Note note 79 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill
Reading edition
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 proclaimed in the Timæus, Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion, Republic, and other dialogues, to admit of such an acquittal: I also find subtleties quite as perplexing as those of any sophist whom he exposed. Along with these elements, the dialogues undoubtedly present others entirely disparate, much sounder and nobler. I have in another work endeavoured to render a faithful account of the multifarious Platonic aggregate, stamped in all its parts,—whether of negative dialectic, poetical fancy, or ethical dogmatism,—with the unrivalled genius of expression belonging to the author. The misfortune is that his Neo-Platonic successors selected by preference his dreams and visions for their amplifying comment and eulogy, leaving comparatively unnoticed the instructive lessons of 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 nowhere but in the mind itself: for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato’s Parmenides, that these things are nothing but noëmata: these species or ideas are all of them nothing but noëmata, or notions that exist nowhere but in the soul itself.”
Now, neither of these assertions of Cudworth will be found accurate: neither the “determination” which he ascribes to the Platonic Sokrates—nor the censure of “unjust or unskilful” which he attaches to Aristotle. It is indeed true that the opinion here mentioned is enunciated by Sokrates in Plato’s Parmenides. But far from being given as a “determination,” it is enunciated only to be refuted and dropt.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 declaringb 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.
b Plato Parmenid. p. 135, B, C.
I have given an account of this acute but perplexing dialogue, in the twenty-fifth chapter of my work on Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates.
Even in the Parmenides itself, therefore, where Plato accumulates objections against the theory of separate and self-existent Ideas, we still find him reiterating his adherence to it. And when we turn to his other dialogues, Phædrus, Phædon, Symposion, Republic, Kratylus, &c., we see that theory so emphatically proclaimed and so largely illustrated, that I wonder how Cudworth can blame Aristotle for imputing it to him.
It is by Cudworth, probably, that Mr. James Mill has been misled, when he says—p. 249—“At bottom, Aristotle’s εἶδος is the same as with Plato’s ἰδέα, though Aristotle makes a great affair of some very trifling differences, which he creates and sets up between them.”—I have pointed out Cudworth’s mistake, and I maintain that the difference between Plato and Aristotle on this subject was grave and material. The latter denied, what the former affirmed, self-existence and substantiality of the Universal Ideas, apart from and independent of particulars.
Having cited with some comments the extracts from Cudworth and Harris, Mr. James Mill observes, “Under the influence of such notions as these, men were led away from the real object of Classification, which remained, till a late period of metaphysical enquiry, not at all understood. Yet the truth appears by no means difficult to find, if we only observe the steps by which the mind acquires its knowledge, and the exigencies which give occasion to the contrivances to which it resorts” (p. 259).—He then proceeds, clearly and forcibly, to announce his own theory of classification, intended to dispel the mystery with which others have 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 performed. It is the aggregation of an indefinite number of individuals, by their association with a particular name” (p. 268).—“It is Similarity or Resemblance, which, when we have applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another and another till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by the common relation of the aggregate to one and the same name” (p. 271).
Such is the theory of Mr. James Mill. Its great peculiarity is that it neither includes nor alludes to Abstraction. It admits in Classification nothing more than the one common name associated with an aggregate indefinite and indistinct, of similar concrete individuals. I shall now consider the 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 Aristotlec 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 Xenophond 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 inductivee 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.f
c Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.
d Xenophon, Memorab. I., 1—16.
e So Aristotle calls them—λόγους ἑπακτικούς.—Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.
f 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 indispensable to all effective teaching, was to make the pupil a willing learner, by disabusing his mind of the false persuasion of knowledge, and by imparting to him the stimulus arising from a painful consciousness of ignorance.
Such was the remarkable psychological scrutiny instituted by Sokrates on his countrymen, and the verdict which it suggested to him. I have already observed that his great intellectual bent was to ascertain the definition of general terms, and to follow these out to a comprehensive and consistent classification.g 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.
g Xenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV. 6. 1—7—10—15. ὧν ἕνεκα σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῦσιν, τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων, οὐδέποτε ἔληγε.
Now I wish to point out that what Sokrates thus depreciated, is exactly that which this Chapter of the Analysis lays before us as Classification generally. I agree with the Analysis that Classification, up to a certain point, grows out of the principle of Association and the exigencies of the human mind, by steps instructively set forth in that work. But such natural growth reaches no higher standard than that which Sokrates tested and found so lamentably deficient, even among a public of unusual intelligence. It does not deserve the name of a “mighty operation” (bestowed upon it by Mr. James Mill, p. 270). It is a rudimentary procedure, indispensable as a basis on which to build, and sufficing in the main for social communication, when no science or reasoned truth is required: but failing altogether to realise what has been understood by philosophers, from Sokrates downward, as the true and full purpose of Classification. So long as the Class is conceived to be only what the Analysis describes, an indistinct aggregate of resembling individuals denoted by the same name, without clearly understanding wherein the resemblance consists, or what facts and attributes are connoted by the nameh (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.
h The necessity of determining the connotation of the Class-term is distinctly put forward by Sokrates—Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14, 2. λόγῳ ὄντος περὶ ὀνομάτων, ἰφ’ οἱῷ ἔργῳ ἕκαστον εἴη--Ἔχοιμεν ἂν (ἒφἠ) εἰπεῖν, ἐπὶ ποιῷ ποτὲ ἔργῳ ἄνθρωπος ὀψόφαγος καλεῖται; &c., also the remarkable passage IV., 6. 13—15, Plato, Sophistes, p. 218 B. τοὔνομα μόνον ἔχομεν κοινῇ τὸ δὲ ἔργον, ἐφ’ ᾧ καλοῦμεν, &c.
I pass now from Sokrates to Plato. It is true, as we read in the Analysis, (p. 271) that Plato “was so deeply struck with the importance of Classification, that he seems to have regarded it as the sum of all philosophy.” But what Plato thus admired was not the Classification that he found prevalent around him, such as this chapter of the Analysis depicts. Here Plato perfectly agreed with Sokrates. Among his immortal dialogues, several of the very best are devoted to the illustration of the Sokratic point of view: to the cross-examination and exposure of the minds around him, instructed as well as vulgar, in respect to the general terms familiarly used in speech. The Platonic questions and answers are framed to shew how little the respondents understand beneath those current generalities on which every one talks with confidence and fluency—and how little they can avoid contradiction or inconsistency, when their class-terms are confronted with particulars. In fact, Plato goes so far as to intimate that these uncertified classifications,—generated in each man’s mind by merely learning the application of words, and imbibed unconsciously, without special teaching, through the contagion of ordinary society—are rather worse than ignorance: inasmuch as they are accompanied by a false persuasion of knowledge. It would be (in the opinion of Plato) a comparative improvement, if this state of mental confusion, creating a false persuasion of knowledge, were broken up; and if there were substituted in place thereof positive ignorance, together with the naked and painful consciousness of being really ignorant. Only in this way could the mind of the learner be stimulated to active effort in the acquisition of genuine knowledge.i
i 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 Ideasj—and from the study of which no true knowledge could be obtained. Of the two statements in the Analysis—(p. 271) that “Plato never dreamed of the mystical visions of his successors,” and that “his error (respecting Classification) lay in misconceiving the One; which he took, not for the aggregate, but something pervading the aggregate”—neither one nor the other appears to me accurate. In regard to the second of the two, indeed, you may find various passages of Plato which, if construed separately, would countenance it: for Plato does not always talk Realism—nor always consistently with himself. But still his capital and peculiar theory was, Realism. The Platonic One was not something pervading the aggregate of particulars, but an independent and immutable reality, apart from the aggregate: and Plato, when he thus 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.k 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.
j 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, περιακτίον, περιαγωγή, &c. He supposes that the natural state of man is to have his face and vision towards the particular phenomena, and his back towards the universal realities: the great problem is, how to make the man face about, turn his back towards phenomena, and his eyes towards Universals—τὰ ὄντα—τὰ νοητά. Nothing can be learnt from observation however acute, 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.
k According to Plato, it is τὸ ἓν παρὰ τὰ πολλά. According to Aristotle, it is ἓν κατὰ πολλῶν—ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπὶ πλειόνων μὴ ὁμώνυμον ἓν ἐπὶ πολλῶν. Analyt. Poster. I. 11, p. 77, a. 6. Metaphys. I. 9, p. 990, b. 7—13.
Whoever reads the portions of Plato’s dialogues indicated in my last preceding foot note, will see how material this difference is between the two philosophers.
In the remarkable passage of the Analyt. Post. I. 24, p. 85, a. 30, b. 20, Aristotle notices the Platonic hypothesis that the Universal has real objective, separate, existence apart from its particulars (τὸ καθόλου ἐπὶ τι παρὰ τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστα) as an illusion, mischievous and misleading—frequent, but not unavoidable.
See the antithesis between Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of Universals, more copiously explained in the recent work of Professor Bain, Mental and Moral Science, Appendix, pp. 6—20.
When we read in the Analysis (p. 265) that “the 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 Aristotlel 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 affirmedm) did not mean John more than William or Thomas or Richard, &c., therefore it did not mean either one of them: therefore it had no meaning at all. So also William of Ockham is said to have declared that Universal Terms were mere “flatus vocis:” but this (as Prantl has shewnn) was a phrase fastened upon him by his opponents, not employed by himself. Still less can it be admitted that Hobbes and Berkeley conceived the Universal Term as “having no idea at all.” They denied indeed Universal Ideas in the Realistic sense: they also denied what Berkeley calls “determinate abstract Ideas:” but both of them explained (Berkeley especially) that the Universal term meant, any particular idea, considered as representing or standing for all other particular ideas of the same sort.o 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.
l Aristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.
m See Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.
n Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19, p. 327.
o 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 explanation 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.”p
p 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, ᾗ &c. These phrases are frequent both in Plato and Aristotle: the stock of abstract terms was in their day comparatively small. It is needless to multiply illustrations of that which pervades the compositions of both: a very good one appears in Plato, Republ. I., p. 340 D, 341 C, 342.
This process of marking exclusively, and attending to, one constant portion of a complex state of consciousness, amidst 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. Platoq 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.r
q The two Platonic dialogues, Sophistes and Politikus, (in which processes of Classification are worked out,) give precepts, for correct and pertinent classification, not necessarily involving the theory of Realism, but rather putting it out of sight; though in one special part of the Sophistes, the debate is made to turn upon it. The main purpose of Plato is to fix upon some fact or phenomenon, clear and appropriate, as the groundwork for distinguishing each class or sub-class—and to define thereby each class-term (i.e., to determine its connotation, in the sense of Mr. John Stuart Mill). Plato deprecates the mere following out of resemblances as a most slippery proceeding (ὀλισθηρότατον γένος—Sophist. 231 A). The commonly received classes carry with them in his opinion, no real knowledge, but only the false persuasion of knowledge: he wants to break them up and remodel them.
r 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.