A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II
John Stuart Mill · en
This is not difficult in the case of new names; of the technical terms
created by scientific inquirers for the purposes of science or art. But
when a name is in common use, the difficulty is greater; the problem in
this case not being that of choosing a convenient connotation for the
name, but of ascertaining and fixing the connotation with which it is
already used. That this can ever be a matter of doubt, is a sort of
paradox. But the vulgar (including in that term all who have not
accurate habits of thought) seldom know exactly what assertion they
intend to make, what common property they mean to express, when they
apply the same name to a number of different things. All which the name
expresses with them, when they predicate it of an object, is a confused
feeling of resemblance between that object and some of the other things
which they have been accustomed to denote by the name. They have applied
the name Stone to various objects previously seen; they see a new
object, which appears to them somewhat like the former, and they call it
a stone, without asking themselves in what respect it is like, or what
mode or degree of resemblance the best authorities, or even they
themselves, require as a warrant for using the name. This rough general
impression of resemblance is, however, made up of particular
circumstances of resemblance; and into these it is the business of the
logician to analyse it; to ascertain what points of resemblance among
the different things commonly called by the name, have produced in the
common mind this vague feeling of likeness; have given to the things the
similarity of aspect, which has made them a class, and has caused the
same name to be bestowed upon them.