CHAPTER VIII. CLASSIFICATION.
“Dans l’ordre historique, la philosophic
transcendante a devancé la philosophie élémentaire. II ne faut point s’en étonner;
les grands problèmes de la métaphysique et de la morale se présentent à l’homme,
dans l’enfance même de son intelligence, avec une grandeur et une obscurité qui
le séduisent et qui l’attirent. L’homme, qui se sent fait pour connoître. court
d’abord à la vérité avec plus d’ardeur que de sagesse; il cherche à deviner ce
qu’il ne peut comprendre, et se perd dans des conjectures absurdes ou téméraires.
Les théogonies et les cosmogonies sont antérieures à la saine physique, et l’esprit
humain a passé à travers toutes les agitations et les délires de la métaphysique
transcendante avant d’arriver à la psychologie.” Cousin, Frag. Philos. p. 75.
THE process by which we connect what we call the
objects of our senses, and also our ideas, into certain aggregates called
classes, is of too much importance not to have attracted the attention of those
who have engaged in the study of mind. Yet it is doubtful, whether metaphysicians
have regarded CLASSIFICATION as an original power of the mind, or have allowed
that what is included under that name might be resolved into simpler elements.
The term Abstraction, I think, they have generally taken as the name of a
distinct, and original, power, not susceptible of further analysis. But, in
doing so, it seems (for the language of writers is too loose on this subject,
to allow us the use of more affirmative terms), they have restricted the name
to the power of forming such ideas as are represented by the terms, hardness,
softness, length, breadth, space, and so on. And this operation they rather
consider as subservient to classification, than as that operation itself. The
process, however, of grouping individuals into classes, has been regarded as
sufficiently mysterious. The nature of it has been the object of deep
curiosity; and the erroneous opinions which were entertained of it bewildered,
for many ages, the most eminent philosophers; and enfeebled the human mind.
What (it was inquired) is that which is really done
by the mind, when it forms individuals into classes; separates such and such
things from others, and regards them, under a certain idea of unity, as some
thing by themselves? Why is the segregation thought of? And for what end is it
made? These questions all received answers; but it was many ages before they
received an answer approaching the truth; and it is only necessary to read with
care the writings of Plato and of Aristotle, and of all philosophers, with very
few exceptions, from theirs to the present time, to see, that a misunderstanding
of the nature of General Terms is that which chiefly perplexed them in their
inquiries, and involved them in a confusion, which was inextricable, so long as
those terms were unexplained.
The process in forming those classes was said to be
this. The Mind leaves out of its view this, and that, and the other thing, in
which individuals differ from one another; and retaining only those in which
they all agree, it forms them into a class. But what is this forming of a
class? What does it mean? When I form a material aggregate; when I collect a
library; when I build a house; when I even raise a heap of stones; I move the
things, whatever they may be, and place them, either regularly or irregularly,
in a mass together. But when I form a class, I perform no operation of this
sort. I touch not, nor do I in any way whatsoever act upon the individuals
which I class. The proceeding is all mental. Forming a class of individuals, is
a mode of regarding them. But what is meant by a mode of regarding things? This
is mysterious; and is as mysteriously explained, when it is said to be the
taking into view the particulars in which individuals agree. For what is there,
which it is possible for the mind to take into view, in that in which
individuals agree? Every colour is an individual colour, every size is an
individual size, every shape is an individual shape. But things have no
individual colour in common, no individual shape in common, no individual size
in common; that is to say, they have neither shape, colour, nor size in com
mon. 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. Plato called it ίδέα, Aristotle, ειδος, both, words taken from the verb to see; intimating,
some thing as it were seen, or viewed, as we call it. At bottom, Aristotle’s ειδος, is the same with Plato’s ίδέα,
though Aristotle makes a great affair of some very trifling differences, which
he creates and sets up be tween them. The Latins, translated both ίδέα, and ειδος, by the
same words, and were very much at a loss for one to answer the purpose; they
used species, derived in like manner
from a verb to see, but which, having other meanings, was ill adapted for a
scientific word; they brought, therefore, another word in aid, forma, the same with οραμα derived equally from a verb signifying to see, which
suited the purpose just as imperfectly as species;
and as writers used both terms, according as the one or the other appeared best
to correspond with their meaning, they thickened by this means the confusion.
After a time, unfortunately a long time, it began to
be perceived, that what was thus represented as the object of the mind in the
formation of classes, was chimerical and absurd; when a set of inquirers
appeared, who denied the existence of all such objects, affirmed that ideas
were all individual, and that no thing was general but names. The question rose
to the dignity of a controversy; and to the hateful violence of a religious
controversy. They who affirmed the existence of general ideas were called
Realists, they who denied their existence Nominalists. There can be no doubt,
that of the two the Nominalists approached, by far, the nearest to the truth;
and their speculations tended strongly to remove from mental science the confusion
in which the total misapprehension of abstract terms had involved it. But the
clergy brought religion into the quarrel, and as usual on the wrong side.
Realism was preached as the doctrine which alone was consistent with orthodoxy;
the Nominalists were hunted down; and persecution, well knowing her object,
clung to the books as well as the men; so that the books of the Nominalists,
though the art of printing tended strongly to preserve them, were suppressed
and destroyed, to such a degree, that it is now exceedingly difficult to
collect them; and not easy to obtain copies even of the most remarkable.
The opinion, that the particulars in which the individuals
of a class agree were distinct Objects of the Mind, soon made them distinct
EXISTENCES; they were the Essence of things; the Eternal Exemplars, ac cording
to which individual things were made; they were called UNIVERSALS, and regarded
as alone the Objects of the Intellect. They were invariable, always the same;
individuals, not the objects of intellect but only the low objects of sense,
were in perpetual flux, and never, for any considerable period, the same.
Universals alone have Unity; they alone were the subject of science;
Individuals were innumerable, every one different from another; and cognoscible
only by the lower, the sensitive part of our nature.
Endless were the subtleties into which ingenious men
were misled, in the contemplation of those Fictions; and wonderful were the
attributes which they bestowed upon them. “It is, then, on these permanent Phantasms,” says Mr. Harris,
copying the ancient Philosophers, that the human mind first works, and by an
energy as spontaneous and familiar to its nature, as the seeing of colour is
familiar to the eye, it discerns at once what in MANY is ONE; what in things
DISSIMILAR and DIFFERENT is SIMILAR and the SAME. By this it comes to behold a
kind of superior Objects; a new Race
of Perceptions, more comprehensive than those of sense; a Race of Perceptions, each one of which, may be found entire and
whole in the separate individuals of an infinite and fleeting multitude,
without departing from the unity and permanence of its own nature.” * Here
we have something sufficiently mystical; a thing which is, at once, ONE, and
MANY; which is ONE, it seems, by its very nature, and yet may exist, entire and whole, in the separate individuals of an infinite MULTITUDE.
This is a specimen of their Doctrine;
a specimen of what they call THE SUBLIME in Intellection.
But this is not all. For as, when we form a minor
class, as man, there is a certain
ONE, the object of intellect, complete in every individual; MANY, there fore,
and at the same time, ONE; so when we form a larger class, animal, there is a certain ONE, the object of intellect, complete
in every one of those individuals. And when we go still higher, as to the grand
class, BODY, there is always a ONE, the object of intellect, complete in every one
of those more numerous individuals. When we mount up to the very summit, and
embrace all things in one class, BEING, there is in like manner a ONE, the
object of intellect, complete in every individual that exists. This is the
grand ONE; the ONE pre-eminently. This is the
ONE; το έν; ONENESS; ONE in the abstract. This was a
conception deemed truly SUBLIME. The loftiest epithets were be stowed upon το έν, the ONE. It
was DIVINE; it was more than that; for being not concrete, but abstract, it was
DIVINITY. All things were contained in the
ONE; and the ONE was in all things. The ONE was the source and principle of
Being. It was immutable, eternal.
[* Hermes, b. iii. ch. 4.]
These ONES they also called by the names of Internal Forms, and Intelligible Forms. Thus Harris: “Let us suppose any
man to look for the first time upon some
Work of Art; as, for example,
upon a Clock; and, having sufficiently viewed it, at length to depart. Would he
not retain, when absent, an Idea of what he had seen? And what is it, to retain such Idea? It is to have A FORM INTERNAL correspondent to THE EXTERNAL; only with
this difference, that the Internal Form
is devoid of the Matter; the External
is united with it, being seen in the metal, the wood, and the like. Now, if
we suppose this Spectator to view many
such Machines, and not simply to view, but to consider every part of them,
so as to comprehend how those parts all operate to one End, he might be then
said to possess a kind of INTELLIGIBLE FORM, by which he would not only
understand and know the clocks, which he had seen already, but every Work, also, of like Sort, which he might see hereafter.”
We might here remark upon the mystical jargon, which
is thus employed to obscure the simple fact, that after a man has seen an
individual of a particular kind he has the idea of that individual; and after
he has seen various individuals of the same kind, he has ideas of the various
individuals, and has them combined by association. But we must hear Mr. Harris
a little further.
After telling us that there are two orders of these immutable INTELLIGIBLE FORMS; one belonging to the Contemplator of
objects, and subsequent to their existence; another
belonging to the Maker of them, being the archetype, according to which they
were formed; he thus proceeds: “The WHOLE VISIBLE WORLD, exhibits nothing more
than so many passing pictures of these IMMUTABLE ARCHETYPES. Nay, through these
it attains even a Semblance of Immortality, and continues throughout ages to be
SPECIFICALLY ONE, amid those infinite particular changes, that befall it every
moment. May we be allowed then to credit those speculative men, who tell us, it is in these permanent and comprehensive
FORMS that the DEITY views at once, without looking abroad, all
possible productions both present, past, and future; that this great and
stupendous view is but a view of himself, where all things lie enveloped in
their Principles and Exemplars, as being essential to the fulness of this
universal Intellection?”
I shall exhibit but one other specimen of the mode of
speculating about these imaginary Beings, from another great master of the
ancient philosophy, Cudworth. Both Aristotle and Plato, he says, “acknowledged
two sorts of Entities, the one mutable, or subject to flux and motion, such as
are especially individual corporeal things; the other immutable, that always
rest or stand still, which are the proper objects of certain, constant, and
immutable knowledge, that therefore cannot be mere nothings, non-entities.
“Which latter kind of being, that is, the immutable
essence, as a distinct thing from individual sensibles, Aristotle plainly
asserts against Heraclitus, and those other flowing philosophers in these
words: ‘We would have these philosophers to know, that besides sensible things
that are always mutable, there is another kind of being or entity of such
things as are neither subject to motion, corruption, nor generation.’ And
elsewhere he tells us, that this immovable essence is the object of theoretical
knowledge, of the first philosophy, and of the pure mathematics.
“Now these immutable entities are the universal rationes, or intelligible natures and
essences of all things, which some compare to unities, but Aristotle to
numbers; which formally considered, are indivisible: saith he, ‘The essences of
things are like to numbers;’ because if but the least thing be added to any
number, or subtracted from it, the number is destroyed.
“And these are the objects of all certain knowledge.
As for example, the objects of geometry are not any individual material triangles,
squares, circles, pyramids, cubes, spheres, and the like; which because they
are always mutable, nothing can be immutably affirmed of them; but they are
those indivisible and unchangeable rationes
of a triangle, square, circle; which are ever the same to all geometricians, in
all ages and places, of which such immutable theorems as these are
demonstrated, as that a triangle has necessarily three angles equal to two
right angles.
“But if any one demand here, where this ακίητος ουσια, these immutable entities do exist? I answer,
first, that as they are considered formally, they do not properly exist in the
individuals without us, as if they were from them imprinted upon the
understanding, which some have taken to be Aristotle’s opinion; be cause no
individual material thing is either universal or immutable. And if these things
were only lodged in the individual sensibles, then they would be un avoidably
obnoxious to the fluctuating waves of the same reciprocating Euripus, in which
all individual material things are perpetually whirled. But because they perish
not together with them, it is a certain argument that they exist independently
upon them. 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. For if the mind looked abroad for its objects wholly without itself,
then all its knowledge would be nothing but sense and passion. For to know a
thing is nothing else but to comprehend it by some inward ideas that are domestic
to the mind, and actively exerted from it. Wherefore these intelligible ideas
or essences of things, those forms by which we under stand all things, exist no
where but in the mind itself; for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates,
in Plato’s Parmenides, that these things are nothing but noëmata: ‘these species or ideas are all of them nothing but noëmata, or notions that exist no where
but in the soul itself.’ Wherefore, to say that there are immutable natures and
essences, and rationes of things, distinct from the individuals that exist
without us, is all one as if one should say, that there is in the universe
above the orb of matter and body, another superior orb of intellectual being,
that comprehends its own immediate objects, that is, the immutable rationes and ideas of things within
itself, by which it understands and knows all things without itself.
“And yet notwithstanding though these things exist
only in the mind, they are not therefore mere figments of the understanding:
for if the subjects of all scientifical theorems were nothing but figments,
then all truth and knowledge that is built upon them would be a mere fictitious
thing; and if truth itself, and the intellectual nature be fictitious things,
then what can be real or solid in the world? But it is evident, that though the
mind thinks of these things at pleasure, yet they are not arbitrarily framed by
the mind, but have certain, determinate, and immutable natures of their own,
which are independent upon the mind, and which are not blown away into nothing
at the pleasure of the same being that arbitrarily made them.
“But we all naturally conceive that those things have
not only an eternal, but also a necessary existence, so that they could not
ever but be, such and so many as they are, and can never possibly perish or
cease to be, but are absolutely undestroyable.
“Which is a thing frequently acknowledged in the
writings of both those famous philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. The former of
them calling those things, ‘things that were never made, but always are,’ and ‘things
that were never made, nor can be destroyed.’ ‘Things ingenerable and
unperishable;’ Quæ Plato negat gigni sed semper esse (as Tully expresseth it) et
ratione et intelligentia contineri. And Philo the Platonical Jew, calls the
τα Νοητα, which are the same things we speak of, αναγκαιοται ουσίι, the most necessary essences, that is,
such things as could not but be, and cannot possibly not be. And Aristotle
himself calls the rationes of things
in his metaphysics, not only Χωριστα and ακίνητα, things separate from matter and immutable, but also
αίδια, or eternal; and in his ethics likewise, he calls
geometrical truths αίδια, eternal
things, 1. 3, c. 5; ‘where he makes the geometrical truth concerning the
incommensurability betwixt the diameter and the side of a square, to be an
eternal thing.’ Elsewhere he tells us, that ‘Science, properly so called, is not
of things corruptible and contingent,’ but of things necessary, incorruptible
and eternal. Which immutable and eternal objects of science, in the place
before quoted, he described thus: ‘Such a kind of entity of things has neither
motion nor generation, nor corruption,’ that is, such things as were never
made, and can never be destroyed. To which, he saith, the mind is necessarily
determined. For science or knowledge has nothing either of fiction or of
arbitrariness in it, but is ‘the comprehension of that which immutably is.’
“Moreover, these things have a constant being, when
our particular created minds do not actually think of them, and therefore they
are immutable in another sense likewise, not only because they are indivisibly
the same when we think of them, but also because they have a constant and
never-failing entity; and always are, whether our particular minds think of
them or not. For the intelligible natures and essences of a triangle, square,
circle, pyramid, cube, sphere, &c., and all the necessary geometrical
verities belonging to these several figures, were not the creatures of
Archimedes, Euclid, or Pythagoras, or any other inventors of Geometry; nor did
then first begin to be; but all these rationes
and verities had a real and actual entity before, and would continue still,
though all the geometricians in the world were quite extinct, and no man knew
them or thought of them. Nay, though all the material world were quite swept
away, and also all particular created minds annihilated together with it; yet
there is no doubt but the intelligible natures or essences of all geometrical
figures, and the necessary verities belonging to them, would notwithstanding
remain safe and sound. Where fore these things had a being also before the
material world and all particular intellects were created. For it is not at all
conceivable, that ever there was a time when there was no intelligible nature
of a triangle, nor any such thing cogitable at all, and when it was not yet
actually true that a triangle has three angles equal to two right angles, but
that these things were afterward arbitrarily made and brought into being out of
an antecedent nothing or non-entity; so that the being of them bore some
certain date, and had a youngness in them, and so by the same reason might wax
old, and decay again; which notion he often harps upon, when he speaks of the Ειδη, or forms of things, as when he says, ‘there is no
generation of the essence of a sphere,’ that is, it is a thing that is not
made; but always is: and elsewhere he pronounces universally of the Ειδη, ‘The forms of material things are without generation
and corruption,’ and ‘that none makes the form of any thing, for it is never
generated.’ Divers have censured Aristotle in some of such passages too much to
confound physics and metaphysics together; for indeed these things are not true
in a physical, but only in a metaphysical sense. That is, the immediate objects
of intellection and science, are eternal, necessarily existent, and
incorruptible.”*
[* “A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable
Morality. By Ralph Cudworth, D.D.” pp. 241-250.]
Under the influence of such notions as these, men were
led away from the real object of Classification; which remained, till a late
period in metaphysical inquiry, 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.
Man first becomes acquainted with individuals. He
first names individuals. But individuals are in numerable, and he cannot have
innumerable names. He must make one name serve for many individuals. It is thus
obvious, and certain, that men were led to class solely for the purpose of
economizing in the use of names. Could the processes of naming and discourse
have been as conveniently managed by a name for every individual, the names of
classes, and the idea of classification, would never have existed. But as the
limits of the human memory did not enable men to retain beyond a very limited
number of names; and even if it had, as it would have required a most
inconvenient portion of time, to run over in discourse, as many names of individuals,
and of individual qualities, as there is occasion to refer to in discourse, it
was necessary to have contrivances of abridgment; that is, to employ names
which marked equally a number of individuals, with all their separate
properties; and enabled us to speak of multitudes at once. (78)
[78 The doctrine that “men were led to class solely
for the purpose of economizing in the use of names,” is here reasserted in the
most unqualified terms. The author plainly says that if our memory had been
sufficiently vast to contain a name for every individual, the names of classes
and the idea of classification would never have existed. Yet how (I am obliged
to ask) could we have done without them? We could not -, have dispensed with
names to mark the points in which different individuals resemble one another:
and these arc class-names. The fact that we require names for the purpose of
making affirmations of predicating qualities is in some measure recognised by
the author, when he says “it would have required a most inconvenient portion of
time to run over in discourse as many names of individuals and of individual qualities as there is occasion to refer to in
discourse.” But what is meant by an individual quality? It is not individual qualities that we ever have
occasion to predicate. It is true that the qualities of an object are only the
various ways in which we or other minds are affected by it, and these
affections are not the same in different objects, except in the sense in which
the word same stands for exact similarity. But we never have occasion to
predicate of an object the individual and instantaneous impressions which it
produces in us. The only meaning of predicating a quality at all, is to affirm
a resemblance. When we ascribe a quality to an object, we intend to assert that
the object affects us in a manner similar to that in which we are affected by a
known class of objects. A quality, indeed, in the custom of language, does not
admit of individuality: it is supposed to be one thing common to many; which,
being explained, means that it is the name of a resemblance among our
sensations, and not a name of the individual sensations which resemble.
Qualities, therefore, cannot be predicated without general names; nor, consequently,
without classification. Wherever there is a general name there is a class:
classification, and general names, are things exactly coextensive. It thus
appears that, without classification, language would not fulfil its most
important function. Had we no names but those of individuals, the names might
serve as marks to bring those individuals to mind, but would not enable us to
make a single assertion respecting them, except that one individual is not
another. Not a particle of the knowledge we have of them could be ex pressed in
words. Ed.]
It was impossible that this process should not be
involved in obscurity, and liable to great misapprehension, so long as the
manner, in which words become significant, was unexplained. After this
knowledge was imparted, and pretty generally diffused, the value of it seemed
for a long time to be little understood.
Words become significant purely by association. A
word is pronounced in conjunction with an idea; it is pronounced again and
again; and, by degrees, the idea and the word become so associated, that the
one can never occur without the other. To take first the example of an
individual object. The word, St. Paul’s, has been so often named in conjunction
with the idea of a particular building, that the word, St. Paul’s, never occurs
without calling up the idea of the building, nor the idea of the building
without calling up the name, St. Paul’s. The effect of association is similarly
exemplified in connecting the visible mark with the audible. Children learn
first to speak. They learn next to read. In learning to speak, they associate
the audible mark with their sensations and ideas; the sound tree is associated
with the sight of the tree, or the idea of the tree. In learning to read, a new
association has to be formed. The written
word is a visible sign of the audible
sign. What reading accomplishes, by degrees, is, to associate the visible sign
so closely with the audible, that at the same instant with the sight of the
word the sound of it, and with the sound of it the sense, occurs.
After the explanations which have been already given,
no difficulty can remain about the manner in which names come to signify the
individuals of which they are appointed to be the marks.
Let us now, proceeding to the simplest cases first,
and by them expounding such as are more complicated, suppose that our name of
one individual is applied to another individual. Let us suppose that the word,
foot, has been first associated in the mind of the child with one foot only; it
will in that case call up the idea of that one, and not of the other. Here is
one name, and one thing named. Suppose next, that the same name, foot, begins
to be applied to the child s other foot. The sound is now associated not constantly
with one thing, but sometimes with one thing, and sometimes with another. The
consequence is, that it calls up sometimes the one, and sometimes the other.
Here two things, the two feet, are both of them associated with one thing, the
name. The one thing, the name, has the power of calling up both, and in rapid
succession. The word foot suggests the idea of one of the feet; this foot with
its name, is a complex idea; and this complex idea suggests its like, the other
foot with its name.
This is a peculiar and a highly important case of
association; but not the less simple and indisputable. We have already
sufficiently exemplified the two grand cases of the formation of complex ideas
by association; that in which the ideas of synchronous sensations are so
concreted by constant conjunction as to appear, though numerous, only one; of
which the ideas of sensible objects, a rose, a plough, a house, a ship, are
examples; and that in which the ideas of successive sensations are so
concreted; of which, the idea of a tune in music, the idea of the revolution of
a wheel, of a walk, a hunt, a horse-race, are instances.
It is easy to see wherein the present case agrees
with, and wherein it differs from, those familiar cases. 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.
There can be no difficulty in admitting that association
does form the ideas of an indefinite number of individuals into one complex
idea; because it is an acknowledged fact. Have we not the idea of an army? And
is not that precisely the ideas of an indefinite number of men formed into one
idea? Have we not the idea of a wood, or a forest; and is not that the idea of
an indefinite number of trees formed into one idea? These are instances of the
concretion of synchronous ideas. Of the concretion of successive ideas
indefinite in number, the idea of a concert is one instance, the idea of a
discourse is another, the idea of the life of a man is another, the idea of a
year, or of a century, is another, and so on. The idea, which is marked by the
term “race of man,” is complex in both ways, for it is not only the idea of the
present generation, but of all successive generations.
It is also a fact, that when an idea becomes to a
certain degree complex, from the multiplicity of the ideas it comprehends, it
is of necessity indistinct. Thus the idea of a figure of one thousand sides is
in curably indistinct; the idea of an army is also indistinct; the idea of a
forest, or the idea of a mob. And one of the uses of language, is, to enable
us, by distinct marks, to speak with distinctness of those combinations of
ideas, which, in themselves, are too numerous for distinctness. Thus, by our
marks of numbers, we can speak, with the most perfect precision, of a figure
not only of a thousand, but of ten thousand sides, and deduce its peculiar
properties; though it is as impossible, by the idea, as by the sensations, to
distinguish one of a thousand, from one of a thousand and one, sides.
Thus, 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.
It thus appears, that the word, man, is not a word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of
the Realists; nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists;
but a word calling up an indefinite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws
of association, and forming them into one very complex, and indistinct, but not
therefore unintelligible, idea.
It is thus to be seen, that appellatives, or general
names, are significant, in two modes. We have frequently had occasion to recur
to the mode in which the simple ideas of sensation are associated or concreted,
so as to form what we call the complex ideas of objects. Thus, I have the
complex ideas of this pen, this desk, this room, this man, this handwriting.
The simple ideas, so concreted into a complex idea in the case of each
individual, are one thing signified by each appellative; and this complex idea
of the individual, concreted with another, arid another of the same kind, and
so on without end, is the other of the things which are signified by it. Thus,
the word rose, signifies, first of all, a certain odour, a certain colour, a
certain shape, a certain consistence, so associated as to form one idea, that
of the individual; next, it signifies this individual associated with another,
and another, and another, and so on; in other words, it signifies the class.
The complexity of the idea, in the latter of the two
cases, is distinguished by a peculiarity from that of the former. In applying
the name to the odour, and colour, and so on, of the rose, concreted into one
idea, the name is not the name of each of the sensations taken singly, only of
all taken together. In applying the name to rose, and rose, and rose, without
end, the name is at once a name of each of the individuals, and also the name
of the complex association which is formed of them. This too, is itself a
peculiar association. It is not the association of a name with a number of
particulars clustered together as one; but the association of a name with each
of an indefinite number of particulars, and all those particulars associated
back again with the name.
This peculiarity may require a little further explanation.
It is well known, that between an idea, and the name which stands for it, there
is a double association. The name calls up the idea in close association, and
the idea calls up the name in equally close association; and this they have a
tendency to do in a series of repetitions; the name bringing up the idea, the
idea the name, and then the name the idea again, and so on, for any number of
times. This is, in great part, the way in which language is learned, as we
observe by the repetitions to which children are prone. And this, indeed, is
what, in many cases, we mean when we speak of dwelling upon an idea. It is a
familiar observation, that no idea dwells in the mind, or can; for it has
innumerable associations, and whatever association occurs, of course, displaces
that by which it is introduced. But if the idea which thus displaces it, again
calls it up, and these two go on calling up one another, that which is the more
interesting of the two appears to be that which alone is occupying the
attention. This alternation is frequent between the name and the idea.
Now, then, let the word, man, be supposed, first of
all, the name of an individual; it becomes associated with the idea of the
individual, and acquires the power of calling up that idea. Let us next suppose
it applied to one other individual, and no more: it becomes associated with
this other idea; and it now has the power of calling up either. The following
is, then, a very natural train: 1, The name occurs; 2, the name suggests the
idea of one of the individuals; 3, that idea suggests the name back again; 4,
the name suggests the idea of the second individual. All this may pass, and,
after sufficient repetition, does pass, with the rapidity of lightning.
Suppose, now, that the name is associated, with the ideas not of two individuals,
but of many; the same train may go on; the name exciting the idea of one
individual, that idea the name, the name another individual, and so on, to an
indefinite extent; all in that small portion of time of which the mind takes no
account. The combination thus formed stands in need of a name. And the name,
man, while it is the name of every individual included in the process, is also
the name of the whole combination; that is, of a very complex idea.
One other question, respecting classification, may
still seem to require solution; namely, what it is by which we are determined
in placing such and such things together in a class in preference to others;
what, in other words, is the principle of Classification? I answer, that, as it
is for the purpose of naming, of naming with greater facility, that we form
classes at all; so it is in furtherance of that same facility that such and
such things only are included in one class, such and such in another.
Experience teaches what sort of grouping answers the purposes of naming best;
under the suggestions of that experience, the application of a general word is
tacitly and without much of reflection regulated; and by this process, and no
other, it is, that Classification is performed. It is the aggregation of an
indefinite number of individuals, by their association with a particular name.
It may seem that this answer is still very general,
and that to make the explanation sufficient, the suggestions by which
experience recommends this or that classification should be particularized. For
the purpose of the present chapter, however, namely, to shew that the business
of Classification is merely a process of naming, and is all resolvable into
association, the observation, though general, is full and satisfactory. The detail
of the purposes to be answered by general terms belongs more properly to the
next head of Dis course, and as far as the development of the mental phenomena
seems to require it, will there be presented.
It may still be useful to advert to the three principal
cases into which Classification may be resolved; 1, that of objects considered
as synchronical; 2, that of objects considered as successive; 3, that of
feelings. The first is exemplified in the common classes of sensible objects,
as men, horses, trees, and so on; and requires no further explanation. The
second is exemplified in the classes of events, denoted by such words, as
Birth, Death, Snowing, Thundering, Freezing, Flying, Creeping. By these words
there is always denoted one antecedent and one consequent, generally more,
sometimes a long train of them. And it is obvious that each of them is, at
once, the name of each instance individually, and of all taken generally
together. Thus, Freezing, is not the name of an individual instance of freezing
only, but of that and of all other instances of Freezing. The same is the case
with other words of a still more general, and thence more obscure
signification, as Gravitation, Attraction, Motion, Force, &c.; which words
have this additional source of confusion, that they are ambiguous, being both
abstract and concrete. When we say that there is a third case of
classification, relating to Feelings, it does not mean that the two former do
not relate to feelings: for when we say, that we classify objects, as men,
horses, &c.; or events, as the sequences named births, deaths, and so on;
it is obvious that our operation is about our own feelings, and nothing else;
as the objects, and their successions, are, to us, the feelings merely which we
thus designate. But as there are feelings which we do thus designate; and
feelings which we do not; it is convenient, for the purpose of teaching, to
treat of them apart. The Feelings, of this latter kind, which we classify, are
either single feelings, or trains. Thus, Pain is the name of a single feeling,
and the name both of an individual instance, and of indefinite instances, forming
a most extensive class. Memory is the name not of a single feeling or idea, but
of a train; and it is the name not only of a single instance, but of all
instances of such a train, that is, of a class. The same is the case with
Belief. It is the name of a train consisting of a certain number of links; and
it is the name not only of an individual instance of such trains, but of all
instances, forming an extensive class. Imagination is another instance of the
same sort of classification. So also is Judgment, and Reasoning, and Doubting,
and we might name many more.
It is easy to see, among the principles of Association,
what particular principle it is, which is mainly concerned in Classification,
and by which we are rendered capable of that mighty operation; on which, as its
basis, the whole of our intellectual structure is reared. That principle is
Resemblance. It seems to be similarity or resemblance which, when we have
applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another, and another,
till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by the common relation of
every part of the aggregate to one and the same name. Similarity, or Resemblance,
we must regard as an Idea familiar and sufficiently understood for the
illustration at present required. It will itself be strictly analysed, at a
subsequent part of this Inquiry.
So deeply was the sagacious mind of Plato, far more
philosophical than that of any who succeeded him, during many ages, struck with
the importance of Classification, that he seems to have regarded it as the sum
of all philosophy; which he described, as being the faculty of seeing “the ONE
in the MANY, and the MANY in the ONE;” a phrase which, when stripped from the
subtleties of the sophists whom he exposed, and- from the mystical visions of
his successors, of which he never dreamed, is really a, striking expression of
what in classification is the matter of fact. His error lay, in misconceiving
the ONE; which he took, not for the aggregate, but something pervading the
aggregate. (79) (80)
[79 The two chapters (VII. and VIII.) of Mr. James
Mill’s Analysis are highly instructive, and exhibit all his customary force and
perspicuity. But in respect to Classification and Abstraction, I think that the
ancient philosophers of the Sokratic school generally, are entitled to more
credit than he allows them; and moreover that in respect to the difference of
opinion between Plato and Aristotle, he has assigned an undue superiority to
the former at the expense of the latter.
The reader would take very inadequate measure of
these ancient philosophers, if he judged them from the two citations out of
Harris and Cudworth, produced by Mr. James Mill as setting forth the most
successful speculations of the ancient world. Both these passages are brought
to illustrate “the mystical jargon” (p. 253) with which the ancients are said
to have obscured a clear and simple subject. The mysticism in both citations is
to a certain extent real; but it depends also in part on the use of a
terminology now obsolete, rather than, on confusion of ideas. In regard to the
citation from Harris, it is a passage in which that author passes into
theology, and includes God and Immortality: topics upon which mystical language
can seldom be avoided: moreover, if we compare the remarks on Harris (p. 251)
with p. 271, we shall find Mr. James Mill ridiculing as mystical, when used by
Harris, the same language (about “the One in the Many “) which, when employed
by Plato, he eulogises as follows “a phrase which, when stripped from the
subtleties of the sophists whom he (Plato) exposed, and from the mystical
visions of his successors, of which he never dreamed, is really a striking
expression of what in classification is the matter of fact.”
I wish I could concur with Mr. James Mill in
exonerating Plato from these mystical visions, and imputing them exclusively to
his successors. But I find them too manifestly pro claimed in the Timæus, Phædon,
Phædrus, Symposion, Republic, and other dialogues, to admit of such an
acquittal: I also find subtleties quite as perplexing as those of any sophist
whom he exposed. Along with these elements, the dialogues undoubtedly present
others entirely disparate, much sounder and nobler. I have in another work
endeavoured to render a faithful account of the multifarious Platonic
aggregate, stamped in all its parts, whether of negative dialectic, poetical
fancy, or ethical dogmatism, with the unrivalled genius of expression belonging
to the author. The misfortune is that his Neo-Platonic successors selected by
preference his dreams and visions for their amplifying comment and eulogy,
leaving comparatively unnoticed the instructive lessons of philosophy
accompanying them. To this extent the Neo-Platonists fully deserve the
criticism here bestowed on them.
The long passage, extracted in the Analysis from
Cudworth, contains two grave mis-statements, respecting both Plato and
Aristotle; which deserve the more attention because they seem to have misled
Mr. James Mill himself. Respecting Universals, Cudworth, after saying that they
do not exist in the individual sensibles, proceeds as follows (p. 255-256)
1. “Neither, in the next place, do they exist
somewhere else apart from the individual sensibles, and without the mind: which
is that opinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or
unskilfully attributes to Plato.
2. “Wherefore these intelligible ideas or essences of
things, those forms by which we understand all things, exist no-where but in
the mind itself: for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato’s
Parmenides, that these things are nothing but noëmata: these species or ideas are all of them nothing but noëmata, or notions that exist no- where
but in the soul itself.”
Now, neither of these assertions of Cudworth will be
found accurate: neither the “determination” which he ascribes to the Platonic
Sokrates – nor the censure of “unjust or unskilful” which he attaches to Aristotle.
It is indeed true that the opinion here mentioned is enunciated by Sokrates in Plato’s
Parmenides. But far from being given as a “determination,” it is enunciated
only to be refuted and dropt. (a) In that dialogue, Sokrates is introduced as a
youthful and ardent aspirant in philosophy, maintaining the genuine Platonic
theory of self-existent and separate Ideas. He finds himself unable to repel
several acute objections tendered against the theory by the veteran Parmenides:
he is driven from position to position: and one among them, not more tenable
than the rest, is the suggestion cited by Cudworth. Yet Parmenides, though his
objections remain unanswered and though he alludes to others not specified,
concludes by declaring (a) that nevertheless the Platonic theory of Ideas
cannot be abandoned: it must be upheld as a postulate essential to the
possibility of general reasoning and philosophy.
[a Plato Parmenid. p. 132, C, D.]
[a Plato Parmenid. p. 135, B, C.
I have given an account of this acute but perplexing
dialogue, in the twenty-fifth chapter of ray 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 selfexistent Ideas,
we still find him reiterating his adherence to it. And when we turn to his
other dialogues, Phædrus, Phædon, Symposion, Republic, Kratylus, &c., we
see that theory so emphatically proclaimed and so largely illustrated, that I
wonder how Cudworth can blame Aristotle for imputing it to him.
It is by Cudworth, probably, that Mr. James Mill has
been misled, when he says – p. 249 – “At bottom, Aristotle’s είδος is the same as with Plato’s ίδεα,
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,
in tended to dispel the mystery with which others have surrounded it (p. 264).
“The word man is first applied to an
individual: it is first associated with the idea of that individual, and
acquires the power of calling up the idea of him: it is next applied to another
individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him: so of another
and another, till it has acquired the power of calling up an indefinite number
of those ideas indifferently. What happens? It does call up an indefinite
number of the ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs: and calling them up
in close combination, it forms them into a species of complex idea.” “It thus
appears that the word man is not a
word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the Realists: nor a word
having no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists: but a word calling up an
indefinite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws of association, and
forming them into one very complex and indistinct, but not therefore unintelligible,
idea” (p. 265). “As it is for the purpose of naming, and of naming with greater
facility, that we form classes at all; so it is in furtherance of that same
facility that such and such things only are included in one class, such and
such things in another. Experience teaches us what sort of grouping answers
this purpose best: under the suggestions of that experience, the application of
a general word is tacitly and without much of reflection regulated: and by this
process and no other, it is, that Classification is per- formed. It is the
aggregation of an indefinite number of individuals, by their association with a
particular name” (p. 268). “It is Similarity or Resemblance, which, when we have
applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another and another
till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by the common relation of
the aggregate “to one and the same name” (p. 271).
Such is the theory of Mr. James Mill. Its great
peculiarity is that it neither includes nor alludes to Abstraction. It admits
in Classification nothing more than the one common name associated with an
aggregate indefinite and indistinct, of similar concrete individuals. I shall
now consider the manner in which the Greek philosophers of the fourth century
B.C. dealt with the same subject, and how far they merit the censure of having
imported unnecessary mystery into it.
It is impossible to understand Plato unless we take
our departure from his master Sokrates. Now it is precisely in regard to
Classification, and the meaning and comprehension of general terms, that the
originality and dialectical acuteness of Sokrates were most conspicuously
manifested. He was the first philosopher (as Aristotle (a) tells us) who set
before himself the Universal as an express object of investigation, and who
applied himself to find out and test the definition of universal terms. He
wrote nothing; but he passed most part of his long life in public, and in
talking indiscriminately with every one. Oral colloquy, and cross-examining
interrogation, were carried by him to a pitch of excellence never equalled. Not
only did he disclaim all power of teaching, but he explicitly avowed his own
ignorance; professing to be a mere seeker of truth from others who knew better,
and to be anxious only for answers such as would stand an accurate scrutiny. To
this peculiar scheme the topics on which he talked were adapted: for he avoided
all recondite themes, and discussed only matters relating to man and society:
such as What is the Holy? What is the Unholy? What are the Beautiful and the
Mean the Just and Unjust? Temperance? Madness? Courage? Cowardice? A City? A
man fit for citizenship? Command of Men? A man fit for commanding men? Such is
the specimen-list given by Xenophon (b) of the themes chosen by Sokrates. We
see that they are all general, and embodied in universal terms. But the terms
as well as the themes were familiar to all: every man believed himself
thoroughly to understand the meaning of the former every one had convictions
ready-made and decided on the latter. When Sokrates first opened the colloquy,
respondents were surprised to be questioned about such subjects, upon which
they presumed that every one must know as well as themselves. But this
confidence speedily vanished when they came to be tested by inductive (a)
interrogatories: citation of appropriate particulars, included or not included
in the generalities which they laid down. The result proved that they could not
answer the questions without speedily contradicting themselves: that they did
not understand the comprehension of their own universal terms: and that upon
all these matters, on which they talked so confidently, they had never applied
themselves deliberately to learn, nor could they say how their judgments had
been acquired or certified. (b)
[a Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b.
30.]
[b Xenophon, Memorab. I., 1 16.]
[a So Aristotle calls them – λόγους
έπακτικούς– Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.]
[b Xenophon, Memorab. IV. 2-13-30-36.]
The conviction formed in the mind of Sokrates, after
long persistence in such colloquial cross-examination, is consigned in his
defence before the Athenian judicature, pronounced a month before his death. He
declared that what he found every where was real ignorance, combined with false
persuasion of knowledge: that this was the chronic malady of the human mind,
which it had been his mission to expose: that no man was willing to learn,
because no man believed that he stood in need of learning: that, accordingly,
the first step in dispensable 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. (c) It must be added that no man was ever less
inclined to mysticism than Sokrates: and that he was thus exempt from those
misleading influences which (according to Mr. James Mill, p. 260) “have led men
away from the real object of Classification, and prevented them from understanding
it till a late period in metaphysical enquiry.” Sokrates did not come before
his countrymen with classifications of his own, originated or improved nor did
he teach them how the process ought to be conducted. His purpose was, to test
and appreciate that Classification which he found ready-made and current among
them. He pronounced it to be worthless and illusory.
[c Xenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV. b. 1-7-10-15. ων ένεκα σκοπων συν τοις συνουσιν, τι εκαςον έιη των οντων, ουδέποε
έληγε.]
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
under standing wherein the resemblance consists, or what facts and attributes
are connoted by the name (a) (I use
the word connote, not in the sense of
the Analysis, but in the sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill) so long will
Classification continue to be, as Sokrates entitled it, a large persuasion of
knowledge with little reality to sustain it.
[a The necessity of determining the connotation of the Classterm is
distinctly put forward by Sokrates – Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14, 2. λόγω όντος περί ονομάτων, εφ ομς έργω έκςον έιη – Εχοιμεν άν (εφη)
ειπείν, επί ποιω ποτε έργω άνθρωπος όψόφαγος καλιται; &c., also the
remarkable passage IV., 6. 13 15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B. τοΰνομα μόνον έχομεν κοινη το δέ έργον, εφ ω καλουμεν, &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 in
consistency, 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.
(a)
[a Plato, Sophistes, p. 230-231. Symposion, p. 204 A,
Menon p. 84, A. D.]
Accordingly, when it is said that Plato was “deeply
struck with the importance of Classification,” we must understand the phrase as
applying to Classification, not as he found it prevalent, but as he idealized
it. And the scheme that he imagined was not merely different from that which he
found, but in direct repugnance to it. He denounced altogether the aggregate of
individuals; he declared the class-constituent to reside in a reality apart
from them, separate and self-existent the Idea or Form. He enjoined the student
of philosophy to fix his contemplation on these Class-Ideas, the real Realities,
in their own luminous region: and for that purpose, to turn his back upon the
phenomenal particulars, which were mere transitory, shadowy, incoherent
projections of these Ideas (a) 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 him self. But still his capital and peculiar theory was,
Realism. The Platonic One was not something pervading the aggregate of
particulars, but an independent and immutable reality, apart from the
aggregate: and Plato, when he thus conceived the One, illustrating it by the
vast hypotheses embodied in the Republic, Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion, Menon,
&c., is the true originator of those “mystical visions” against which the
Analysis justly protests. Such visions were doubtless suggested to Plato by “his
deep sense of the importance of Classification:” but they are his own, though continued
and amplified, without his decorative genius, by Neo-Platonic successors. His
theory of classification was the first ever propounded; and that theory was
Realism. The doctrine here ascribed to him by Mr. James Mill is much more
Aristotelian than Platonic. The main issue raised by Aristotle against Plato
was, upon the essential separation, and separate objective existence, of the
Abstract and Universal: Plato affirmed it, Aristotle denied it. (a) Aristotle
recognised no reality apart from the Particular, to which the Universal was
attached as a predicate, either essential or accidental to its subject. The
Aristotelian Universal may thus be called, in relation to a body of similar
particulars, not the aggregate but something pervading the aggregate. But this
is not Plato’s view: it is the negation of the Platonic Realism.
[a This is what we read in the memorable simile of
the Cave, in Plato, Republic, VII., p. 514-519. The language used throughout
this simile is περιάγειν, περιακτέον,
περιαγωγή, &c. He supposes that the natural state of man
is to have his face and vision towards the particular phenomena, and his back
to wards the universal realities: the great problem is, how to make the man
face about, turn his back towards phenomena, and his eyes towards Universals – τά όντα – τά νοητά. Nothing can be
learnt from observation however accute, 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.
[a According to Plato, it is τό έν πα
οάτάπολλά. According to Aristotle, it is έν κατα πολλων
– έν και το αυτο έπι πλειόνων μή όμωνυμον έν έπι πολλων. Aualyt. 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. 3C, b. 20, Aristotle notices the Platonic hypothesis that the
Universal has real objective, separate, existence apart from its particulars (τό καθόλυ εζί τι παρα τα καθ έκαζα) as an illusion,
mischievous and misleading frequent, but not unavoidable.
See the antithesis between Plato and Aristotle, on
the subject of Universals, more copiously explained in the recent work of
Professor Bain. Mental and Moral Science, Appendix, pp. 6-20.]
When we read in the Analysis (p. 265) that “the word man is not a word having a very simple
idea, as was the opinion of the Realists; nor a word having no idea at all, as
was that of the Nominalists” – this language seems to me not well-chosen. As to
the Realists the Platonic Ideas are conceived as eternal, immutable, grand,
dignified, &c., but Aristotle (a) contends that they cannot all be simple:
for the Idea of Man (e.g.) can hardly be simple, when there exists distinct
Ideas of Animal and of Biped. As to the Nominalists we cannot surely say that
they conceived the universal term as “having no idea at all.” A doctrine
something like this is ascribed (on no certain testimony) to Stilpon, in the
generation succeeding Aristotle: the word Man (Stilpon is said to have affirmed
(b)) did not mean John more than William or Thomas or Richard, &c.,
therefore it did not mean either one of them: therefore it had no meaning at
all. So also William of Ockham is said to have declared that Universal Terms
were mere “flatus vocis:” but this (as Prantl has shewn (c)) 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. (d) Whether this be the best and most complete explanation or
not, it can hardly have been present to Mr. James Mill’s mind, when he said
that the Universal term had no idea at all in the opinion of the Nominalists.
[a Aristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.]
[b See Grote, Plato and the other Companions of
Sokrates, Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.]
[c Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19,
p. 327.]
[d Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge,
Introduction, Sect. 12, 15, 16.]
There is one other remark to be made, respecting the
view of Classification presented in the eighth Chapter of the Analysis. We read
in the beginning of that Chapter – p. 249 – “Forming a class of things is a
mode of regarding them. But what is meant by a mode of regarding things? This
is mysterious: and is as mysteriously explained, when it is said to be the
taking into view the particulars in which individuals agree. For what is there
which it is possible for the mind to take into view, in that in which individuals
agree? Every colour is an individual colour, every size is an individual size,
every shape is an individual shape. But things have no individual colour in
common, no individual shape in common, no individual size in common: that is to say, they have neither shape,
colour, nor size in common. What then is it which they have in common which
the mind can take into view? Those who affirmed that it was something, could by
no means tell. They substituted words for things: using vague and mystical phrases,
which when examined meant nothing.”
Here we find certain phrases, often used both in
common speech and in philosophy, condemned us mystical and obscure. In the next
or ninth Chapter (on Abstraction, p. 295 seq.), we shall see the language
substituted for them, and the theory by which the mystery is supposed to be
removed. I cannot but think that the theory of Mr. James Mill himself is open
to quite as many objections as that which he impugns. He finds fault with those
who affirm that the word cube or sphere is applied to a great many
different objects by reason of the shape which they have in common; and that
they may be regarded so far forth as cube
or sphere. But surely this would not
have been considered as either incorrect or mysterious by any philosopher, from
Aristotle downward. When I am told that it is incorrect, because the shape of
each object is an individual shape, I
dissent from the reason given. In my judgment, the term individual is a term applicable, properly and specially, to a
concrete object – to that which Aristotle would have called a Hoc Aliquid. The
term is not applicable to a quality or attribute. The same quality that belongs
to one object, may also belong to an indefinite number of others. It is this
common quality that is connoted (in
the sense of that word employed by Mr. John Stuart Mill) by the class-term: and
if there were no common quality, the class-term would have no connotation. In
other words, there would be no class: nor would it be correct to apply to any
two objects the same concrete appellative name.
But when we come to the following Chapter of the
Analysis (ch. ix. on Abstraction, p. 296), we read as follows “Let us suppose
that we apply the adjective black
first to the word Man. We say ‘black man.’ But we speedily see that for the same reason for which we say
black man, we may say black horse, black cow, black coat, and so on. The word black is thus associated with
innumerable modifications of the sensation black.
By frequent repetition, and the gradual strengthening of the association, these
modifications are at last called up in such rapid succession that they appear
commingled, and no longer many ideas, but one. Black is therefore no longer an individual, but a general name. It
marks not the particular black of a particular individual, but the black of
every individual and of all individuals.”
To say that we apply the word black to the horse for the same
reason as we applied it to the man,
is surely equivalent to saying that the colour of the horse is the same as that
of the man: that blackness is the colour which they have in. common. It is
quite true that we begin by applying the name to one individual object, then
apply it to another, and another, &c.; but always for the same reason to
designate (or connote, in the
phraseology of Mr. John Stuart Mill) the same colour in them all, and to denote
the objects considered under one and the same point of view. It may be that in
fact there are differences in shade of colour: but the class-name leaves these
out of sight. When we desire to call attention to them, we employ other words
in addition to it. Every attribute is considered and named as One, which is or
may be common to many individual objects: the objects only are individual.
It is to be regretted, I think, that Mr. James Mill
disconnected Classification so pointedly from Abstraction, and insisted on
explaining the former without taking account of the latter. Such disconnection
is a novelty, as he himself states (p. 294): previous expositors thought that “abstraction
was included in classification” and, in my judgment, they were right in
thinking so, if (with Mr. James Mill) we are to consider Classification as a “great
operation.” An aggregate of concretes is not sufficient to constitute a Class,
in any scientific sense, or as available in the march of reasoned truth. You
must have, besides, the peculiar mode of regarding the aggregate: (a phrase
which Mr. James Mill deprecates as mysterious, but which it is difficult to
exchange for any other words more intelligible) you must have “that separating
one or more of the ingredients of a complex idea from the rest, which has received
the name of Abstraction” – to repeat the very just ex planation given by him,
p. 295 – though that too, if we look at p. 249, he seems to consider as tainted
with mystery.
We proceed afterwards to some clear and good
additional remarks – p. 298. A class-term, as black, “is associated with two distinguishable things, but with the
one much more than with the other: – the clusters, with which it is associated,
are variable: the peculiar sensation
with which it is associated, is invariable. It is constantly, and therefore
much more strongly, associated with the sensation, than with any of the
clusters. It is at once a name of the clusters and a name of the sensation: but
it is more peculiarly a name of the
sensation.” Again shortly afterwards, the abstract term is justly described as
“marking exclusively one part (of the
cluster), upon which such and such effects depend, no alteration being supposed
in any other part of it.” (a)
[a The abstract term is coined for the express
purpose of marking one part of a cluster simultaneously present to the mind,
and fixing attention upon it without the other parts but the concrete term is
often made to serve the same purpose, by means of the adverb quatenus, κάθοσον, ζ; &c. These phrases are frequent both in Plato and Aristotle:
the stock of abstract terms was in their day comparatively small. It is
needless to multiply illustrations of that which pervades the compositions of
both: a very good one appears in Plato, Republ. I., p. 340 D, 341 C, 342.]
This process of marking exclusively, and attending
to, one constant portion of a complex state of consciousness, amidst a great
variety of variable adjuncts – is doubtless one fundamental characteristic in
Abstraction and Classification. A mystery was spread around it by Plato – first
through his ascribing to the Constant a separate self-existence, apart from the
Variables still more by his hyperbolical predicates respecting these
self-existent transcendental Entia. Plato (a) however in other passages gives
many just opinions, respecting Classification, which are no way founded on
Realism, and are equally admissible by Nominalists: and portions of Aristotle
may be indicated, which describe the process of abstraction as clearly as any
thing in Hobbes or Berkeley. (b)
[a The two Platonic dialogues, Sophïstes and
Politikus, (in which processes of Classification are worked out.) give
precepts, for correct and pertinent classification, not necessarily involving
the theory of Realism, but rather putting it out of sight; though in one
special part of the Sophistes, the debate is made to turn upon it. The main
purpose of Plato is to fix upon some fact or phenomenon, clear and appropriate,
as the groundwork for distinguishing each class or sub-class and to define
thereby each class-term (i.e., to
determine its connotation, in the
sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill). Plato deprecates the mere following out of
resemblances as a most slippery proceeding (ολισθηοότατον γένος–
Sophist. 231 A). The commonly received classes carry with them in his opinion,
no real knowledge, but only the false per suasion of knowledge: he wants to
break them up and remodel them.]
[b See especially Aristot. De Memoriâ et
Reminiscentiâ, c. 1, p. 449, b. 13. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 6, p. 445, b. 17.
De Animâ III. 8, p. 432, a. 9.]
One farther remark may be made upon these two
Chapters of the Analysis. Mr. James Mill seems to take little or no thought of
Classification and Abstraction, except as performed by Adjectives. But the
adjective presupposes a substantive, which is alike an appellative; and which
has already performed its duty in the way of abstracting and classifying. This
fact seems to be overlooked in the language of some sentences in the present
Chapter: for example – “Some successions are found to depend upon the clusters
called objects, all taken together.
Thus a tree, a man, a stone, are the antecedents of certain consequents, as
such: and not on account of any particular part of the cluster. Other
consequents depend not upon the whole cluster, but upon some particular part:
thus a tall tree produces certain effects which a tree not tall cannot
produce,” &c.
I think that the phraseology of this passage is not
quite clear. “The whole cluster all taken together is not a tree as such – a
man as such – a stone as such – but this particular man, tree, or stone, as it
stands: John, Thomas, Caius or Titius, clothed with all his predicates, acting
or suffering in some given manner. When we speak of a man as such or quatenus man we do not include the whole cluster, but only those attributes connoted (in Mr. John Stuart Mill’s
sense of the word) by the name man:
we speak of him as a member of the class Man.
What I wish to point out is – That Man is a class-term, just as much as tall or short: only it is the name of a larger class, while tall man is a
smaller class under it. The school-logicians did not consider substantives as connotative,
but only adjectives: Mr. James Mill has followed them as to this extent of the
word, though he has inverted their meaning of it (see p. 299). Mr. John Stuart
Mill, while declining to adopt the same inversion, has enlarged the meaning of
the word connotative, so as to include appellative substantives as well as
adjectives. G.]
[80 Rejecting the notion that classes and
classification would not have existed but for the necessity of economizing
names, we may say that objects are formed into classes on account of their
resemblance. It is natural to think of like objects together; which is, indeed,
one of the two fundamental laws of association. But the resembling objects
which are spontaneously thought of together, are those which resemble each
other obviously, in their superficial aspect. These are the only classes which
we should form unpremeditatedly, and without the use of expedients. But there
are other resemblances which are not superficially obvious; and many are not
brought to light except by long experience, or observation carefully directed
to the purpose; being mostly resemblances in the manner in which the objects
act on, or are acted on by, other things. These more recondite resemblances are
often those which are of greatest importance to our interests. It is important
to us that we should think of those things together, which agree in any
particular that materially concerns us. For this purpose, besides the classes
which form themselves in our minds spontaneously by the general law of
association, we form other classes artificially, that is, we take pains to
associate mentally together things which we wish to think of together, but
which are not sufficiently associated by the spontaneous action of association
by resemblance. The grand instrument we employ in forming these artificial
associations, is general names. We give a common name to all the objects, we
associate each of the objects with the name, and by their common association
with the name they are knit together in close association with one another.
But in what manner does the name effect this purpose,
of uniting into one complex class-idea all the objects which agree with one
another in certain definite particulars? We effect this by associating the name
in a peculiarly strong and close manner with those particulars. It is, of
course, associated with the objects also; and the name seldom or never calls up
the ideas of the class-characteristics unaccompanied by any other qualities of
the objects. All our ideas are of individuals, or of numbers of individuals,
and are clothed with more or fewer of the attributes which are peculiar to the
individuals thought of. Still, a class-name stands in a very different relation
to the definite resemblances which it is intended to mark, from that in which
it stands to the various accessory circumstances which may form part of the
image it calls up. There are certain attributes common to the entire class,
which the class-name was either deliberately selected as a mark of, or, at all
events, which guide us in the application of it. These attributes are the real
meaning of the class-name – are what we intend to ascribe to an object when we
call it by that name. With these the association of the name is close and
strong: and the employment of the same name by different persons, provided they
employ it with a precise adherence to the meaning, ensures that they shall all
include these attributes in the complex idea which they associate with the
name. This is not the case with any of the other qualities of the individual
objects, even if they happen to be common to all the objects, still less if
they belong only to some of them. The class-name calls up, in every mind that
hears or uses it, the idea of one or more individual objects, clothed more or
less copiously with other qualities than those marked by the name; but these
other qualities may, consistently with the purposes for which the class is
formed and the name given, be different with different persons, and with the
same person at different times. What images of individual horses the word horse
shall call up, depends on such accidents as the person s taste in horses, the
particular horses he may happen to possess, the descriptions he last read, or
the casual peculiarities of the horses he recently saw. In general, therefore,
no very strong or permanent association, and especially no association com mon
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 re
present it to ourselves sometimes in one of those three forms, sometimes in
another, being aware all the while that all of them are equally consistent with
its being a triangle.
One important consequence of these considerations is,
that the meaning of a class-name is not the same thing with the complex idea
associated with it. The complex idea associated with the name man, includes, in
the mind of every one, innumerable simple ideas besides those which the name is
intended to mark, and in the absence of which it would not be predicated. But
this multitude of simple ideas which help to swell the complex idea are
infinitely variable, and never exactly the same in any two persons, depending
in each upon the amount of his knowledge, and the nature, variety, and recent
date of his experience. They are therefore no part of the meaning of the name.
They are not the association common to all, which it was intended to form, and
which enables the name to be used by all in the same manner, to be understood
in a common sense by all, and to serve, therefore, as a vehicle for the
communication, between one and another, of the same thoughts. What does this,
is the nucleus of more closely associated ideas, which is the constant element
in the complex idea of the class, both in the same mind at different times, and
in different minds.
It is proper to add, that the class-name is not
solely a mark of the distinguishing class-attributes, it is a mark also of the
objects. The name man does not merely signify the qualities of animal life,
rationality, and the human form, it signifies all individual men. It even
signifies these in a more direct way than it signifies the attributes, for it
is predicated of the men, but not predicated of the attributes; just as the
proper name of an individual man is predicated of him. We say, This is a man,
just as we say, This is John Thompson: and if John Thompson is the name of one
man, Man is, in the same manner, a name of all men. A class name, being thus a
name of the various objects composing the class, signifies two distinct things,
in two different modes of signification. It signifies the individual objects
which are the class, and it signifies
the common attributes which constitute the class. It is predicated only of the
objects; but when predicated, it conveys the information that these objects
possess those attributes. Every concrete class-name is thus a connotative name.
It marks both the objects and their common attributes, or rather, that portion
of their com moo attributes in virtue of which they have been made into a
class. It denotes the objects, and,
in a mode of speech lately revived from the old logicians, it connotes the attributes. The author of
the Analysis employs the word connote in a different manner; we shall presently
examine which of the two is best.
We are now ready to consider whether the author’s
account of the ideas connected with General Names is a true and sufficient one.
It is best expressed in his own words. “The word Man, we shall say, is first
applied to an individual; it is first associated with the idea of that
individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him; it is next applied
to another individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him; so
of another, and another, till it has become associated with an indefinite
number, and has acquired the power of calling up an indefinite number of those
ideas indifferently. What happens? It does call up an indefinite number of the
ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs, and calling them up in close
connexion, it forms them into a species of complex idea.... When the word man calls
up the ideas of an indefinite number of individuals, not only of all those to
whom I have individually given the name, but of all those to whom I have in
imagination given it, or imagine it will ever be given, and forms all those
ideas into one, it is evidently a very complex idea, and therefore indistinct;
and this indistinctness has doubtless been the main cause of the mystery which
has appeared to belong to it That this however is the process, is an inevitable
result of the laws of association.”
In brief, my idea of a Man is a complex idea
compounded of the ideas of all the men I have ever known and of all those I
have ever imagined, knit together into a kind of unit by a close association.
The author’s description of the manner in which the
class-association begins to be formed, is true and instructive; but does any
one s idea of a man actually include all that the author finds in it? By an
inevitable result of the laws of association, it is impossible to form an idea
of a man in the abstract; the class-attributes are always represented in the
mind as part of an image of an individual, either remembered or imagined; this
individual may vary from time to time, and several images of individuals may
present themselves either alternatively or in succession: but is it necessary
that the name should recall images of all the men I ever knew or imagined, or
even all of whom I retain a remembrance? In no person who has seen or known
many men, can this be the case. Apart from the ideas of the common attributes,
the other ideas whether of attributes or of individual men, which enter into
the complex idea, are indefinitely variable not only in kind but in quantity.
Some people s complex idea of the class is extremely meagre, that of others
very ample. Sometimes we know a class only from its definition, i.e. from an
enumeration of its class-attributes, as in the case of an object which we have
only read of in scientific books: in such a case the idea raised by the
class-name will not be limited to the class-attributes, for we are unable to
conceive any object otherwise than clothed with miscellaneous attributes: but
these, not being derived from experience of the objects, may be such as the
objects never had, nor could have; while nevertheless the class, and the
class-name, answer their proper purpose; they cause us to group together all
the things possessing the class-attributes, and they inform us that we may
expect those attributes in anything of which that name is predicated.
The defect, as it seems to me, of the view taken of
General Names in the text, is that it ignores this distinction between the
meaning of a general name, and the remainder of the idea which the general name
calls up. That remainder is uncertain, variable, scanty in some cases, copious
in others, and connected with the name by a very slight tie of association,
continually overcome by counter-associations. The only part of the complex idea
that is permanent in the same mind, or common to several minds, consists of the
distinctive attributes marked by the class-name. Nothing else is universally
present, though something else is always present: but whatever else be present,
it is through these only that the class-name does its work, and effects the end
of its existence. We need not therefore be surprised that these attributes,
being all that is of importance in the complex idea, should for a long time
have been supposed to be all that is contained in it. The truest doctrine which
can be laid down on the subject seems to be this that the idea corresponding to
a class-name is the idea of a certain constant combination of class attributes,
accompanied by a miscellaneous and indefinitely variable collection of ideas of
individual objects belonging to the class. Ed.]
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