First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life

isposition to think of all names as if they represented positive classes. With words just as with numbers and abstract forms there have been definite phases of

ttle necessary step to clear thinking. How large a part numerical and geometrical magic, numerical and geometrical philosophy have played in the history of the mind! And the whole apparatus of language and mental communication is beset with like dangers. The language of the savage is I suppose purely positive; the thing has a name, the name has a thing. This indeed is the tradition of language, and even to-day, we, when we hear a name are predisposed - and sometimes it is a ve

classes and use general terms, and as soon as we do that we fall into immediate danger of unjustifiably increasing the intensio