An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

DEFINITION. 171
Part II. Definition.
4. In defining a term we state in words the various
qualities comprised in its intension, the content of the
idea which the term identifies. The primary, or rather
the practical, object of Definition is,
"
fixing the "
meaning
of a term for the sake of imparting the idea to another
mind. Hence simple qualities, like the various ele
mentary sensations, "hot," "red," &c., and mental
qualities such as "pleasure," "pain," "emotion,"
"con
sciousness," cannot be defined, in the sense which we
have just indicated. To be known they must be ex
perienced. The same is true of the most general rela
tions of material bodies, such as "time" and "space."
At the opposite extreme, an individual is indefinable ;
the countless peculiarities, of body and mind, which
distinguish any one s personality cannot be grasped in
any group
of universals which could be set forth in
words. This is of course true also of individual
places.
In common life, the fulness of detail which we find
in real things makes it easier to describe than to define.
Description is based on a mental picture, or an im
mediate perception, of which it gives an account ;
Definition is based on a concept. Description appeals
to imagination and memory ; Definition to thought.
The one, however, passes into the other, and it can
hardly
the two.
be said that there is a difference in kind between
We may roughly distinguish different modes of descrip
tion, some of which are nearer to definition than others.
Furthest from strict definition is the "symbolic description"
which is simply artistic vision. It "instinctively seizes the
harmonies of the scene before it and frames it into a speak
ing whole,"
indeed
"
catches the whole before it fixes upon