tinctly from oneself, by a voluntary delusion which our better knowledge can at any time set aside; as a fairy, a gorgon, Lilliput. Of ideal things, some are altogether fanciful; but others are more or less accurate representations of real things that are, or have been; as, London, Adam, Leviathan, Babylon. 20. A thing metaphysical is a state of one's thinking self, which state we can make the subject of higher knowledge. It is different both from real and ideal things, though liable to be confounded with them. Thus the metaphysical straight line or circle, the moment it is realized, or imagined, ceases to be metaphysical. Thus, though we can personify Virtue or Pride, we cannot in any other way think of pride or of virtue as having real existence. But we can know what virtue is, and what pride is: that is, we can know a certain state of one's thinking self as having been a state of previous knowledge, -the knowledge that such and such men acted in a certain manner, so as to be approved in the one case,-to offend in a certain way in the other. If indeed we have no such previous knowledge, and yet talk of virtue or of pride, the words are empty names that only serve to conceal ignorance.

21. All words that are parts of speech are signs of things metaphysical. But some of them can be immediately applied as names of things real, or ideal; while others can be applied only as names of things metaphysical. Thus the name John, the name of a familiar friend, although it signifies our knowledge of him abstractly from all the circumstances under which we have known him, can be re-applied to him in connection with any circumstances under which we may know him again. Thus the name man, the name of any one of our species, although it signifies our knowledge of what our species is, abstractly from any one of our species, can be re-applied to any one of that species. But the name virtue or pride cannot be applied to any thing real, or to any thing ideal, except by poetical personification: it can be applied only as the name of previous knowledge, and if we have not the previous knowledge, it is an empty name.

Hence, then, there are names of things real, of things ideal, and of things abstract or metaphysical.

22. In Grammar, it was found useful to borrow from Logic the distinction of names into Names proper, common, and abstract. A proper name is a name immediately applicable

to some one particular real or ideal person or thing; as, John, London, Jupiter, Lilliput. A common name is a name that can be immediately applied to a person or thing, with reference, at the same time, to the class or kind of things to which the person or thing belongs, whether real or ideal; as man, fairy. A name abstract is a name not applicable to a real or ideal person or thing, (except by personification,) but only to a state of knowledge, under which we apprehend something concerning real or ideal persons or things; as virtue, pride. But a name abstract may become a name common if we make it a name for several states of knowledge, Thus, the name virtue may be a common name for the special virtues, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude; or Faith, Hope, Charity.

23. Language is the instrument of reason by which we collect knowledge, so that it shall be ready for re-application to the things known. In order to serve its purpose, language is very flexible; and the logician, in availing himself of the changeable import of a word, has to notice, 1. Its Etymological sense: 2. Its General sense: 3. And its Particular or Applied senses.

24. The etymological sense of a word is its original sense, so far as we are able to trace it. Thus the original sense of To prevent is to go before; the original sense of a villain, is one who lives in a vill or small town; the original meaning of a regiment, is rule or command, or something ruled, or commanded; the original meaning of the word thing, is that concerning which we think.

25. The general sense of a word is that which includes under it all more particular or special senses. Sometimes this coincides with the etymological sense; as regiment when it means every thing that is ruled or commanded, which sense will include the special object, a body of soldiers commanded by a colonel. The general sense of the word man, is that which includes every human being, male and fernale, in every stage of life. The general meaning of animal, is that which includes every organized being that is liable to sensations of pleasure and pain; the general meaning of the word plant, is that which includes every organized being that is destitute of sensation. The general meaning of the word sensation is that which includes every effect, pleasurable, indifferent, or painful, which reaches the brain of an animal by the operation of an

external cause. * The general meaning of the word thing is that which includes every possible subject of our thoughts, real, ideal, and metaphysical; and this general sense coincides with the etymological sense.

26. The special senset of a word, is some limited application deduced or deducible from its general sense. Thus the name man may be specially applied to any human being not a female, nor a boy or infant. Thus the word animal is sometimes applied to a brute animal only. Thus the word regiment while it had a general meaning, was often specially applied to a body of soldiers commanded by a colonel: which special meaning has now become the common meaning, and the general meaning is now almost forgotten.

27. In the use of signs to advance and fix knowledge, it appears that there may occur abstraction, generalization, and specialization.

28. Abstraction is the separation of knowledge from the thing known. It is the beginning of knowledge, there being no such thing as knowledge till abstraction takes place. And abstraction is carried on by the use of language. The word John, may have first meant, John, an infant, lying in his nurse's lap. But when we know John under other circumstances, our knowledge of him is abstract, that is separate from those circumstances and not only is John the sign of abstraction from the particular circumstances, but every other word which helps to form the description of John, is also the sign of abstraction from particular circumstances.

29. Generalization is the process of abstraction by means of a name made common to two individuals, and applied successively to more individuals, till we have included under it all we find useful to include. Thus the word man may have first meant a single individual, and then it was a proper name. It may then have been applied indifferently to two individuals by excluding what was peculiar to each. And so it continued to be applied to three, four, five, &c.; till it became a name for any individual of the human kind.

30. Specialization is the opposite of generalization, and

* That is, external as regards the brain.

+ In Aristotelian logic, any special sense of a word called a second intention.

J. Stuart Mill is the originator of this useful philosophical term.

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properly belongs to deductive logic, because the ordinary way to make a word special, is to join to it words that have that effect. Thus the word man is, made partially special, when we say, a short old man in a brown coat."* But a single word is sometimes made to take a special meaning deduced from a meaning more general; as the word doctor, whose general and etymological meaning, is, a learned man; but which sometimes means, specially, a man to whom the diploma of a degree bearing that name has been given by a university; and sometimes, in common or vulgar use, one who undertakes to cure diseases, whether he has received a university diploma or not. A general word thus made special, is an instrument of inductive logic, as well as all other single words.

SUGGESTIONS FOR AVOIDING, DURING THE INDUCTIVE PRO

CESS, THE DELUSIONS OF THE RHETORICAL SOPHIST.

31. Sophistry is an unfair use of art in Rhetoric, in order, for some partial end, "to make the worse appear the better cause." The delusion, indeed, is not always designed, the rhetorician as frequently cheating himself before he sets about misleading others. But this makes no difference as to the likely prejudicial effect; and our learner has to be warned against this effect, while pursuing (what every one pursues, right or wrong, during his life,)—the logical process by which knowledge is stored up for subsequent development.

32. One common means of delusion, and the first we may mention, because it will be the first against which the logician will be warned in his own deductive use of language, is the use of high-sounding verbiage. He has already been cautioned on this point, particularly in Sections 11 and 12 preceding; but the caution cannot be too often repeated. It is again urged in this place, because, when a point cannot be otherwise carried, the rhetorician often addresses the ignorance of his hearers, offering them sound for sense, the empty parade of learned terms for the substance of learning. Even the substance becomes a snare when used to bewilder the understanding of the hearer or reader, and keep him from

*For the single word is not special in meaning; but it merges its single meaning in the logical noun it helps to construct; and the meaning of this logical noun is special.

inquiring after truth in the true direction.

Thus the quack

makes a parade of medical knowledge, in order that you may take his pill, which has been prepared, he is well aware, quite independently of such knowledge; and thus a rogue, as the novelist shows, displays a single piece of learning, got by rote, whenever he meets with one who is likely to be a new dupe, through the reverence in which we are disposed to hold a learned man.

32. Akin to the means of delusion just mentioned, is the parade of logical forms. This indeed is not so practicable a snare since the formal logic of Aristotle has been less in repute; but that it is still used with effect on some occasions will appear from a few examples in the 10th Section of Chapter V. In the mean time, we have to assure our scholar, that the form in which a piece of reasoning may be couched, is never a security that the reasoning is just, nor a defect in the form an evidence that the reasoning is false. To say that, "All projectors are unfit to be trusted; this man is a projector; therefore he is unfit to be trusted,"-will never convince a sensible thinker, while he admits all habitual projectors to be untrustworthy, that a prudent man who now and then comes forward with a feasible project, is a man unfit to be trusted. And to say, "All wise legislators suit their laws to the genius of their country; Solon did this; therefore he was a wise legislator,"—will not prevent him who reasons by means of words, and not with words, from receiving the reasoning as quite correct, although the Aristotelian form of reasoning fails.* Neither when the argument for the existence of a God from its being universally believed, is met by the instance of a nation destitute of such belief, will our scholar be more, we think he will be much less, in danger than the Aristotelian of allowing the objector to go further than his objection warrants, by asserting, namely, that because the existence of a God is not universally believed, all argument for the existence of a God is set aside. In any case like this, which demands nothing more than efforts of the natural understanding operating by means of words, but not using them in place of thought, to talk to our scholar of being on his guard against

* Both examples will be taken up again in Chapter V., (Sections 9 and 10,) and the true character of their faultiness explained.