But need we infer because abstract terms are singular that therefore they have no intension and are mere meaningless marks? Commonly as this inference is made, it seems to me clearly mistaken. It seems, in fact, to rest upon the vague and ill-defined principle that an attribute can have no attributes of its own. That it is false is shown, I think, by the simple reflection that scientific definitions are one and all statements as to the meaning of abstract names of attributes and relations. For example, the definition of a circle is a statement as to the meaning of circularity, the legal definition of responsible persons a statement as to the meaning of the abstraction "responsibility," and so on. (We only evade the point if we argue that abstract terms when used as the subjects of propositions are really being employed concretely. For "cruelty is odious," for instance, does not merely mean that cruel acts are odious acts, but that they are odious _because_ they are cruel.) In fact, the doctrine that abstract terms have no intension would seem, if thought out, to lead to the view that there are only classes of individuals, but no classes of classes. Thus to say "cruel acts are odious because cruel" implies, not only that I can form the concept of a class of cruel acts, but also that of classes of odious acts of which the class of cruel acts in its turn is a member. And to admit as much as this is to admit that the class of cruel acts, considered as a member of the class of odious acts, shares the common predicate of odiousness with the other classes of acts composing the higher class. Hence the true account of abstract terms seems to me to be that we have in them another limiting case, a case in which the extension and the intension are coincident. Incidentally, by illustrating the ambiguity of the principle that attributes have no attributes of their own, our discussion seems to indicate the advantage of taking the purely extensional view is opposed to the predicative view of the import of propositions as the basis of an elementary treatment of logical doctrine. THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF METAPHYSICS BY ALEXANDER T. ORMOND [Alexander Thomas Ormond, McCosh Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University, since 1897. b. 1847, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Mental Science Fellow, Princeton, 1877-78; Post-grad. Bonn and Berlin, 1884-85; Ph.D. Princeton, 1880; A.B. _ibid._ 1877; LL.D. Miami, 1899. Professor of Philosophy and History, University of Minnesota, 1880-83; Professor of Mental Science and Logic, Princeton University, 1883-97. Member American Philosophical Association, American Psychological Association.] I THE PRELIMINARY QUESTION