Still this doubtful stage exists in every hypothesis, though for logical purposes, and to most minds, it exists in a very fugitive way only. When attention has been directed to it, it may be also detected elsewhere in Logic. Take the case, for instance, of the reference of names. Mill gives the examples of the sun, and a battle, as distinguished from the ideas of them which we, or children, may entertain. Here the distinction is plain and obvious enough. But if, on the other hand, we take the case of things whose existence is doubtful or disputed, the difficulty above mentioned begins to show itself. The case of merely extinct things, or such as have not yet come into existence, offers indeed no trouble, since of course actually _present_ existence is not necessary to constitute a fact. The usual distinction may even be retained also in the case of mythical existences. Centaur and Griffin have as universally recognised a significance amongst the poets, painters, and heralds as lion and leopard have. Hence we may claim, even here, that our conceptions shall be 'truthful,' 'consistent with fact,' and so on, by which we mean that they are to be in accordance with universal convention upon such subjects. Necessary and universal accordance is sometimes claimed to be all that is meant by 'objective,' and since universal accordance is attainable in the case of the notoriously fictitious, our fundamental distinction between fact and conception, and our determination that our terms shall refer to what is objective rather than to what is subjective, may with some degree of strain be still conceived to be tenable even here. 5. But when we come to the case of disputed phenomena the difficulty re-emerges. A supposed planet or new mineral, a doubtful fact in history, a disputed theological doctrine, are but a few examples out of many that might be offered. What some persons strenuously assert, others as strenuously deny, and whatever hope there may be of speedy agreement in the case of physical phenomena, experience shows that there is not much prospect of this in the case of those which are moral and historical, to say nothing of theological. So long as those who are in agreement confine their intercourse to themselves, their 'facts' are accepted as such, but as soon as they come to communicate with others all distinction between fact and conception is lost at once, the 'facts' of one party being mere groundless 'conceptions' to their opponents. There is therefore, I think, in these cases a real difficulty in carrying out distinctly and consistently the account which the Materialist logician offers as to the reference of names. It need hardly be pointed out that what thus applies to names or terms applies equally to propositions in which particular or general statements are made involving names.