintance, whose name I do not remember, and wish to recollect.
I run over a number of names, in hopes that some of them may be
associated with the idea of the individual. I think of all the
circumstances in which I have seen him engaged; the time when I knew
him, the place in which I knew him, the persons along with whom
I knew him, the things he did, or the things he suffered; and,
if I chance upon any idea with which the name is {323} associated,
then immediately I have the recollection; if not, my pursuit of it
is in vain.[88]
[Bain's footnote 88: This process seems best expressed by laying
down a law of Compound or Composite Association; under which a
plurality of feeble links of connexion may be a substitute for one
powerful and self-sufficing link.--_B._
[The laws of compound association are the subject of one of the most
original and profound chapters of Mr. Bain's treatise (The Senses
and the Intellect. Part ii. Chap. 3.).--_Ed._]]
There is another set of cases, very familiar, but affording very
important evidence on the subject. It frequently happens, that there
are matters which we desire not to forget. What is the contrivance
to which we have recourse for preserving the memory; that is, for
making sure that it will be called into existence, when it is our
wish that it should. All men, invariably employ the same expedient.
They endeavour to form an association between the idea of the thing
to be remembered, and some sensation, or some idea, which they know
beforehand will occur at or near the time when they wish the
remembrance to be in their minds. If this association is formed, and
the sensation or the idea, with which it has been formed, occurs;
the sensation, or idea, calls up the remembrance; and the object of
him who formed the association is attained. To use a vulgar
instance; a man receives a commission from his friend, and, that he
may not forget it, ties a knot on his handkerchief. How is this fact
to be explained? First of all, the idea of the commission is
associated with the making of the knot. Next, the handkerchief is a
thing which it is known beforehand will be frequently seen, and of
{324} course at no great distance of time from the occasion on which
the memory is desired. The handkerchief being seen, the knot is
seen, and this sensation recalls the idea of the commission, between
which and itself, the association had been purposely formed.
What is thus effected through association with a sensation, may be
effected through association with an idea. If there is any idea,
which I know will occur to me at a particular time, I may render
myself as sure of recalling any thing which I wish to remember at
that time, by associating it with this idea, as if I associated it
with a sensation. Suppose I know that the idea of Socrates will be
present to my mind at twelve o'clock this day week: if I wish to
remember at that time something which I have to do, my purpose will
be gained, if I establish between the idea of Socrates, and the
circumstance which I wish to remember, such an association that the
one will call up the other.
A very remarkable application of this principle offers itself to our
contemplation, in the artificial memory which was invented by the
ancient orators and rhetoricians. The orator made choice of a set of
objects, sufficient in number to answer his purpose. The ideas of
those objects he taught himself, by frequent repetition, to pass
through his mind in one constant order. The objects which he chose
were commonly such as aided him in fixing them according to a
certain order in his memory; the parts, for example, of some public
building, or other remarkable assemblage. Having so prepared
himself, the mode in which he made use of his machinery was as
follows. The topics or sentiments of his speech were {325} to follow
in a certain order. The parts of the building he had chosen as his
instrument had previously been taught to follow by association, in a
certain order. With the first of these, then, he associated the
first topic of his discourse; with the second, the second, and so
on. The first part of the building suggested the first topic; the
second, the second; and each another, to the end of his
discourse.[89]
[Bain's footnote 89: The conditions of the success of this expedient
are interesting to study as illustrations of the working of
association. The supposition is that the parts of the building are
perfectly coherent in the mind, that they can recall each other
easily and rapidly. The advantage gained will depend entirely upon
the superior facility of attaching a head of discourse to the
visible appearance of a room, as compared with the facility of
attaching it to a previous head. If we can form an enduring bond
between a topic and the picture of an interior, by a smaller mental
effort than is necessary to conjoin two successive topics, there is
a gain by the employment of the device; the difference of the two
efforts is the measure of the gain. Probably the result would depend
upon the relative force of the pictorial and the verbal memory in
the individual mind. In minds where the pictorial element prevails,
there might be a positive advantage; in cases where the pictorial
power is feeble and the verbal power strong, there would almost
certainly be a dead loss.--_B._]
We not only have ideas of memory, individually taken; that is,
separately, each by itself; as in the instances which we have just
been considering: we have also trains of such ideas. All narratives
of events which ourselves have witnessed are composed of such
trains. The ideas forming those trains do not follow one another in
a fortuitous manner. Each succeeding idea is called up by the one
which {326} precedes it; and every one of these successions takes
place according to a law of association. After a lapse of many
years, I see the house in which my father died. Instantly a long
train of the circumstances connected with him rise in my mind: the
sight of him on his death-bed; his pale and emaciated countenance;
the calm contentment with which he looked forward to his end; his
strong solicitude, terminating only with life, for the happiness of
his son; my own sympathetic emotions when I saw him expire; the mode
and guiding principles of his life; the thread of his history; and
so on. In this succession of ideas, each of which is an idea of
memory, there is not a single link which is not formed by
association; not an idea which is not brought into existence by that
which precedes it.
Whensoever there is a desire to fix any train in the memory, all men
have recourse to one and the same expedient. They practise what is
calculated to create a strong association. The grand cause of strong
associations is repetition. This, accordingly, is the common
resource. If any man, for example, wishes to remember a passage of a
book, he repeats it a sufficient number of times. To the man
practised in applying the principle of association to the phenomena
in which it is concerned, the explication of this process presents
itself immediately. The repetition of one word after another, and of
one idea after another, gives the antecedent the power of calling up
the consequent from the beginning to the end of that portion of
discourse, which it is the purpose of the learner to remember.
That the remembrance is produced in no other way, {327} is proved by
a decisive experiment. For, after a passage has been committed to
memory in the most perfect manner, if the learner attempts to repeat
it in any other order than that, according to which the association
was formed, he will fail. A man who has been accustomed to repeat
the Lord's Prayer, for example, from his infancy, will, if he has
never tried it, find the impossibility of repeating it backwards,
small as the number is of the words of which it consists. That words
alone, without ideas, suggest one another in a train, is proved by
our power of repeating a number of words of an unknown language.[90]
And, it is worth observing, that the power of arithmetical
computation is dependent upon the same process. Thus, for example,
when a child learns the multiplication table, and says, 11 times 11
is 121, or 12 times 12 is 144, he annexes no ideas to those words;
but, by force of repetition, the expression 12 times 12 instantly
calls up the expression 144, or 11 times 11 the expression 121, and
so upwards from twice 2, with which he begins. In illustrating the
mode in which repetition makes association more and more easy, I
used the process of arithmetical addition as a striking example.
Persons little accustomed to the process perform it with great
difficulty; persons {328} much accustomed to it, with astonishing
facility. In men of the first class, the association is imperfectly
formed, and the several antecedent expressions slowly suggest the
proper consequent ones; in those of the latter class the association
is very perfectly formed, and the expressions suggest one another
with the greatest expedition and ease.
[Editor's footnote 90: There is here a lapse, of mere expression.
The meaning is not that words suggest one another without ideas;
words do not suggest words, but the ideas of words. The author
intended to say that words, or the ideas of them, often suggest the
ideas of other words (forming a series) without suggesting along
with them any ideas of the things which those words signify.--_Ed._]
Thus far we have proceeded with facility. In Memory there are ideas,
and those ideas both rise up singly, and are connected in trains by
association. The same occurs in Imagination. Imagination consists of
ideas, both suggested singly, and connected in trains, by
association. This is the whole account of Imagination. But Memory is
not the same with Imagination. We all know, when we say, we imagine
a thing, that we have not the same meaning, as when we say, we
remember it. Memory, therefore, has in it all that Imagination has;
but it must also have something more. We are now, then, to inquire
what that additional something is.
There are two cases of Memory. One is, when we remember sensations.
The other is, when we remember ideas. The first is, when we remember
what we have seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelt. The second is,
when we remember what we have thought, without the intervention of
the senses. I remember to have seen and heard George III, when
making a speech at the opening of his Parliament. This is a case of
sensation. I remember my conceptions of the Emperor Napoleon and his
audience, when I read the account of his first address to the French
Chambers. This is a case of ideas.
{329} We shall consider the case of sensations first. What is it to
remember any thing I have seen?
First, there is the idea of it; and that idea brought into existence
by association.
But, in Memory, there is not only the idea of the thing remembered;
there is also the idea of my having seen it. Now these two, 1, the
idea of the thing, 2, the idea of my having seen it, combined, make
up, it will not be doubted, the whole of that state of consciousness
which we call memory.[91]
[Editor's footnote 91: The doctrine which the author thinks "will
not be doubted" is more than doubted by most people, and in my
judgment rightly. To complete the memory of seeing the thing, I must
have not only the idea of the thing, and the idea of my having seen
it, but the belief of my having seen it; and even this is not always
enough; for I may believe on the authority of others that I have
seen a thing which I have no remembrance of seeing.--_Ed._]
But what is it we are to understand by what I have called "the idea
of my having seen the object?" This is a very complex idea; and, in
expounding, clearly, to the comprehension of persons, not familiar
with these solutions, the import and force of a very complex idea,
lies all the difficulty of the case.
It will be necessary for such persons to call to mind the
illustrations they have already contemplated of the remarkable case
of association, in which a long train of ideas is called up so
rapidly as to appear but one idea; and also the other remarkable
case, in which one idea is so strongly associated with another, that
it is out of our power to separate them. Thus, when we use the word
battle, the mind runs over the {330} train of countless acts, from
the beginning of that operation to the end; and it does this so
rapidly, that the ideas are all clustered into one, which it calls a
battle. In like manner, it clusters a series of battles, and all the
intermediate operations, into one idea, and calls it a campaign;
also several campaigns into one idea, and calls it a war. Of the
same nature is the compound idea, which we denote by the word year;
and the still more compound idea, which we denote by the word
century. The mind runs over a long train of ideas, and combines them
so closely together, that they assume the appearance of a single
idea; to which, in the one case, we assign the name year, in the
other, the name century.
In my remembrance of George III., addressing the two Houses of
Parliament, there is, first of all, the mere idea, or simple
apprehension; the conception as it is sometimes called, of the
objects. There is combined with this, to make it memory, my idea of
my having seen and heard those objects. And this combination is so
close, that it is not in my power to separate them. I cannot have
the idea of George III.; his person and attitude, the paper he held
in his hand, the sound of his voice while reading from it, the
throne, the apartment, the audience; without having the other idea
along with it, that of my having been a witness of the scene.
Now, in this last-mentioned part of the compound, it is easy to
perceive two important elements; _the idea of my present self_, the
remembering self; and _the idea of my past self_, the remembered or
witnessing self. These two ideas stand at the two ends of a portion
of my being; that is, of a series of my states {331} of
consciousness. That series consists of the successive states of my
consciousness, intervening between the moment of perception, or the
past moment, and the moment of memory, or the present moment. What
happens at the moment of memory? The mind runs back from that moment
to the moment of perception. That is to say, it runs over the
intervening states of consciousness, called up by association. But
"to run over a number of states of consciousness, called up by
association," is but another mode of saying, that "we associate
them;" and in this case we associate them so rapidly and closely,
that they run, as it were, into a single point of consciousness, to
which the name MEMORY is assigned.
If this explanation of the case in which we remember sensations is
understood, the explanation of the case in which we remember ideas
cannot occasion much of difficulty. I have a lively recollection of
Polyphemus's cave, and the actions of Ulysses and the Cyclops, as
described by Homer. In this recollection there is, first of all, the
ideas, or simple conceptions of the objects and acts; and along with
these ideas, and so closely combined as not to be separable, the
idea of my having formerly had those same ideas. And this idea of my
having formerly had those ideas, is a very complicated idea;
including the idea of myself of the present moment remembering, and
that of myself of the past moment conceiving; and the whole series
of the states of consciousness, which intervened between myself
remembering, and myself conceiving.
If we contemplate forgetfulness, not memory, we shall see how
completely the account of it confirms the account we have just
rendered of memory. Every {332} case of forgetfulness, is a case of
weakened, or extinct, association. Some years ago, I could repeat a
certain discourse with accuracy and ease, from beginning to end;
attempting it, the other day, I was unable to repeat more than a few
sentences. The reason is obvious. The last of the words and ideas
which occurred to me failed to suggest the following; that is to
say, the association which formerly existed between them was
dissolved.