Logic : or the Analytic of Explicit Reasoning (1901)

3

.0

^^-

0^ o o

^^

\

**

such terms as

names

**

justice,''

the state,*'

of the several colors,

the

death,

disease,

where the things denoted are not actually existing things, but mere concepts of qualities or attributes of things objectified by the mind. etc.

;

Concept," Thought" Defined. 30.

§

**

cept^'"

**

or ''notion,''

or

'*

—

Notion," The term

''thought''

and ''con-

(in

this

connection we may use either indifferently) is a relative term implying or connoting, in its strict or proper sense, an individual thinking

mind

which it is the product; and hence the term will have a different meaning according to the correlative to which it refers. It must therefore have many different senses; of which two must be especially distinguished. of

proper sense it denotes simply a certain affection of the mind of the individual; and In

its

in this sense, obviously,

evanescent,

momentary and

is

it

— like the snow falling on the

described by the poet, as

*'

ae

moment

river,

white,

between the notion expressed and the though in reality they are the same but

direct correspondence quasi'\}(\\w^ signified,

there

is

an indirect

real

;

correspondence between the notion of

redness and the red things of which

it is

a quality.

LOGIC

36

•

then gone forever." For though, it is said, the thought recurs to us, it is not, nor can it be, the same thought, but is merely a copy or image of it. So, when a thought as it is said

— recurs to

—

us,

it is

always, or at least almost

always, suggested to us by the word in which it is

embodied

;

and, as to us, so also to others.

But Logic does not have to deal with the momentary, fleeting thought of the individual, but with the thought only that is continuously, or we may say permanently reproduced, and communicated by one to another; that has become incarnate in words, and is thus, even when lost from the mind, at once preserved, and continuously suggested, or brought back Hence, to the consciousness of each and all. terms, notion, concept, and in Logic, the thought,

are

be regarded

to

as

used

in

a

secondary or derived sense, as denoting the common notions, concepts, and thoughts of mankind embodied in words. Hence the things or significates denoted by abstract and other universal terms have in fact a kind of existence outside of any and all individual minds; which, as opposed to substantial, may be called /. e,, they exist in the word /^^/(;