23 Sept. 1814

Logic

Ch.1. Ontology

Entities real fictitious &c.

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To language then - to language alone it is that fictitious entities owe their existence - their impossible, yet indispensable existence.

In language the words which present themselves, and are employed in the character of names, are, some of them, names of real entities, - others, names of fictitious entities; and to one or other of these classes may all words which are employed in the character of names be referred.

What will, moreover, be seen, is, that the fiction - the mode of representation by which the fictitious entities thus created, in so far as fictitious entities can be created, are dressed up in the garb, and placed upon the level, of real ones, is a contrivance but for which language, or, at any rate, language in any form superior to that of the language of the brute creation, could not have existence.

And now perhaps may be seen the difference between a fictitious entity and a non-entity: or, to speak more strictly, the difference between the import of the two words - a difference such, that when, with propriety and use, the one is, the other cannot be employed.

In the house designated by such a number, (naming it) in such a street, in such a town, lives a being called the Devil, having a head, body, and limbs, like a man's - horns like a goat's - wings like a bat's, and a tail like a monkey's: - Suppose this assertion made, the observation naturally might be, that the Devil, as thus described, is a non-entity. The averment made of it is, that an object of that description really exists. Of that averment, if seriously made, the object or end in view cannot but be to produce in the minds to which communication is thus made, a serious persuasion of the existence of an object conformable to the description thus expressed.

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