CHAPTER XIV.

SOME NAMES WHICH REQUIRE A PARTICULAR EXPLANATION.

“Quam difficile sit inveteratas, eloquentissimorumque scriptorum authoritate confirmatas, opiniones, mentibus hominum excutere, non ignoro. Præsertim cum philosophia vera (id est accurata) orationis non modo fucum, sed etiam omnia fere ornamenta ex professo rejiciat: cumque scientiæ omnis fundamenta prima non modo speciosa non sint, sed etiam humilia, arida, et pene deformia videantur.”—Hobbes Comput. sive Logica, cap. i. s. I.

WE have now seen that, in what we call the mental world, Consciousness, there are three grand classes of phenomena, the most familiar of all the facts with which we are acquainted,—SENSATIONS, IDEAS, and the TRAIN OF IDEAS. We have examined a number of the more complicated cases of Consciousness; and have found that they all resolve themselves into the three simple elements, thus enumerated. We also found it necessary to shew, for what ends, and in what manner, marks were contrived of sensations and ideas, and by what combinations they were made to represent, 2 expeditiously, trains of those states of consciousness. Some marks or names, however, could not be explained, till some of the more complicated states of consciousness were unfolded; these also are names so important, and so peculiar in their mode of signification, that a very complete understanding of them is required. It is to the consideration of these remarkable cases of Naming that we now proceed.1

1 Under the modest title of an explanation of the meaning of several names, this chapter presents us with a series of discussions of some of the deepest and most intricate questions in all metaphysics. Like Plato, the author introduces his analysis of the most obscure among the complex general conceptions of the human mind, in the form of an enquiry into the meaning of their names. The title of the chapter gives a very inadequate notion of the difficulty and importance of the speculations contained in it, and which make it, perhaps, the profoundest chapter of the book. It is almost as if a treatise on chemistry were described as an explanation of the names air, water, potass, sulphuric acid, &c.—Ed.