The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious. John Stuart Mill
About This Quote

The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious. It is easy to see how this error arises in the mind of man. Words do not exist in nature; they are purely conventional ideas which exist in the human mind, and thus when we use words we are using ideas about things.

We create things out of our ideas. Hence when we look at the word 'dog,' we see in our mind's eye a picture of a particular animal, but when we think of the word 'cat,' the picture which comes before our eyes is different. But if we think of 'cat' without any reference to 'dog,' there is no picture at all; so it follows that words are merely symbols or signs, and nothing more.

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