date

10 Aug. 1813 M Logic Language
10 Aug. 1813 M

Logic

Language

'. Copiousness. Conciseness

Tractability

1

Ch. II. Copiousness - Conciseness - Tractibility -

Of language the use and the sole use - being the communication of ideas - in proportion to its copiousness will be the usefulness, and in so far the excellence of every language.

But be the particular language what it will, at no one point of time will it contain within itself a stock of words, such as, without prejudice to the perfection of all these other desirable properties, shall be capable of giving expression to all the ideas for the expression of which a demand is capable of having place at a succeeding point of time. Hence in the property of copiousness, if considered as a constantly existing property or quality, the idea of tractibility is necessarily included.

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    Opposite to copiousness is poverty or scantiness.

    Scantiness may be distinguished into absolute and relative. Absolute is that which has place in so far as for the proposition for which a man has occasion to find expression, no expression can be found by any means; relative, where such expression may indeed be found, but not without prejudice to conciseness, to wit, by the employing, instead of a single-worded term, in the form of a noun-substantive, either a definition or a description, more or less loose and diffuse.

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    In the vocabularies of the several arts, liberal and manual, along with /in addition to/ such as are serviceable, others which, according to the explanation above given to the word, may, with strict propriety, be termed unserviceable, will, in almost every instance, to an amount more or less considerable, be found.

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  • Title: [13 Aug. 1813 Ivy Bridge Logic]
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    Enrichment - Modes of Enrichment.

    In /On the occasion of/ the explanation of the modes in which a language is capable of being enriched, two objects require to be considered, viz. 1. The source from which the addition is derived; 2. The mode in which it is made.

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