the mind of the individual. For although the object of logic is to
examine thought pure and simple, it is obviously impossible to discuss
it except as clothed in language. Accordingly the three statements
above made may be expressed as follows--

The term is the result of comparing attributes.
The proposition is the result of comparing terms.
The inference is the result of comparing propositions.

42. There is an advantage attending the change of language in the
fact that the word 'concept' is not an adequate expression for the
first of the three products of thought, whereas the word 'term' is. By
a concept is meant a general notion, or the idea of a class, which
corresponds only to a common term. Now not only are common terms the
results of comparison, but singular terms, or the names of
individuals, are so too.

43. The earliest result of thought is the recognition of an
individual object as such, that is to say as distinguished and marked
off from the mass of its surroundings. No doubt the first impression
produced Upon the nascent intelligence of an infant is that of a
confused whole. It requires much exercise of thought to distinguish
this whole into its parts. The completeness of the recognition of an
individual object is announced by attaching a name to it. Hence even
an individual name, or singular term, implies thought or
comparison. Before the _child_ can attach a meaning to the word
'_mother_,' which to it is a singular term, it must have
distinguished between the set of impressions produced in it by one
object from those which are produced in it by others. Thus, when
Vergil says