A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive · John Stuart Mill
FOOTNOTES
1 In the later editions of Archbishop Whately’s “Logic,” he states his meaning to be, not that “rules” for the ascertainment of truths by inductive investigation can not be laid down, or that they may not be “of eminent service,” but that they “must always be comparatively vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular demonstrative theory like that of the Syllogism.” (Book iv., ch. iv., § 3.) And he observes, that to devise a system for this purpose, capable of being “brought into a scientific form,” would be an achievement which “he must be more sanguine than scientific who expects.” (Book iv., ch. ii., § 4.) To effect this, however, being the express object of the portion of the present work which treats of Induction, the words in the text are no overstatement of the difference of opinion between Archbishop Whately and me on the subject. 2 Now forming a chapter in his volume on “The Philosophy of Discovery.” 3 Archbishop Whately. 4 I use these terms indiscriminately, because, for the purpose in view, there is no need for making any distinction between them. But metaphysicians usually restrict the name Intuition to the direct knowledge we are supposed to have of things external to our minds, and Consciousness to our knowledge of our own mental phenomena.
5 This important theory has of late been called in question by a writer of deserved reputation, Mr. Samuel Bailey; but I do not conceive that the grounds on which it has been admitted as an established doctrine for a century past, have been at all shaken by that gentleman’s objections. I have elsewhere said what appeared to me necessary in reply to his arguments. (_Westminster Review_ for October, 1842; reprinted in “Dissertations and Discussions,” vol. ii.) 6 The view taken in the text, of the definition and purpose of Logic, stands in marked opposition to that of the school of philosophy which, in this country, is represented by the writings of Sir William Hamilton and of his numerous pupils. Logic, as this school conceives it, is “the Science of the Formal Laws of Thought;” a definition framed for the express purpose of excluding, as irrelevant to Logic, whatever relates to Belief and Disbelief, or to the pursuit of truth as such, and restricting the science to that very limited portion of its total province, which has reference to the conditions, not of Truth, but of Consistency. What I have thought it useful to say in opposition to this limitation of the field of Logic, has been said at some length in a separate work, first published in 1865, and entitled “An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings.” For the purposes of the present Treatise, I am content that the justification of the larger extension which I give to the domain of the science, should rest on the sequel of the Treatise itself. Some remarks on the relation which the Logic of Consistency bears to the Logic of Truth, and on the place which that particular part occupies in the whole to which it belongs, will be found in the present volume (Book II., chap. iii., § 9).
13 “Take the familiar term Stone. It is applied to mineral and rocky materials, to the kernels of fruit, to the accumulations in the gall-bladder and in the kidney; while it is refused to polished minerals (called gems), to rocks that have the cleavage suited for roofing (slates), and to baked clay (bricks). It occurs in the designation of the magnetic oxide of iron (loadstone), and not in speaking of other metallic ores. Such a term is wholly unfit for accurate reasoning, unless hedged round on every occasion by other phrases; as building stone, precious stone, gall-stone, etc. Moreover, the methods of definition are baffled for want of sufficient community to ground upon. There is no quality uniformly present in the cases where it is applied, and uniformly absent where it is not applied; hence the definer would have to employ largely the license of striking off existing applications, and taking in new ones.”—BAIN, _Logic_, ii., 172.
14 Before quitting the subject of connotative names, it is proper to observe, that the first writer who, in our times, has adopted from the schoolmen the word _to connote_, Mr. James Mill, in his _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, employs it in a signification different from that in which it is here used. He uses the word in a sense co-extensive with its etymology, applying it to every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one thing (which is consequently termed its signification), includes also a tacit reference to some other thing. In the case considered in the text, that of concrete general names, his language and mine are the converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signification of the name to lie in the attribute, he speaks of the word as _noting_ the attribute, and _connoting_ the things possessing the attribute. And he describes abstract names as being properly concrete names with their connotation dropped; whereas, in my view, it is the _de_notation which would be said to be dropped, what was previously connoted becoming the whole signification.
In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an authority, and one which I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are involved in its signification. This necessity can scarcely be felt in its full force by any one who has not found by experience how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on the philosophy of language without such a word. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that some of the most prevalent of the errors with which logic has been infected, and a large part of the cloudiness and confusion of ideas which have enveloped it, would, in all probability, have been avoided, if a term had been in common use to express exactly what I have signified by the term to connote. And the schoolmen, to whom we are indebted for the greater part of our logical language, gave us this also, and in this very sense. For though some of their general expressions countenance the use of the word in the more extensive and vague acceptation in which it is taken by Mr. Mill, yet when they had to define it specifically as a technical term, and to fix its meaning as such, with that admirable precision which always characterizes their definitions, they clearly explained that nothing was said to be connoted except _forms_, which word may generally, in their writings, be understood as synonymous with _attributes_.
Now, if the word _to connote_, so well suited to the purpose to which they applied it, be diverted from that purpose by being taken to fulfill another, for which it does not seem to me to be at all required; I am unable to find any expression to replace it, but such as are commonly employed in a sense so much more general, that it would be useless attempting to associate them peculiarly with this precise idea. Such are the words, to involve, to imply, etc. By employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for which alone the name is needed, namely, to distinguish this particular kind of involving and implying from all other kinds, and to assure to it the degree of habitual attention which its importance demands. 15 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 56) thinks that negative names are not names of all things whatever except those denoted by the correlative positive name, but only for all things of some particular class: _not-white_, for instance, he deems not to be a name for every thing in nature except white things, but only for every _colored_ thing other than white. In this case, however, as in all others, the test of what a name denotes is what it can be predicated of: and we can certainly predicate of a sound, or a smell, that it is not white. The affirmation and the negation of the same attribute can not but divide the whole field of predication between them.
16 Or rather, all objects except itself and the percipient mind; for, as we shall see hereafter, to ascribe any attribute to an object, necessarily implies a mind to perceive it. The simple and clear explanation given in the text, of relation and relative names, a subject so long the opprobrium of metaphysics, was given (as far as I know) for the first time, by Mr. James Mill, in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. 17 On the preceding passage Professor Bain remarks (Logic, i., 265): “The Categories do not seem to have been intended as a classification of Namable Things, in the sense of ‘an enumeration of all kinds of Things which are capable of being made predicates, or of having any thing predicated of them.’ They seem to have been rather intended as a generalization of predicates; an analysis of the final import of predication. Viewed in this light, they are not open to the objections offered by Mr. Mill. The proper question to ask is not—In what Category are we to place sensations or other feelings or states of mind? but, Under what Categories can we predicate regarding states of mind? Take, for example, Hope. When we say that it is a state of mind, we predicate Substance: we may also describe how great it is (Quantity), what is the quality of it, pleasurable or painful (Quality), what it has reference to (Relation). Aristotle seems to have framed the Categories on the plan—Here is an individual; what is the final analysis of all that we can predicate about him?”
This is doubtless a true statement of the leading idea in the classification. The Category Οὐσία was certainly understood by Aristotle to be a general name for all possible answers to the question Quid sit? when asked respecting a concrete individual; as the other Categories are names comprehending all possible answers to the questions Quantum sit? Quale sit? etc. In Aristotle’s conception, therefore, the Categories may not have been a classification of Things; but they were soon converted into one by his Scholastic followers, who certainly regarded and treated them as a classification of Things, and carried them out as such, dividing down the Category Substance as a naturalist might do, into the different classes of physical or metaphysical objects as distinguished from attributes, and the other Categories into the principal varieties of quantity, quality, relation, etc. It is, therefore, a just subject of complaint against them, that they had no Category of Feeling. Feeling is assuredly predicable as a summum genus, of every particular kind of feeling, for instance, as in Mr. Bain’s example, of Hope: but it can not be brought within any of the Categories as interpreted either by Aristotle or by his followers. _ 18 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i., p. 40. _ 19 Discussions on Philosophy_, etc. Appendix I., pp. 643, 644. 20 It is to be regretted that Sir William Hamilton, though he often strenuously insists on this doctrine, and though, in the passage quoted, he states it with a comprehensiveness and force which leave nothing to be desired, did not consistently adhere to his own doctrine, but maintained along with it opinions with which it is utterly irreconcilable. See the third and other chapters of _An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_.
21 “Nous savons qu’il existe quelque chose hors de nous, parceque nous ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher à des causes distinctes de nous mêmes; nous savons de plus que ces causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d’ailleurs l’essence, produisent les effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et même les plus contraires, selon qu’elles rencontrent telle nature ou telle disposition du sujet. Mais savons-nous quelque chose de plus? et même, vu le caractère indéterminé des causes que nous concevons dans les corps, y a-t-il quelque chose de plus à savoir? Y a-t-il lieu de nous enquérir si nous percevons les choses telles qu’elles sont? Non évidemment.... Je ne dis pas que le problème est insoluble, _je dis qu’il est absurde et enferme une contradiction_. Nous _ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes_, et la raison nous défend de chercher à le connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_, qu’_elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce qu’elles sont par rapport à nous_, puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action. Supprimez tout sujet sentant, il est certain que ces causes agiraient encore puisqu’elles continueraient d’exister; mais elles agiraient autrement; elles seraient encore des qualités et des propriétés, mais qui ne ressembleraient à rien de ce que nous connaissons.
Le feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propriétés que nous lui connaissons: que serait-il? C’est ce que nous ne saurons jamais. _C’est d’ailleurs peut-être un problème qui ne répugne pas seulement à la nature de notre esprit, mais à l’essence même des choses._ Quand même en effet on supprimerait par le pensée tous les sujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne manifesterait ses propriétés autrement qu’en relation avec un sujet quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propriétés ne seraient encore que relatives_: en sorte qu’il me paraît fort raisonnable d’admettre que les propriétés déterminées des corps n’existent pas indépendamment d’un sujet quelconque, et que quand on demande si les propriétés de la matiere sont telles que nous les percevons, il faudrait voir auparavant si elles sont en tant que déterminées, et dans quel sens il est vrai de dire qu’elles sont.”—_Cours d’Histoire de la Philosophie Morale au 18me siècle_, 8me leçon.
22 An attempt, indeed, has been made by Reid and others, to establish that although some of the properties we ascribe to objects exist only in our sensations, others exist in the things themselves, being such as can not possibly be copies of any impression upon the senses; and they ask, from what sensations our notions of extension and figure have been derived? The gauntlet thrown down by Reid was taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers of analysis than had previously been applied to the notions of extension and figure, pointed out that the sensations from which those notions are derived, are sensations of touch, combined with sensations of a class previously too little adverted to by metaphysicians, those which have their seat in our muscular frame. His analysis, which was adopted and followed up by James Mill, has been further and greatly improved upon in Professor Bain’s profound work, _The Senses and the Intellect_, and in the chapters on “Perception” of a work of eminent analytic power, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s _Principles of Psychology_. On this point M. Cousin may again be cited in favor of the better doctrine. M. Cousin recognizes, in opposition to Reid, the essential subjectivity of our conceptions of what are called the primary qualities of matter, as extension, solidity, etc., equally with those of color, heat, and the remainder of the so-called secondary qualities.—_Cours_, ut supra, 9me leçon.
23 This doctrine, which is the most complete form of the philosophical theory known as the Relativity of Human Knowledge, has, since the recent revival in this country of an active interest in metaphysical speculation, been the subject of a greatly increased amount of discussion and controversy; and dissentients have manifested themselves in considerably greater number than I had any knowledge of when the passage in the text was written. The doctrine has been attacked from two sides. Some thinkers, among whom are the late Professor Ferrier, in his _Institutes of Metaphysic_, and Professor John Grote, in his _Exploratio Philosophica_, appear to deny altogether the reality of Noumena, or Things in themselves—of an unknowable substratum or support for the sensations which we experience, and which, according to the theory, constitute all our knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, that in Professor Grote’s case at least, the denial of Noumena is only apparent, and that he does not essentially differ from the other class of objectors, including Mr. Bailey in his valuable _Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, and (in spite of the striking passage quoted in the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who contend for a direct knowledge by the human mind of more than the sensations—of certain attributes or properties as they exist not in us, but in the Things themselves.
With the first of these opinions, that which denies Noumena, I have, as a metaphysician, no quarrel; but, whether it be true or false, it is irrelevant to Logic. And since all the forms of language are in contradiction to it, nothing but confusion could result from its unnecessary introduction into a treatise, every essential doctrine of which could stand equally well with the opposite and accredited opinion. The other and rival doctrine, that of a direct perception or intuitive knowledge of the outward object as it is in itself, considered as distinct from the sensations we receive from it, is of far greater practical moment. But even this question, depending on the nature and laws of Intuitive Knowledge, is not within the province of Logic. For the grounds of my own opinion concerning it, I must content myself with referring to a work already mentioned—_An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_; several chapters of which are devoted to a full discussion of the questions and theories relating to the supposed direct perception of external objects. 24 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 49) defines attributes as “points of community among classes.” This definition expresses well one point of view, but is liable to the objection that it applies only to the attributes of classes; though an object, unique in its kind, may be said to have attributes. Moreover, the definition is not ultimate, since the points of community themselves admit of, and require, further analysis; and Mr. Bain does analyze them into resemblances in the sensations, or other states of consciousness excited by the object.
31 Professor Bain remarks, in qualification of the statement in the text (_Logic_, i., 50), that the word Class has two meanings; “the class definite, and the class indefinite. The class definite is an enumeration of actual individuals, as the Peers of the Realm, the oceans of the globe, the known planets.... The class indefinite is unenumerated. Such classes are stars, planets, gold-bearing rocks, men, poets, virtuous.... In this last acceptation of the word, class name and general name are identical. The class name denotes an indefinite number of individuals, and connotes the points of community or likeness.” The theory controverted in the text, tacitly supposes all classes to be _definite_. I have assumed them to be indefinite; because, for the purposes of Logic, definite classes, as such, are almost useless; though often serviceable as means of abridged expression. (Vide infra, book iii., chap. ii.) 32 “From hence also this may be deduced, that the first truths were arbitrarily made by those that first of all imposed names upon things, or received them from the imposition of others. For it is true (for example) that _man is a living creature_, but it is for this reason, that it pleased men to impose both these names on the same thing.”—_Computation or Logic_, chap. iii., sect. 8.
33 “Men are subject to err not only in affirming and denying, but also in perception, and in silent cogitation.... Tacit errors, or the errors of sense and cogitation, are made by passing from one imagination to the imagination of another different thing; or by feigning that to be past, or future, which never was, nor ever shall be; as when by seeing the image of the sun in water, we imagine the sun itself to be there; or by seeing swords, that there has been, or shall be, fighting, because it used to be so for the most part; or when from promises we feign the mind of the promiser to be such and such; or, lastly, when from any sign we vainly imagine something to be signified which is not. And errors of this sort are common to all things that have sense.”—_Computation or Logic_, chap. v., sect. 1. 34 Chap. iii., sect 3.
35 To the preceding statement it has been objected, that “we naturally construe the subject of a proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which therefore may be an adjective) in its intension (connotation): and that consequently co-existence of attributes does not, any more than the opposite theory of equation of groups, correspond with the living processes of thought and language.” I acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had myself laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 77). But though it is true that we naturally “construe the subject of a proposition in its extension,” this extension, or in other words, the extent of the class denoted by the name, is not apprehended or indicated directly. It is both apprehended and indicated solely through the attributes. In the “living processes of thought and language” the extension, though in this case really thought of (which in the case of the predicate it is not), is thought of only through the medium of what my acute and courteous critic terms the “intension.” For further illustrations of this subject, see _Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_, chap. xxii.
36 Professor Bain, in his _Logic_ (i., 256), excludes Existence from the list, considering it as a mere name. All propositions, he says, which predicate mere existence “are more or less abbreviated, or elliptical: when fully expressed they fall under either co-existence or succession. When we say there _exists_ a conspiracy for a particular purpose, we mean that at the present time a body of men have formed themselves into a society for a particular object; which is a complex affirmation, resolvable into propositions of co-existence and succession (as causation). The assertion that the dodo does not exist, points to the fact that this animal, once known in a certain place, has disappeared or become extinct; is no longer associated with the locality: all which may be better stated without the use of the verb ‘exist.’ There is a debated question—Does an ether exist? but the concrete form would be this—‘Are heat and light and other radiant influences propagated by an ethereal medium diffused in space;’ which is a proposition of causation. In like manner the question of the Existence of a Deity can not be discussed in that form. It is properly a question as to the First _Cause_ of the Universe, and as to the continued exertion of that Cause in providential superintendence.” (i., 407.) Mr. Bain thinks it “fictitious and unmeaning language” to carry up the classification of Nature to one _summum genus_, Being, or that which Exists; since nothing can be perceived or apprehended but by way of contrast with something else (of which important truth, under the name of Law of Relativity, he has been in our time the principal expounder and champion), and we have no other class to oppose to Being, or fact to contrast with Existence.
I accept fully Mr. Bain’s Law of Relativity, but I do not understand by it that to enable us to apprehend or be conscious of any fact, it is necessary that we should contrast it with some other positive fact. The antithesis necessary to consciousness need not, I conceive, be an antithesis between two positives; it may be between one positive and its negative. Hobbes was undoubtedly right when he said that a single sensation indefinitely prolonged would cease to be felt at all; but simple intermission, without other change, would restore it to consciousness. In order to be conscious of heat, it is not necessary that we should pass to it from cold; it suffices that we should pass to it from a state of no sensation, or from a sensation of some other kind. The relative opposite of Being, considered as a summum genus, is Nonentity, or Nothing; and we have, now and then, occasion to consider and discuss things merely in contrast with Nonentity.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.