Chapter XXIV: Section I: Names of Names (1)

It is of great importance to distinguish this class of terms; to understand well the function which they perform, and to mark the subdivisions into which they are formed. There is not, however, such difficulty in the subject as to require great minuteness in the exposition.

As we have occasion to speak of _things_; animals, vegetables, minerals; so we have occasion to speak of the _marks_, which we are under the necessity of using, in order to record or to communicate our thoughts respecting them. We cannot record or communicate our thoughts respecting names, as man, tree, horse, to walk, to fly, to eat, to converse, without marks for them. We proceed in the case of names, as we do in other cases. We form them into classes, some more, some less, comprehensive, and give a name to each.

We have one name, so general as to include them all; Word. That is not a name of any _thing_. It is a name of the marks which we employ for discourse; and a name of them all. _John_ is a word, _mountain_ is a word, _to run_ is a word, _above_ is a word, and so on.

They are divided into classes, differently for different purposes. The grammarian, who regards chiefly the concatenation of words in sentences, divides them into _noun_, _adjective_, _pronoun_, _verb_, _adverb_, _preposition_, {4} _conjunction_; these words are none of them names of things. _Noun_ is not a name of a "thing;" it is a name of a "class of words," as John, James, man, ox, tree, water, love, hatred; the same is the case with adjective, verb, and so of the rest.

The philosopher makes another division of them, adapted to his purposes, which has a more particular reference to their mode of signification. Thus, he divides them into universal, and particular; concrete, and abstract; positive, and negative; equivocal, and univocal; relative, and absolute; and so on.

It is very easy to see that the word "universal," for example, is not a name of a _thing_. Things are all individual, not general. The _name_, "man," is a "universal," because it applies to every individual of a class; for the same reason the _name_ "ox," the _name_ "horse," the _name_ "dog," and so on, are universals. The words, "genus" and "species" are synonymous with "universal;" of course they also are names of names. Such is the word "number." "One," "two," "one hundred," "one thousand," are "numbers;" in other words, "number" is a general name for each and all of those other names.

Beside our names for names singly, we have occasion to name combinations of names. Thus we have the name "predication." This is a name for the combination of three words, "subject," "predicate," and "copula." We have the name "sentence," which never can be less, implicitly or explicitly, than a predication, but is often more. The same is the account of the word "definition." We have the names "speech," "oration," "sermon," "conversation," all of them names for a series of sentences. We have {5} also names of written discourse, such as a "volume," a "book," a "chapter," a "section," a "paragraph."[2]

[Editor's footnote 2: A right understanding of the words which are names of names, is of great importance in philosophy. The tendency was always strong to believe that whatever receives a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own; and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of sense. The meaning of all general, and especially of all abstract terms, became in this way enveloped in a mystical haze; and none of these have been more generally misunderstood, or have been a more copious source of futile and bewildering speculation, than some of the words which are names of names. Genus, Species, Universal, were long supposed to be designations of sublime hyperphysical realities; number, instead of a general name of all numerals, was supposed to be the name, if not of a concrete thing, at least of a single property or attribute.

This class of names was well understood and correctly characterized by Hobbes, of whose philosophy the distinction between names of names and of things was a cardinal point.--_Ed._]

{6} SECTION II.

RELATIVE TERMS.

The explanation of Relative Terms will run to a considerable length. The mode in which they are employed as marks is peculiar; and has suggested the belief of something very mysterious in that which is marked by them. It is therefore necessary to be minute in exhibiting the combinations of ideas of which they are the names.

One peculiarity of Relative Terms, which it is necessary for us to begin with noticing, is, that they always exist in pairs. There is no relative without its correlate, either actual or implied. Thus, we have _Father_ and _Son_; _Husband_ and _Wife_; _Master_ and_ Servant_; _Subject_ and _King_; also _High_ and _Low_; _Right_ and _Left_; _Antecedent_ and _Consequent_.

In these cases of relative pairs, the two names are two different words; in other cases, one word serves for both names. Of this sort are the words _Brother_, _Sister_, _Cousin_, _Friend_, _Like_, _Equal_, and so on. When we say that John is brother, we always mean of some one else, as James, whom we also call brother. We call Jane the sister of Ann, as we call Ann the sister of Jane. When we say that A is equal to B, we signify, by the same expression, that B is equal to A; and so on.

It is always to be remembered, that, in speaking, we are only indicating our own trains; and that of {7} course every word in a mark of some part of a train. The parts of our trains to which we give relative names, are either simple, or complex. The simple, are either the simple sensations, or the ideas of those sensations. The complex, are either those clusters of simple ideas which we call the ideas of objects, because they correspond with clustered sensations; or they are the clusters which the mind puts together arbitrarily for its own purposes.

If it is asked, why we give names in pairs? The general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because the things named present themselves in pairs; that is, are joined by association. But as many things are joined in pairs by association, which do not receive relative names, the cause may still be inquired of the classification. What is the reason that some pairs do, while many more do not, receive relative names? The cause is the same by which we are guided in imposing other names. As the various combinations of ideas are far too numerous for naming, and we are obliged to make a selection, we name those which we find it of most importance to have named, omitting the rest. It is a question of convenience, solved by experience. It will be seen more distinctly hereafter that relative names are one of the contrivances for epitomising; and that they enable us to express ourselves with fewer words than we should be able to do without them.[3]

[Editor's footnote 3: No part of the Analysis is more valuable than the simple explanation here given of a subject which has seemed so mysterious to some of the most enlightened and penetrating philosophers, down even to the present time. The only difference between relative names and any others consist in their being given in pairs; and the reason of their being given in pairs is not the existence between two things, of a mystical bond called a Relation, and supposed to have a kind of shadowy and abstract reality, but a very simple peculiarity in the concrete fact which the two names are intended to mark.

In order to make quite clear the nature of this peculiarity, it will be desirable to advert once more to the double mode of signification of concrete general names, viz. that while they denote (or are names of) objects, they connote some fact relating to those objects. The fact connoted by any name, relative or not, is always of the same nature; it is some bodily or mental feeling, or some set of bodily or mental feelings, accompanying or produced by the object. But in the case of the ordinary names of objects, this fact concerns one object only, or rather only that one object and the sentient mind. The peculiarity in the case of relative names is, that the fact connoted concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of them both. It is a phenomenon in which two objects play a part. There is no greater mystery in a phenomenon which concerns two objects, than in a phenomenon which concerns only one. For example; the fact connoted by the word cause, is a fact in which the thing which is the cause, is implicated along with another thing which is the effect. The facts connoted by the word parent, and also by the word son or daughter, are a long series of phenomena of which both the parent and the child are parts; and the series of phenomena would not be that which the name parent expresses, unless the child formed a part of it, nor would it be that which the name son or daughter expresses, unless the parent formed a part of it. Now, when in a series of phenomena of any interest to us two objects are implicated, we naturally give names expressive of it to both the objects, and these are relative names. The two correlative names denote two different objects, the cause and the effect, or the parent and son; but though what they denote is different, what they connote is in a certain sense the same: both names connote the same set of facts, considered as giving one name to the one object, another name to the other. This set of facts, which is connoted by both the correlative names, was called by the old logicians the ground of the relation, _fundamentum relationis_. The _fundamentum_ of any relation is the facts, fully set out, which are the reason of giving to two objects two correlative names. In some cases both objects seem to receive the same name; in the relation of likeness, both objects are said to be like; in the relation of equality, both are said to be equal. But even here the duality holds, on a stricter examination: for the first object (A) is not said to be like, absolutely, but to be like the second object (B); the second is not said to be like absolutely, but to be like the first. Now though "like" is only one name, "like A" is not the same name as "like B," so that there is really, in this case also, a pair of names.

From these considerations we see that objects are said to be related, when there is any fact, simple or complex, either apprehended by the senses or otherwise, in which they both figure. Any objects, whether physical or mental, are related, or are in a relation, to one another, in virtue of any complex state of consciousness into which they both enter; even if it be a no more complex state of consciousness than that of merely thinking of them together. And they are related to each other in as many different ways, or in other words, they stand in as many distinct relations to one another, as there are specifically distinct states of consciousness of which they both form parts. As these may be innumerable, the possible relations not only of any one thing with others, but of any one thing with the same other, are infinitely numerous and various. But they may all be reduced to a certain number of general heads of classification, constituting the different kinds of Relation: each of which requires examination apart, to ascertain what, in each case, the state of consciousness, the cluster or train of sensations or thoughts, really is, in which the two objects figure, and which is connoted by the correlative names. This examination the author accordingly undertakes: and thus, under the guise of explaining names, he analyses all the principal cases which the world and the human mind present, of what are called Relations between things.--_Ed._]

{8} I. The only, or at least the principal, occasions, for naming simple sensations, or simple ideas, in pairs, seem to be these:

1 When we take them into simultaneous view, as such and such;

2. When we take them into simultaneous view, as antecedent and consequent.

II. The principal occasions on which we name the complex ideas, called objects, in pairs, are these four:

{9} 1. When we speak of them as having an order in space;

2. When we speak of them as having an order in time;

3. When we speak of them as agreeing or disagreeing in quantity;

4. As agreeing or disagreeing in quality.

III. The occasions on which we name the complex ideas of our own formation in pairs, are,

{10} 1. When we speak of them as composed of the same or different simple ideas;

2. When we speak of them as antecedent and consequent.

Whatever it may be necessary to remark, respecting relative terms, will occur in the consideration of these several cases.

I. 1. We speak of two sensations, as _Same_ or _Different_, _Like_ or _Unlike_.

These words are Relatives of the double signification; each individual of the pair has the same name. When we say that sensation A is the "same" with {11} sensation B, we mean that B also is the "same" with A; "different," "like," and "unlike," have the same double application.

Another ambiguity needs to be noted in the word "same." When there are _two_ things, they are not the _same_ thing; for "same," in the strict sense of the word, means one thing, and that only. Here it means a great degree of likeness, a sense in which, with respect to sensations and ideas, it is very frequently used.

Of two sensations, or two ideas, we, in truth, can only say, that they are like or unlike; or, that the one comes first, the other after it.

It is now necessary to attend very carefully to what happens, when we say that two sensations are like, or that they are unlike.

First of all, we have the two sensations. But what is it to have two sensations? It is merely to be conscious of a change. But to be conscious of a change in sensation, is sensation. It is an essential part of the process. Without it we should not be sentient beings. To have sensation, and not to be conscious of any change, is to have but one sensation continued. We have already seen that this is a state which seems incapable of being distinguished from that of having no sensation. At any rate, what we mean by a sentient being, is not a being with one unvaried sensation, but a being with sensations continually varied; the varying being a necessary part of the having more sensations than one; and the varying, and the being conscious of the variation, being not two things, but one and the same thing. Having _two_ sensations, therefore, is not only having sensation, but the only {12} thing which can, in strictness, be called having sensation; and the having two, and knowing they are two, which are not two things, but one and the same thing, is not only sensation, and nothing else than sensation, but the only thing which can, in strictness, be called sensation. The having a new sensation, and knowing that it is new, are not two things, but one and the same thing.[4]

[Bain's footnote 4: The author is here endeavouring to express the most fundamental fact of the consciousness--the necessity of change, or transition from one state to another in order to our being conscious. He approaches very near to, without exactly touching, the inference that all consciousness, all sensation, all knowledge must be of doubles; the state passed from and the state passed to, are equally recognised by us. Opening the eyes to the light, for the first time, we know a contrast,--a present light, a past privation--but for the one we should not have known the other. Any single thing is unknowable by us; its relative opposite is a part of its very existence.

In a former page it is stated that relative names are one of the conveniences of epitomising. This is a narrow view to take of them. They are an essential part of language; they are demanded by the intrinsic relativity of all nameable things. If we have a thing called "light," we have also another thing but for which light could not be known by us, "dark." It is expedient to have names for both elements of the mutually dependent couple. And so everywhere. Language would be insufficient for its purposes if it did not provide the means of expressing the correlative (called also the negative) of every thing named.--_B._]

The case between sensation and sensation, resembles that between sensation and idea. How do I know that an idea is not a sensation? Who ever thought of asking the question? Is not the having an idea, {13} and the knowing it as an idea, the same thing? The having without the knowing is repugnant. The misfortune is, that the word, know, has associations linked with it, which have nothing to do with this case, but which intrude themselves along with the word, and make a complexity, where otherwise there would be none.

This is a matter which deserves the greatest attention. One of the most unfortunate cases of the illusions, which the close association of ideas with words has produced, is created by ideas clinging to words when they ought to be disjoined from them, and mixing themselves by that means with the ideas under consideration, when they ought to be considered wholly distinct from them. Nothing was of more importance, than that the phenomenon, to which we are just now directing our attention, the very first ingredient in the great mental composition, should be accurately understood, and nothing mixed up with it which did not truly belong to it.

There is no doubt that in one of its senses, knowledge is synonymous with sensation. If I am asked what is my knowledge of pain? I answer, the feeling of it, the having it. The blind man has not the knowledge of colours; the meaning is, he has not the sensations: if deaf also, he is without the knowledge, that is, the sensations, of sounds: suppose him void of all other sensations, you suppose him void of knowledge. In many cases, however, we arrive at knowledge, by certain steps; by something of a process. The word, know, is most frequently applied to those cases. When we know, by mere sensation, we say we see, we hear, and so on; when we know by mere ideas, {14} or rather ideation, if we could use such a word, we say we conceive, we think. The word know, therefore, being almost constantly joined with the idea of a process, it is exceedingly difficult, when we apply it to sensation, not to have the idea of a process at the same time; and thus exceedingly difficult to conceive that sensation, and knowing, in this case, are purely synonymous.

As the knowing I have an idea, is merely having the idea; as the having a sensation, and knowing I have a sensation; the knowing, for example, that I have the pain of the toothache, and the having that pain; are not two things, but one and the same thing; so the having a change of sensation, and knowing I have it, are not two things but one and the same thing.

Having a change, I have occasion to mark that change. The change has taken place in a train of feelings. I call the first part by one name, the last by another, and the marking of the change is effected. Suppose that, without any organ of sense but the eye, my first sensation is red, my next green. The whole process is sensation. Yet the green is not the red. What we call making the distinction, therefore, has taken place, and it is involved in the sensation.

My names, green, and red, thus applied, are absolute names. The one has no reference to the other. Suppose that after green, I have the sensations, blue, yellow, violet, white, black; and that I mark them respectively by these names. These are still absolute names. Each marks a particular sensation, and does nothing more. But, now, suppose that, after my sensations red, green, blue, &c., I have the sensation {15} red again; that I recognise it as like the sensation I had first, and that I have a desire to mark that recognition; it remains to explain what are the steps of this process.

Having the sensation a second time needs no explanation; it is the same thing as having it the first. But what happens in recognising that it is similar to a former sensation?

Beside the _Sensation_, in this case, there is an _Idea_. The idea of the former sensation is called up by, that is, associated with, the new sensation. As having a sensation, and a sensation, and knowing them, that is, distinguishing them, are the same thing; and having an idea, and an idea, is knowing them; so, having an idea and a sensation, and distinguishing the one from the other, are the same thing. But, to know that I have the idea and the sensation, in this case, is not all; I observe, that the sensation is like the idea. What is this observation of likeness? Is it any thing but that distinguishing of one feeling from another, which we have recognised to be the same thing as having two feelings? As change of sensation is sensation; as change, from a sensation to an idea, differs from change to a sensation, in nothing but this, that the second feeling in the latter change is an idea, not a sensation; and as the passing from one feeling to another is distinguishing; the whole difficulty seems to be resolved; for undoubtedly the distinguishing differences and similarities, is the same thing; a similarity being nothing but a slight difference.[5] As {16} change from red to green, and knowing the change, or from a sensation of sight, to one of any other of the senses, the most different, is all sensation; so change from one shade of red to another, is assuredly sensation. Its being a different shade consists in my feeling of it, that is, in my sensation.

[Bain's footnote 5: More properly Similarity is "agreement in difference." Difference or discrimination is one thing, one element of knowledge or cognition; Similarity or agreement in difference is another thing, the second or completing element of knowledge. The two work together in closest intimacy, but they should neither be looked upon as the same fact, nor as merely a various shading of the same fact. Without difference there would be no similarity; but similarity is difference and something more. At their roots or first origins, the two processes lie in almost undistinguishable closeness; but in their developments they run wide apart. No fact or attribute is known, or mentally possessed, without the union of many shocks of difference with many shocks of identity, or agreement in difference.--_B._]

Passing from red to red, red, red, through a succession of distinguishable shades, is one train of pure sensation: passing from red to green, blue, tasting, smelling, hearing, touching, is another train of pure sensation; that these are not the same trains, but different trains, consists in their being felt to be so; they would not be different, but for the feeling: and that a feeling is different, and known to be so, are not two things, but one and the same thing. Having two such trains, I want marks to distinguish them. For this purpose, I invent the words "same," "similar," and their contraries; by means of which, my object is attained. I call the parts of a train, such as the first, "same," or "similar;" those of a train like the last, "different," "dissimilar."

By these relative terms, we name the sensations in pairs. When we say, same, we mean that sensations {17} A, and B, are the same; different, that A, and B, are different; like and unlike, the same. By these words we have four pairs of relative terms.

A. B.
same same
different different
like like
unlike unlike.

The feeling is perfectly analogous in the case of the _ideas_ of those sensations; and the naming is the same. Thus the idea of red, green, and so on, and the ideas of the different shades of red are distinguished from one another by the ideas themselves. To have ideas different and ideas distinguished, are synonymous expressions; different and distinguished, meaning exactly the same thing.

The sensations above mentioned, and their ideas, have the same absolute names: thus, red is at once the name of the sensation, and the name of the idea; green, at once the name of the sensation and the idea; sweet, at once the name of the sensation and the idea. The relative terms, it is obvious, have the same extent of application. Same, different, like, and unlike, are names of pairs of ideas, as well as pairs of sensations.

It seems, therefore, to be made clear, that, in applying to the simple sensations and ideas their absolute names, which are names of classes, as red, green, sweet, bitter; and also applying to them names which denote them in pairs, as such and such; there is nothing whatsoever but having the sensations, having the ideas, and making marks for them.[6]

[Editor's footnote 6: The author commences his survey of Relations with the most universal of them all. Likeness and Unlikeness; and he examines these as subsisting between simple sensations or ideas; for whatever be the true theory of likeness or unlikeness as between the simple elements, the same, in essentials, will serve for the likenesses or unlikenesses of the wholes compounded of them.

Examining, then, what constitutes likeness between two sensations (meaning two exactly similar sensations experienced at different times); he says, that to feel the two sensations to be alike, is one and the same thing with having the two sensations. Their being alike is nothing but their being felt to be alike; their being unlike is nothing but their being felt to be unlike. The feeling of unlikeness is merely that feeling of change, in passing from the one to the other, which makes them two, and without which we should not be conscious of them at all. The feeling of likeness, is the being reminded of the former sensation by the present, that is, having the idea of the former sensation called up by the present, and distinguishing them as sensation and idea.

It does not seem to me that this mode of describing the matter explains anything, or leaves the likenesses and unlikenesses of our simple feelings less an ultimate fact than they were before. All it amounts to is, that likeness and unlikeness are themselves only a matter of feeling: and that when we have two feelings, the feeling of their likeness or unlikeness is inextricably interwoven with the fact of having the feelings. One of the conditions, under which we have feelings, is that they are like and unlike: and in the case of simple feelings, we cannot separate the likeness or unlikeness from the feelings themselves. It is by no means certain, however, that when we have two feelings in immediate succession, the feeling of their likeness is not a third feeling which follows instead of being involved in the two. This question is expressly left open by Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his "Principles of Psychology;" and I am not aware that any philosopher has conclusively resolved it. We do not get rid of any difficulty by calling the feeling of likeness the same thing with the two feelings that are alike: we have equally to postulate likeness and unlikeness as primitive facts--as an inherent distinction among our sensations; and whichever form of phraseology we employ makes no difference in the ulterior developments of psychology. It is of no practical consequence whether we say that a phenomenon is resolved into sensations and ideas, or into sensations, ideas, and their resemblances, since under the one expression as under the other the resemblance must be recognised as an indispensable element in the compound.

When we pass from resemblance between simple sensations and ideas, to resemblance between complex wholes, the process, though not essentially different, is more complicated, for it involves a comparison of part with part, element with element, and therefore a previous discrimination of the elements. When we judge that an external object, compounded of a number of attributes, is like another external object; since they are not, usually, alike in all their attributes, we have to take the two objects into simultaneous consideration in respect to each of their various attributes one after another: their colour, to observe whether that is similar; their size, whether that is similar; their figure, their weight, and so on. It comes at last to a perception of likeness or unlikeness between simple sensations: but we reduce it to this by _attending_ separately to one of the simple sensations forming the one cluster, and to one of those forming the other cluster, and if possible adjusting our organs of sense so as to have these two sensations in immediate juxtaposition: as when we put two objects, of which we wish to compare the colour, side by side, so that our sense of sight may pass directly from one of the two sensations of colour to the other. This act of attention directed successively to single attributes, blunts our feeling of the other attributes of the objects, and enables us to feel the likeness of the single sensations almost as vividly as if we had nothing but these in our mind. Having felt this likeness, we say that the sensations are like, and that the two objects are like in respect of those sensations: and continuing the process we pronounce them to be either like or unlike in each of the other sensations which we receive from them.--_Ed._]

{18} 2. The only other relative terms applicable to simple sensations and ideas, are those which denote them as _Antecedent_ and _Consequent_.

{19} I have sensation red, sensation green. Why I mark them red, and green, or as "different," has already been seen. What happens in marking them {20} as "antecedent" and "consequent" comes next to be considered.

A sensation, the moment it ceases, is gone for ever. When I have two sensations, therefore, A, and B, one first, the other following, sensation A is gone, before sensation B exists. But though _sensation_ A is gone, its idea is not gone. Its idea, called up by association, exists along with sensation B, or the idea of sensation B. My knowing that the idea of sensation A is the idea of sensation A, is my having the idea. Having it, and knowing it, are not two things, but one and the same thing. _Having_ the idea of sensation A, that is, having the idea of the immediate antecedent of sensation B, seems, also, to be the same thing with knowing it as the idea of that antecedent. Having sensation A, and after it sensation B, is mere sensation; and having the idea of sensation A, the immediate antecedent, called up by sensation B, the immediate consequent, is knowing it for that antecedent. The links of the train are three; 1, sensation A; 2, sensation B; 3, the idea of sensation A, in a certain order with B, called up by sensation B; and after this, NAMING.

The case appears mysterious, solely, from the want of words to express it clearly; and our confirmed habit of inattention to the process. Suppose, that {21} instead of two sensations, A and B, we have three, A, B, and C, in immediate succession. I recognise A, as the antecedent of B; B, as the antecedent of C. What is the process? The idea of sensation A, is associated with sensation B; and the idea of sensation B, is associated with sensation C. But sensation C, is not associated with the idea of sensation B solely, it is associated also with the idea of sensation A. It is associated, however, differently with the one and the other. It is associated with B immediately; it is associated with A, only through the medium of B; it calls up the idea of B, by its own associating power, and the idea of B, calls up the idea of A. This second state of consciousness is different from the first. The first is that in consequence of which B receives the name "Antecedent," and C the name "Consequent." When two sensations in a train are such, that, if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with it, by its immediate exciting power, and not through any intermediate idea; the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited, is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that idea, is called the consequent.

It is evident that the terms, "antecedent," and "consequent," are not applied in consequence of sensation merely, but in consequence of sensation joined with ideas. The antecedent sensation, which is past, must be revived by the consequent sensation, which is present. It is the peculiarity of this revival which procures it the name. If revived by any other sensation, it would not have that name.

The Clock strikes three. My feelings are, three sensations of hearing, in succession. How do I know {22} them to be three successive sensations? The process in this instance does not seem to be very difficult to trace. The clock strikes one; this is pure sensation. It strikes two; this is a sensation, joined with the idea of the preceding sensation, and the idea of the feeling (also sensation), called change of sensation, or passage from one sensation to another. After two, the clock strikes three; there is, here, sensation, and a double association; the third stroke is sensation; that is associated immediately with the idea of the second, and through the idea of the second, with the idea of the first. It is observable, that these successive associations soon cease to afford distinct ideas; they hardly do so beyond the second stage. When the clock strikes, we may have distinct ideas of the strokes, as far as three, hardly farther; we must then have recourse to NAMING, and call the strokes, four, five, six, and so on: otherwise we should be wholly unable to tell how often the clock had struck.

In the preceding pairs of relative terms, we have found only one name for each pair. Thus, when we say of A and B, that A is similar to B, we say also, that B is similar to A. We have now an instance of a pair of relative terms, consisting not of the same, but of different names. If we call A antecedent, we call B consequent. The first class were called by the ancient logicians, synonymous, the second heteronymous; we may call them more intelligibly, single-worded, and double-worded, relatives.[7]

[Editor's footnote 7: The next relation which the author examines is that of succession, or Antecedent and Consequent. And here again we have one of the universal conditions to which all our feelings or states of consciousness are subject. Whenever we have more feelings than one, we must have them either simultaneously or in succession; and when we are conscious of having them in succession, we cannot in any way separate or isolate the succession from the feelings themselves. The author attempts to carry the analysis somewhat farther. He says that when we have two sensations in the order of antecedent and consequent, the consequent calls up the idea of the antecedent; and that this fact, that a sensation calls up the idea of another sensation directly, and not through an intermediate idea, _constitutes_ that other sensation the antecedent of the sensation which reminds us of it--is not a _consequence_ of the one sensation's having preceded the other, but is literally all we mean by the one sensation's having preceded the other. There seem to be grave objections to this doctrine. In the first place, there is no law of association by which a consequent calls up the idea of its antecedent. The law of successive association is that the antecedent calls up the idea of the consequent, but not conversely; as is seen in the difficulty of repeating backwards even a form of words with which we are very familiar. We get round from the consequent to the antecedent by an indirect process, through the medium of other ideas; or by going back, at each step, to the beginning of the train, and repeating it downwards until we reach that particular link. When a consequent directly recalls its antecedent, it is by synchronous association, when the antecedent happens to have been so prolonged as to coexist with, instead of merely preceding, the consequent.

The next difficulty is, that although the direct recalling of the idea of a past sensation by a present, without any intermediate link, does not take place from consequent to antecedent, it does take place from like to like: a sensation recalls the idea of a past sensation resembling itself, without the intervention of any other idea. The author, however, says, that "when two sensations in a train are such that if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with it by its immediate exciting power, and not through any intermediate idea; the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited, is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that idea is called the consequent." If this therefore were correct, we should give the names of antecedent and consequent not to the sensations which really are so, but to those which recall one another by resemblance.

Thirdly and lastly, to explain antecedence, _i.e._ the succession between two feelings, by saying that one of the two calls up the idea of the other, that is to say, is followed by it, is to explain succession by succession, and antecedence by antecedence. Every explanation of anything by states of our consciousness, includes as part of the explanation a succession between those states; and it is useless attempting to analyse that which comes out as an element in every analysis we are able to make. Antecedence and consequence, as well as likeness and unlikeness, must be postulated as universal conditions of Nature, inherent in all our feelings whether of external or of internal consciousness.--_Ed._]

{23} II. Having shewn what takes place in naming simple SENSATIONS, and simple IDEAS, in pairs, both as {24} such and such, and as antecedent and consequent, we come to the second case of relative terms, that of naming the clusters, called EXTERNAL OBJECTS, in pairs. The principal occasions of doing so we have said are four.

1. When we speak of them, as they exist in the synchronous order, that is, the order in space, we use such relative terms as the following: high, low; east, west; right, left; hind, fore; and so on.

It is necessary to carry along with us a correct idea of what is meant by synchronous order, that is, the order of simultaneous, in contradistinction to that of successive, existence. The synchronous order is much more complex than the successive. The successive {25} order is all, as it were, in one direction. The synchronous is in every possible direction. The following seems to be the best mode of conceiving it.

Take a single particle of matter as a centre. Other particles may be aggregated to it, in the line of every possible radius; and as the radii diverge, and other lines, tending to the centre, may be continually interposed, to any number, particles may be aggregated in those numberless directions. They may also be aggregated in those directions to a less or a greater extent. And they may be aggregated to an equal extent in every direction; or to a greater extent in some of the directions, a less extent in others. In the first case of aggregation they compose a globe; in the last, any other shape.

Every one of the particles in this aggregate, has a certain order; first with respect to the centre particle; next with respect to every other particle. This order is also called, the Position of the particle. In such an aggregate, therefore, the positions are innumerable. It is thence observable, that position is an exceedingly complex idea; for the position of each of those particles is its order with respect to every one of the other innumerable particles; it includes, therefore, innumerable ingredients. Hence it is not wonderful that, while viewed in the lump, it should seem obscure and mysterious.

Of positions, thus numberless, it is a small portion, only that have names. Bulk is a name for an aggregate of particles, greater, or less. Figure is only a modification, or case, of bulk; it is more or fewer particles in such and such directions.

These things being explained, it now remains to {26} shew, of what copies of sensations, peculiarly combined, the complex ideas in question are composed.

The simplest case of position, or synchronous order, is that of two or more particles in one direction. Let us take the particle, conceived as the centre particle, in a preceding supposition, and let us aggregate to it a number of particles, all in the direction of a single radius, one by one. We have first the centre particle, and one other, in juxta-position. This is the simplest case of synchronous order, and this is the simplest of all positions. Let us next aggregate a second particle; we have now the centre particle, and two more. The position of the first of the aggregated particles with respect to the centre particle is contact, or juxta-position; that of the second is not juxta-position, but position at the distance of a particle; the next which is aggregated, is at the distance of two; the next of three particles, and so on, to any extent.

Particles thus aggregated, all in the direction of a single radius from the first, constitute a line of less or greater length, according to the number of aggregated particles.

Line is a word of great importance; because it is by that, chiefly, we express ourselves concerning synchronous order; or frame names for positions. Now it happens, that Line has a duplicity of meaning, most unfortunate, because it has confounded two meanings, which it is of the highest importance to preserve distinct.

We have already remarked the distinction between concrete, and abstract, terms; and explained wherein the difference of their signification consists. We have {27} also observed, that though in very many cases, the concrete term, and the abstract term, are different words, as good and goodness, true and truth, there are many others in which the concrete and abstract terms are the same; and this is the case, unhappily, with the word Truth itself, which is used in the concrete sense, as well as the abstract. Thus we call a proposition, a Truth; in which phrase, the word Truth, means "True Proposition;" and in this sense we talk of eternal truths, meaning, Propositions, always true. "Property," is another word, which is sometimes concrete, sometimes abstract. Thus, a man calls his horse, his field, his house, his property. In such phrases the word is concrete. He also says, he has a property in such and such things. In these phrases, it is abstract.

Of this ambiguity, the word Line is an instance. It is applied as well to what we call a physical line, as to what we call a mathematical line. In the first case, it is a concrete, or connotative term; in the second case, it is an abstract or non-connotative term. Let us then conceive clearly the two meanings. The purest idea of a physical line, is that which we have already formed; the aggregate of particle after particle, in the direction of a radius. When this aggregate of particles in this order is called a line, the word, line, is connotative; it marks or notes the _direction_, but it also marks or connotes the _particles_; it means the particles and the direction both; it is, in short, the _concrete_ term. When it is used as the _abstract_ term, the connotation is left out. It marks the direction without marking the particles.

It is here necessary to call to mind, that abstract {28} terms derive their meaning wholly from their concretes; and that by themselves they have absolutely no meaning at all. I know a green tree, a sweet apple, a hard stone, but greenness without something green, hardness without something hard, are just nothing at all.

The same, in its abstract sense, is the case with line, though we have not words by which we can convey the conception with equal clearness. If we had an abstract term, separate from the concrete, the troublesome association in question would have been less indissoluble, and less deceptive. If we had such a word as Lineness, or Linth, for example, we should have much more easily seen, that our idea is the idea of the physical line; and that linth without a line, as breadth without something broad, length without something long, are just nothing at all.[8]

[Editor's footnote 8: This conception of a geometrical line, as the abstract, of which a physical line is the corresponding concrete, is scarcely satisfactory. An abstract name is the name of an attribute, or property, of the things of which the concrete name is predicated. It is, no doubt, the name of some part, some one or more, of the sensations composing the concrete group, but not of those sensations simply and in themselves; it is the name of those sensations regarded as belonging to some group. Whiteness, the abstract name, is the name of the colour white, considered as the colour of some physical object. Now I do not see that a geometrical line is conceived as an attribute of a physical object. The attribute of objects which comes nearest to the signification of a geometrical line, is their length: but length does not need any name but its own; and the author does not seem to mean that a geometrical line is the same thing as length. He seems to have fallen into the mistake of confounding an abstract with an ideal. The line which is meant in all the theorems of geometry I take to be as truly concrete as a physical line; it denotes an object, but one purely imaginary; a supposititious object, agreeing in all else with a physical line, but differing from it in having no breadth. The properties of this imaginary line of course agree with those of a physical line, except so far as these depend on, or are affected by, breadth. The lines, surfaces, and figures contemplated by geometry are abstract, only in the improper sense of the term, in which it is applied to whatever results from the mental process called Abstraction. They ought to be called ideal. They are physical lines, surfaces, and figures, idealized, that is, supposed hypothetically to be perfectly what they are only imperfectly, and not to be at all what they are in a very slight, and for most purposes wholly unimportant, degree.--_Ed._]

{29} What are, then, the sensations, the ideas of which, in close association, we mark by the word line?

Though it appears to all men that they see position, length, breadth, distance, figure; it is nevertheless true, that what appear, in this manner, to be sensations of the eye, are Ideas, called up by association. This is an important phenomenon, which throws much light upon the darker involutions of human thought.

The sensations, whence are generated our ideas of synchronous order, are from two sources; they are partly the sensations of touch, and partly those of which we have spoken under the name of muscular sensations, the feelings involved in muscular action.[9]

[Bain's footnote 9: In attaining the ideas of synchronous order, which is another name for Space, or the Extended World, sight is a leading instrumentality. It is by sight more than by any other sense that we get somewhat beyond the strict limits of the law of the successiveness of all our perceptions. Although we can _distinctly_ see only a limited spot at one instant, we can couple with this a vague perception of an adjoining superficies. This is an important sign of co-existence, as contrasted with succession, and enters with various other signs into the very complex notion of the author's synchronous order, otherwise called the Simultaneous or Co-existing in Space.--_B._]

{30} A line, we have said, is an order of particles, contiguous one to another, in the direction of a radius from one particle. Let us begin from this one particle, and trace our sensations. One particle may be an object of touch; it may be felt, as we call it, and nothing more; it may, at the same time, give the sensation of resistance, which we have already described as a feeling seated in the muscles, just as sound is a feeling in the ear. Resistance, is force applied to force. What we feel, is the act of the muscle. Without that, no resistance. This state of consciousness is, in reality, what we mark by the name. It is, at the same time, a state of consciousness not a little obscure; because we habitually overlook many of the sensations of which it is composed; because it is, in itself, very complex; and because it is entangled with a number of extraneous associations.

We have already remarked the habit we acquire of not attending to the sensations which are seated in the muscles, of attending only to the occasions of them, and the effects of them; that is, their antecedents, and consequents; overlooking the intermediate sensations. In marking, therefore, or assigning our names, it seems to be rather the occasions and effects, the antecedents and consequents, than the sensations themselves, which are named. The word resistance is thus the name of a very complex {31} idea.[10] It is the name; first, of the feelings which we have when we say we feel resistance; secondly, of the occasions, or antecedents, of those feelings; and, thirdly, of their consequents. The feelings intermediate between the antecedents and consequents, are themselves complex. There are two kinds of sensations included in them; the sensation of touch, and the muscular sensations; and there is something more. When we move a muscle, we Will to move it. This state of consciousness, the Will to move it, is part of the feeling of the motion. What that state of consciousness, called the Will, is, we have not yet explained. At present we speak of it merely as an element in the compound. Of what elements it is itself compounded we shall see hereafter. In the idea of resistance, then, there is the will to move the muscles, the sensations in the muscles, the occasion or antecedent of those feelings, and the effects or consequents of them. And there is the common complexity attending all generical terms, that of their including all possible varieties.

[Bain's footnote 10: Still, when we apply an analysis to the complex facts indicated by the name, we come to a simple as well as ultimate experience, which is correctly signified by the name Resistance. The feeling of muscular energy expended is in all likelihood an absolutely elementary feeling of the mind; and the form of this feeling that is least complicated or mixed up with other sensibilities is what the word Resistance most usually expresses, namely, the dead strain, that is energy without leading to movement, or causing movement in such a slight degree as not to depart from the essential peculiarity of expended force.--_B._]