A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
§ 6. To these four kinds of matter-of-fact or assertion, must be added a
fifth, Resemblance. This was a species of attribute which we found it
impossible to analyse; for which no _fundamentum_, distinct from the
objects themselves, could be assigned. Besides propositions which assert
a sequence or co-existence between two phenomena, there are therefore
also propositions which assert resemblance between them: as, This colour
is like that colour;--The heat of to-day is _equal_ to the heat of
yesterday. It is true that such an assertion might with some
plausibility be brought within the description of an affirmation of
sequence, by considering it as an assertion that the simultaneous
contemplation of the two colours is _followed_ by a specific feeling
termed the feeling of resemblance. But there would be nothing gained by
encumbering ourselves, especially in this place, with a generalization
which may be looked upon as strained. Logic does not undertake to
analyse mental facts into their ultimate elements. Resemblance between
two phenomena is more intelligible in itself than any explanation could
make it, and under any classification must remain specifically distinct
from the ordinary cases of sequence and co-existence.
It is sometimes said, that all propositions whatever, of which the
predicate is a general name, do, in point of fact, affirm or deny
resemblance. All such propositions affirm that a thing belongs to a
class; but things being classed together according to their resemblance,
everything is of course classed with the things which it is supposed to
resemble most; and thence, it may be said, when we affirm that Gold is a
metal, or that Socrates is a man, the affirmation intended is, that
gold resembles other metals, and Socrates other men, more nearly than
they resemble the objects contained in any other of the classes
co-ordinate with these.