A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
such a family: we should hardly say positively that it does belong to
it, unless it possessed unequivocally the properties of which the
class-name is scientifically significant.
There is still another exceptional case, in which, though the predicate
is the name of a class, yet in predicating it we affirm nothing but
resemblance, the class being founded not on resemblance in any given
particular, but on general unanalysable resemblance. The classes in
question are those into which our simple sensations, or other simple
feelings, are divided. Sensations of white, for instance, are classed
together, not because we can take them to pieces, and say they are alike
in this, and not alike in that, but because we feel them to be alike
altogether, though in different degrees. When, therefore, I say, The
colour I saw yesterday was a white colour, or, The sensation I feel is
one of tightness, in both cases the attribute I affirm of the colour or
of the other sensation is mere resemblance--simple _likeness_ to
sensations which I have had before, and which have had those names
bestowed upon them. The names of feelings, like other concrete general
names, are connotative; but they connote a mere resemblance. When
predicated of any individual feeling, the information they convey is
that of its likeness to the other feelings which we have been accustomed
to call by the same name. Thus much may suffice in illustration of the
kind of propositions in which the matter-of-fact asserted (or denied) is
simple Resemblance.
Existence, Coexistence, Sequence, Causation, Resemblance: one or other
of these is asserted (or denied) in every proposition which is not
merely verbal. This five-fold division is an exhaustive classification
of matters-of-fact; of all things that can be believed, or tendered for
belief; of all questions that can be propounded, and all answers that
can be returned to them. Instead of Coexistence and Sequence, we shall
sometimes say, for greater particularity, Order in Place, and Order in
Time: Order in Place being the specific mode of coexistence, not
necessary to be more particularly analysed here; while the mere fact of
coexistence, or simultaneousness, may be classed, together with
Sequence, under the head of Order in Time.