The original meaning of this word seems to have been
“boundary,” “landmark.” Then we have it in Plato and Aristotle in the sense of standard or determining principle (“id quo alicuius rei natura constituitur vel definitur,” Index Aristotelicus)1; and closely connected with this is the sense of definition. Aristotle uses both ὅρος and ὁρισμός for definition, the former occurring more frequently in the Topics, the latter in the Metaphysics. Let us now first be clear as to what a definition does not do. There is nothing in connexion with definitions which Aristotle takes more pains to emphasise than that a definition asserts nothing as to the existence or non-existence of the thing defined. It is an answer to the question what a thing is (τί ἐστι). The existence of the various things defined has to be proved, except in the case of a few primary things in each science, the existence of which is indemonstrable and must be assumed among the first principles of each science; e.g. points and lines in geometry must be proved. This is started clearly in the long passage quoted above under First Principles 2. It is reasserted in such passages as the following. “The (answer to the question) what is a man and the fact that a man exists are different thing3.” “It is clear that, even according to the view of definitions now current, those who difine things do not prove that they exist 4.” “We say that is by demonstration that we must show that everything exists, except essence (εἰ μὴ οὐσία εἴη). But the existence of a thing is never essence; for the existent is not a genus. Therefore there must be demonstration that a thing exists. Thus, what is meant by triangle the geometer assumes, but that it exists he has to prove 5.” “Anterior knowlegde of two sorts is necessary: for it is necessary to presuppose, with regard to some things, that they exist; in other cases it is necessaty to understand what the thing described is, and in other cases it is necessary to do both. Thus, with the fact that one of two contradictories must be true, we must know that it exists (is true); of the triangle we must know that it means such and such a thing; of the unit we must know both what it means and that it exists 6.” What is here só much insisted on is the very fact which Mill pointed out in his discussion of earlier views of Definitions, where he says that the so-called real definitions or definitions of things do not constitute a different kind of definition from nominal definitions, or definitions of names; the former is simply the latter plus something else, namely a covert assertion that the thing defined exists. “This covert assertion is not a definition but a postulate. The definition is a mere identical proposition which gives information only about the use of language, and from which no conclusion affecting matters of fact can possibly be drawn. The accompanying postulate, on the other hand, affirms a fact which may 1 Cf. De anima, I. 2, 404 a 9, where “breathing” is spoken of as the ὅρος of “life,” and the many passages in the Politics where the word is used to denote that which gives its special character to the several forms of government (virtue being the ὅρος of aristocracy, wealth of oligarchy, liberty of democracy, 1294 a 10); Plato, Replubic, VIII. 551 C. 2 Anal. post. I. 10, 76 a 31 sqq. 3 ibid. II. 7, 92 b 10. 4 ibid. 92 b 19. 5 ibid. 92 b 12 sqq. 6 ibid. I. I, 71 a 11 sqq. lead to consequences of every degree of importance. It affirms the actual or possible existence of Things possessing the combination of attributes set forth in the definition: and this, if true, may be foundation sufficient on which to build a whole fabric of scientific truth 7.” This statement really adds nothing to Aristotle's doctrine8: it has even the slight disadvantage, due to the use of the word “postulate” to described “the covert assertion” in all cases, of not definitely pointing out that there are cases where existence has to be proved as distinct from those where it must be assumed. It is true that the existence of a definiend may have to be taken for granted provisionally until the time comes for proving it; but, so far as regards any case where existence must be proved sooner or later, the provisional assumption would be for Aristotle, not a postulate, but a hypothesis. In modern times, too, Mill's account of the true distinction between real and nominal definitions had been fully anticipated by Saccheri9, the editor of Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus (1733), famous in the history of non-Euclidean geometry. In his Logica Demonstrativa (to which he also refers in his Euclid) Saccheri lays down the clear distinction between what he calls definitiones quid nominis or nomiles, and definitiones quid rei or reales, namely that the former are only intended to explain the meaning that is to be attached to a given term, whereas the latter, besides declaring the meaning of a word, affirm at the same time the existence of the thing defined or, in geometry, the possibility of constructing it. The definitio quid nominis becomes a definitio quid rei “by means of a postulate, or when we come to the question whether the thing exists and it is answered affirmatively10.” Definitions quid nominis are in themselves quite arbitrary, and neither require nor are capable of proof; they are merely provisional and are only intented to be turned as quickly as possible into definitions quid rei, either (1) by means of a postulate in which it is asserted or conceded that what is definided exists or can be constructed, e.g. in the case of straight lines and circles, to Euclid's first three postulates refer, or (2) by means of a demonstration reducting the construction of the figure defined to the sussecive carrying-out of a certain number of those elementary construction, the
7 Mill's System of Logic, Bk. I. ch. viii.
8 It is true that it was in opposition to “the ideas of most of the Aristotelian logicians” (rather than of Aristotle himself) that Mill laid such stress on his point of view. Cf. his obsevation: “We have already made, and shall often have to repeat, the remark, that the philosophers who overthrew Realism by no means got rid of the consequences of Realism, but retained long afterwards, in their own philosophy, nomerous propositions which could only have a rational meaning as part of a Realistic system. It had been handed down from Aristotle, and probably from earlier times, as an obvious truth, that the science of geometry is deduced from definitions. This, só long as a definition was considered to be a proposition 'unfolding the nature of the thing,' did well enough. But Hobbes followed and rejected utterly the notion that a definition declares the nature of the thing, or does anything but state the meaning of a name; yet he continued to affirm as broadly as any of his predecessors that the ἀρχαί, principia, or original premisses of mathematics, and even of all science, are definition; producing the singular paradox that systems of scientific truth, nay, all truths whatever at which we arrive by reasoning, are deduced from the arbitrary conventions of mankind concerning the signification of words.” Aristotle was guilty of no such paradox; on the contrary, he exposed it as plainly as did Mill. 9 This has been fully brought out in two papers by G. Vailati, La teoria Aristotelica della definizione (Rivista di Filosofia e scienze affini, 1903), and Di un' opera dimenticata del P. Gerolamo Saccheri (“Logica Demonstrativa,” 1697) (in Rivista Filosofica, 1903). 10 “Definitio quid nominis nata est evadere definitio quid rei per postulatum vel dum venitur ad quaestionem an est et respondetur affirmative.” possibility of which is postulated. Thus definitions quid rei are in general obtained as the result of a series of demonstrations. Saccheri gives as an instances the construction of a square in Euclid I. 46. Suppose that it is objected that Euclid had no right to define a square, as he does at the beginning of the Book, when it was not certain that such a figure exists in nature; the objection, he says, could only have force if, before proving and manking the construction, Euclid had assumed the aforesaid figure as given. That Euclid is not guilty of this error is clear from the fact that he never presupposes the existence of the square as defined until after I. 46.