Note 18 — THE MONIST. (continued 4)

The reviewer of Mr. Dixon’s book has read these remarks on his criticism (The Monist, Vol. II, No. 1, p. 126) and has given them what seems to him full consideration. He confesses that he misunderstood what Mr. Dixon meant by “a direction.” (See the article “Logic as Relation-Lore” to be published in a subsequent number.) In regard to the requirements for a logical definition he must still abide by his former opinion. The need of a definition arises either from the inaccuracy in the application of a term or from a supposed lack of knowledge as to its signification. Hence to use the term itself in its own definition is to import into the definition the same vagueness or ignorance which it is the very office of a definition to correct. When Mr. Dixon says that it is requisite for a logical definition that the defining assertions “must not be independent of the meaning of the term defined,” what is that but to say that the same must be dependent upon that meaning? which, unless the reviewer again misunderstands the author, is to say that we must understand the meaning of the term before we can understand the definition.

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