English lessons for English people . hat are obvious to achild) are so few that in all probability the child would nowhit upon the most obvious of them, whiteness. This process of induction and elimination, though it drawsthe boundaries closer round the thing to be defined, doesnot completely define it in the case above mentioned and inmany other cases. A4B4C4D4 includes whiteness, but it alsoincludes visibility, tangibility, and other qualities common tosugar, salt, snow, and paper. It would have been a finaldefinition if we had said, whiteness is the colour of snow,for that definition would
English lessons for English people . hat are obvious to achild) are so few that in all probability the child would nowhit upon the most obvious of them, whiteness. This process of induction and elimination, though it drawsthe boundaries closer round the thing to be defined, doesnot completely define it in the case above mentioned and inmany other cases. A4B4C4D4 includes whiteness, but it alsoincludes visibility, tangibility, and other qualities common tosugar, salt, snow, and paper. It would have been a finaldefinition if we had said, whiteness is the colour of snow,for that definition would not have included anything besidewhiteness. 4 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. A definition is a description separating the thingdefined from all other things. 3. How can we attain to a final definition ?—Whenthe thing to be denned belongs to a certain class, we canmention the class, and then the qualities which distinguishit from other things in the same class. This will be a finaldefinition, and may be illustrated by a diagram. Whiteness. belongs to the class of colours. Draw CB to representthe class colour. Whiteness is somewhere or other in C draw another line S W T representing salt and inter-secting C R in W. The point W is definitely fixed by theintersection of the two lines, and it represents the colour ofsalt or whiteness. Caution: A definition, if it be not based upon usage, may bevery useless even though it be correct. Thus, man is acooking animal (even supposing this to be a correct andfinal definition), is by no means so useful a definition asone based upon the intellect or moral sense, or upon someother faculty supposed to be peculiar to man. Suchdefinitions are liable to be not only useless, but all the definitions of children, not being based uponsufficient knowledge, and not being subjected sufficiently to WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 5 the eliminating test, are imperfect. Thus a child mightdefine a cat as a striped quadruped, which would includethe z
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