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

1/8
DEFINITION.
the formula which we ultimately adopt ;
it consists
chiefly in the greater clearness and fulness in which the
characteristics of the matter to which the formula re
fers have been brought before the mind in the process
of seeking for it. While we are apparently aiming at
definitions of terms, our attention should be really fixed
on distinctions and relations of fact. These latter are
what we are concerned to know, contemplate,
and as
far as possible arrange and systematise ; and in subjects
where we cannot present them to the mind in ordinary
fulness by the exercise of the organs of sense, there is
no way of surveying them so convenient as that of re
flecting on our use of common terms" (H. Sidgwick,
Political Economy , p. 49).
The definitions which we are able to give, in every
department of thought and investigation, depend on
the general state of knowledge to which we have
attained, and even in the case of words whose
meaning refers mainly to practical life on the general
state of civilisation. We should no longer, with Plato,
give as a model of definition
" The sun is the brightest
of the heavenly bodies which move round the
"
earth
and we find, again, that words like "school," "house,"
"
monarchy," have to-day meanings very
different from
those which they bore in the past. For a like reason,
to criticise or estimate any definition requires special
knowledge of the subject-matter to which it belongs.
And when we speak of completely satisfactory definitions
of the objects of our experience, we are really asking
for the final results of exhaustive scientific inquiry
carried to its furthest limits. The student will see
that, while in 4 and 5 we spoke of the definitions
which could serve as the beginning of science, we
are now speaking of that type of definition which is
;