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The Elements of logic: Theoretical and Practical
The Elements of logic Theoretical and Practical Author:James Hervey Hyslop Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: munication of knowledge, and to give stability and fixity to the various products of mental activity. Some have even considered names and naming the most importa... more »nt aspects of Logic. Into this controversy it is not necessary to enter either on one side or the other. We may be content with one or two remarks about the nature of language and its service to thought. Language is the symbol of ideas, or consists of the signs by which we can indicate the resemblances and differences between concepts. By it the infinite number of Individuals and classes can, to some extent, be tabulated or indexed for use. Without it, perhaps, we should not be able to develop our thinking processes above the grade of animal intelligence. With it we can name an idea so as to keep it by itself, if required, or conceive and speak of a class of ideas, if need be. The same word even may have a double denotation, as we have seen in general concepts denoting either individual or class- wholes. In this way a word may indicate the quality that separates the concept or object named by it from others, or it may apply equally to all members of the class. " Man " may imply or represent the quality or qualities which separate him from a " lion," an " eagle," or all other objects. At the same time it will denote the qualities by which the term may be employed to indicate all individual men. Thus economy of language is obtained, on the one hand, and clearness of conception on the other. But the general service of language is illustrated in the simple fact that where any ambiguity is associated with a single term, our intellectual confusion is completely overcome by the use of two or more terms which may specify the distinct qualities confounded under a single term. The denomination of concepts, therefore, is an important...« less