European languages, the German; while even that is inferior to the Greek, in which the relation between the meaning of a derivative word and that of its primitive is in general clearly marked by its mode of formation, except in the case of words compounded with prepositions, which are often, in both those languages, extremely anomalous.
But all that can be done, by the mode of constructing words, to prevent them from degenerating into sounds passing through the mind without any distinct apprehension of what they signify, is far too little for the necessity of the case. Words, however well constructed originally, are always tending, like coins, to have their inscription worn off by passing from hand to hand; and the only possible mode of reviving it is to be ever stamping it afresh, by living in the habitual contemplation of the phenomena themselves, and not resting in our familiarity with the words that express them. If any one, having possessed himself of the laws of phenomena as recorded in words, whether delivered to him originally by others, or even found out by himself, is content from thenceforth to live among these formulæ, to think exclusively of them, and of applying them to cases as they arise, without keeping up his acquaintance with the realities from which these laws were collected--not only will he continually fail in his practical efforts, because he will apply his formulæ without duly considering whether, in this case and in that, other laws of nature do not modify or supersede them; but the formulæ themselves will progressively lose their meaning to him, and he will cease at last even to be capable of recognizing with certainty whether a case falls within the contemplation of his formula or not. It is, in short, as necessary, on all subjects not mathematical, that the things on which we reason should be conceived by us in the concrete, and "clothed in circumstances," as it is in algebra that we should keep all individualizing peculiarities sedulously out of view.
With this remark we close our observations on the Philosophy of Language.
Chapter VII.
Of Classification, As Subsidiary To Induction.
§ 1. There is, as has been frequently remarked in this work, a
classification of things, which is inseparable from the fact of giving
them general names. Every name which connotes an attribute, divides, by
that very fact, all things whatever into two classes, those which have the
attribute and those which have it not; those of which the name can be
predicated, and those of which it can not. And the division thus made is
not merely a division of such things as actually exist, or are known to
exist, but of all such as may hereafter be discovered, and even of all
which can be imagined.
On this kind of Classification we have nothing to add to what has previously been said. The Classification which requires to be discussed as a separate act of the mind, is altogether different. In the one, the arrangement of objects in groups, and distribution of them into compartments, is a mere incidental effect consequent on the use of names given for another purpose, namely that of simply expressing some of their qualities. In the other, the arrangement and distribution are the main object, and the naming is secondary to, and purposely conforms itself to, instead of governing, that more important operation.
