Chapter 13

79The 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 these272ancient 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) withp. 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 philosophy273accompanying 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 butnoëmata: these species or ideas are all of them nothing butnoëmata, 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.aIn 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 others274not specified,—concludes by declaringbthat 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.aPlato Parmenid. p. 132, C, D.bPlato 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’sεἶδοςis the same as with Plato’sἰδέα, 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 surrounded275it (p. 264). “The wordmanis 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 wordmanis 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 manner276in which the Greek philosophers of the fourth centuryB.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 Aristotlectells 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 Xenophondof 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 presumed277that every one must know as well as themselves. But this confidence speedily vanished when they came to be tested by inductiveeinterrogatories: 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.fcAristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.dXenophon, Memorab. I., 1—16.eSo Aristotle calls them—λόγους ἑπακτικούς.—Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.fXenophon, 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.gIt must be added that no man was ever less inclined to mysticism than Sokrates: and that he was thus278exempt 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.gXenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV.6. 1—7—10—15.ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσιν, τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτε ἔληγε.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 areconnotedby the nameh(I use the wordconnote,279not 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.hThe necessity of determining theconnotationof the Class-term is distinctly put forward by Sokrates—Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14, 2.λόγῳ ὄντος περὶ ὀνομάτων, ἰφ’ οἱῷ ἔργῳ ἕκαστον εἴη--Ἔχοιμεν ἂν (ἒφἠ) εἰπεῖν, ἐπὶ ποιῷ ποτὲ ἔργῳ ἄνθρωπος ὀψόφαγος καλεῖται;&c., also the remarkable passage IV., 6. 13—15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B.τοὔνομα μόνον ἔχομεν κοινῇ τὸ δὲ ἔργον, ἐφ’ ᾧ καλοῦμεν, &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.iiPlato, Sophistes, p. 230—231. Symposion, p. 204 A, Menon p. 84, A. D.Accordingly, when it is said that Plato was “deeply struck280with 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 Ideasj—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 conceived281the 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.kAristotle 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.jThis is what we read in the memorable simile of the Cave, in Plato, Republic, VII., p. 514—519. The language used throughout this simile isπεριάγειν, περιακτίον, περιαγωγή, &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—τὰ ὄντα—τὰ νοητά. Nothing can be learnt from observation howeveracute, 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.kAccording to Plato, it isτὸ ἓνπαρὰ τὰ πολλά.According to Aristotle, it isἓνκατὰ πολλῶν—ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπὶπλειόνωνμὴ ὁμώνυμον ἓνἐπὶπολλῶν. 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 (τὸ καθόλου ἐπὶ τι παρὰ τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα) 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 wordmanis 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.282As to the Realists—the Platonic Ideas are conceived as eternal, immutable, grand, dignified, &c., but Aristotlelcontends 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 affirmedm) 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 shewnn) 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.oWhether 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.lAristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.mSee Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.nPrantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19, p. 327.oBerkeley, 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:283and 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. 295seq.), 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 wordcubeorsphereis 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 ascubeorsphere. 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 anindividualshape, I dissent from the reason given. In my judgment, the termindividualis 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 isconnoted(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: nor284would 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 adjectiveblackfirst to the word Man. We say ‘black man.’ But we speedily see thatfor the same reasonfor which we say black man, we may say black horse, black cow, black coat, and so on. The wordblackis 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.Blackis 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 wordblackto the horsefor the same reasonas 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 (orconnote, 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 were285right 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 atp. 249, he seems to consider as tainted with mystery.We proceed afterwards to some clear and good additional remarks—p. 298. A class-term, asblack, “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.”ppThe 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,κάθοσον, ᾗ&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 a286great 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. Platoqhowever 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.rqThe 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 itsconnotation, in the sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill). Plato deprecates the mere following out of resemblances as a most slippery proceeding (ὀλισθηρότατον γένος—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.rSee 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 calledobjects, all taken together. Thus a tree, a man, a stone, are the287antecedents 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 manas suchorquatenus man—we do not include the whole cluster, but only those attributesconnoted(in Mr. John Stuart Mill’s sense of the word) by the nameman: we speak of him as a member of the classMan. What I wish to point out is—That Man is a class-term, just as much astallorshort: 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 (seep. 299). Mr. John Stuart Mill, while declining to adopt the same inversion, has enlarged the meaning of the wordconnotative, so as to include appellative substantives as well as adjectives.—G.

The reader would take very inadequate measure of these272ancient 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) withp. 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 philosophy273accompanying 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 butnoëmata: these species or ideas are all of them nothing butnoëmata, 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.aIn 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 others274not specified,—concludes by declaringbthat 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.

aPlato Parmenid. p. 132, C, D.

bPlato 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.

bPlato 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’sεἶδοςis the same as with Plato’sἰδέα, 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 surrounded275it (p. 264). “The wordmanis 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 wordmanis 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 manner276in which the Greek philosophers of the fourth centuryB.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 Aristotlectells 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 Xenophondof 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 presumed277that every one must know as well as themselves. But this confidence speedily vanished when they came to be tested by inductiveeinterrogatories: 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

cAristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.

dXenophon, Memorab. I., 1—16.

eSo Aristotle calls them—λόγους ἑπακτικούς.—Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.

fXenophon, 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.gIt must be added that no man was ever less inclined to mysticism than Sokrates: and that he was thus278exempt 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.

gXenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV.6. 1—7—10—15.ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσιν, τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτε ἔληγε.

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 areconnotedby the nameh(I use the wordconnote,279not 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.

hThe necessity of determining theconnotationof the Class-term is distinctly put forward by Sokrates—Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14, 2.λόγῳ ὄντος περὶ ὀνομάτων, ἰφ’ οἱῷ ἔργῳ ἕκαστον εἴη--Ἔχοιμεν ἂν (ἒφἠ) εἰπεῖν, ἐπὶ ποιῷ ποτὲ ἔργῳ ἄνθρωπος ὀψόφαγος καλεῖται;&c., also the remarkable passage IV., 6. 13—15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B.τοὔνομα μόνον ἔχομεν κοινῇ τὸ δὲ ἔργον, ἐφ’ ᾧ καλοῦμεν, &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

iPlato, Sophistes, p. 230—231. Symposion, p. 204 A, Menon p. 84, A. D.

Accordingly, when it is said that Plato was “deeply struck280with 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 Ideasj—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 conceived281the 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.kAristotle 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.

jThis is what we read in the memorable simile of the Cave, in Plato, Republic, VII., p. 514—519. The language used throughout this simile isπεριάγειν, περιακτίον, περιαγωγή, &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—τὰ ὄντα—τὰ νοητά. Nothing can be learnt from observation howeveracute, 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.

kAccording to Plato, it isτὸ ἓνπαρὰ τὰ πολλά.According to Aristotle, it isἓνκατὰ πολλῶν—ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπὶπλειόνωνμὴ ὁμώνυμον ἓνἐπὶπολλῶν. 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 (τὸ καθόλου ἐπὶ τι παρὰ τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα) 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.

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 (τὸ καθόλου ἐπὶ τι παρὰ τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα) 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 wordmanis 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.282As to the Realists—the Platonic Ideas are conceived as eternal, immutable, grand, dignified, &c., but Aristotlelcontends 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 affirmedm) 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 shewnn) 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.oWhether 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.

lAristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.

mSee Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.

nPrantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19, p. 327.

oBerkeley, 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:283and 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. 295seq.), 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 wordcubeorsphereis 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 ascubeorsphere. 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 anindividualshape, I dissent from the reason given. In my judgment, the termindividualis 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 isconnoted(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: nor284would 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 adjectiveblackfirst to the word Man. We say ‘black man.’ But we speedily see thatfor the same reasonfor which we say black man, we may say black horse, black cow, black coat, and so on. The wordblackis 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.Blackis 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 wordblackto the horsefor the same reasonas 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 (orconnote, 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 were285right 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 atp. 249, he seems to consider as tainted with mystery.

We proceed afterwards to some clear and good additional remarks—p. 298. A class-term, asblack, “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

pThe 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,κάθοσον, ᾗ&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 a286great 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. Platoqhowever 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

qThe 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 itsconnotation, in the sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill). Plato deprecates the mere following out of resemblances as a most slippery proceeding (ὀλισθηρότατον γένος—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.

rSee 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 calledobjects, all taken together. Thus a tree, a man, a stone, are the287antecedents 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 manas suchorquatenus man—we do not include the whole cluster, but only those attributesconnoted(in Mr. John Stuart Mill’s sense of the word) by the nameman: we speak of him as a member of the classMan. What I wish to point out is—That Man is a class-term, just as much astallorshort: 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 (seep. 299). Mr. John Stuart Mill, while declining to adopt the same inversion, has enlarged the meaning of the wordconnotative, so as to include appellative substantives as well as adjectives.—G.

80Rejecting 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 the288manner 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 different289persons, 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, that290the 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 marks291both 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. Itdenotesthe objects, and, in a mode of speech lately revived from the old logicians, itconnotesthe attributes. The author of the Analysis employs the word connote in a different manner; we shallpresentlyexamine 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 author292finds 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, though293something 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.

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 different289persons, 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, that290the 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 marks291both 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. Itdenotesthe objects, and, in a mode of speech lately revived from the old logicians, itconnotesthe attributes. The author of the Analysis employs the word connote in a different manner; we shallpresentlyexamine 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 author292finds 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, though293something 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.

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