A System of Logic · John Stuart Mill
FOOTNOTES:
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 fulfil 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, &c. 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. [8] 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. [9] _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. p. 40.
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 la 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 matière 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.
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. [15] _Analysis of the Human Mind_, i. 126 et seq. [16] It may, however, be considered as equivalent to an universal proposition with a different predicate, viz. "All wine is good _quâ_ wine," or "is good in respect of the qualities which constitute it wine."
Mr. De Morgan, exactly reversing the doctrine of Archbishop Whately, understands by a Real Definition one which contains _less_ than the Nominal Definition, provided only that what it contains is sufficient for distinction. "By _real_ definition I mean such an explanation of the word, be it the whole of the meaning or only part, as will be sufficient to separate the things contained under that word from all others. Thus the following, I believe, is a complete definition of an elephant: An animal which naturally drinks by drawing the water into its nose, and then spurting it into its mouth."--_Formal Logic_, p. 36. Mr. De Morgan's general proposition and his example are at variance; for the peculiar mode of drinking of the elephant certainly forms no part of the meaning of the word elephant. It could not be said, because a person happened to be ignorant of this property, that he did not know what an elephant means. [28] In the only attempt which, so far as I know, has been made to refute the preceding argumentation, it is maintained that in the first form of the syllogism, A dragon is a thing which breathes flame, A dragon is a serpent, Therefore some serpent or serpents breathe flame, "there is just as much truth in the conclusion as there is in the premises, or rather, no more in the latter than in the former. If the general name serpent includes both real and imaginary serpents, there is no falsity in the conclusion; if not, there is falsity in the minor premise."
Let us, then, try to set out the syllogism on the hypothesis that the name serpent includes imaginary serpents. We shall find that it is now necessary to alter the predicates; for it cannot be asserted that an imaginary creature breathes flame: in predicating of it such a fact, we assert by the most positive implication that it is real and not imaginary. The conclusion must run thus, "Some serpent or serpents either do or are _imagined_ to breathe flame." And to prove this conclusion by the instance of dragons, the premises must be, A dragon is _imagined_ as breathing flame, A dragon is a (real or imaginary) serpent: from which it undoubtedly follows, that there are serpents which are imagined to breathe flame; but the major premise is not a definition, nor part of a definition; which is all that I am concerned to prove. Let us now examine the other assertion--that if the word serpent stands for none but real serpents, the minor premise (a dragon is a serpent) is false. This is exactly what I have myself said of the premise, considered as a statement of fact: but it is not false as part of the definition of a dragon; and since the premises, or one of them, must be false, (the conclusion being so,) the real premise cannot be the definition, which is true, but the statement of fact, which is false.
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