object, we intend to assert that the object affects us in a manner similar to that in which we are affected by a known class of objects. A quality, indeed, in the custom of language, does not admit of individuality: it is supposed to be one thing common to many; which, being explained, means that it is the name of a resemblance among our sensations, and not a name of the individual sensations which resemble. Qualities, therefore, cannot be predicated without general names; nor, consequently, without classification. Wherever there is a general name there is a class: classification, and general names, are things exactly coextensive. It thus appears that, without classification, language would not fulfil its most important function. Had we no names but those of individuals, the names might serve as marks to bring those individuals to mind, but would not enable us to make a single assertion respecting them, except that one individual is not another. Not a particle of the knowledge we have of them could be expressed in words.--_Ed._] {261} It was impossible that this process should not be involved in obscurity, and liable to great {262} misapprehension, so long as the manner, in which words become significant, was unexplained. After this knowledge was imparted, and pretty generally diffused, the value of it seemed for a long time to be little understood. Words become significant purely by association. A word is pronounced in conjunction with an idea; it is pronounced again and again; and, by degrees, the idea and the word become so associated, that the one can never occur without the other. To take first the example of an individual object. The word, St. Paul's, has been so often named in conjunction with the idea of a particular building, that the word, St. Paul's, never occurs without calling up the idea of the building, nor the idea of the building without calling up the name, St. Paul's. The effect of association is similarly exemplified in connecting the visible mark with the audible. Children learn first to speak. They learn next to read. In learning to speak, they associate the audible mark with their sensations and ideas; the sound tree is associated with the sight of the tree, or the idea of the tree. In learning to read, a new association has to be formed. The _written word_ is a _visible_ sign of the _audible_ sign. What reading accomplishes, by degrees, is, to associate the visible sign so closely with the audible, that at the same instant with the sight of the word the sound of it, and with the sound of it the sense, occurs. After the explanations which have been already {263} given, no difficulty can remain about the manner in which names come to signify the _individuals_ of which they are appointed to be the marks.