Confusion betweew the nominal and the real definition as thus described, i.

e the use of the

former in demonstration before it has been turned into the latter by the necessary proof that the
thing defined exists, is according to Saccheri one of the most fruitful sources of illusory
demonstration, and the danger is greater in proportion to the “complexity” of the definition, i.e. the
number and variety of the attributes belonging to the thing defined. For the greater is the possibility
that there may be among the attibutes some that are incompatible, i.e. the simultaneous presence of
which in a given figure can be proved, by means of other postulates etc. porming part of the basis of
the science, to be impossible.
The same thought is expressed by Leibniz also. “If”, he says, “we given any definition, and
it is not clear from it that the idea, which we ascribe to the thing, is possible, we cannot rely upon
the demonstrations which we have derived from that definition, because, if that idea by chance
involves a constradiction, it is possible that even contradictories may be true of it at one and the
same time, and thus our demonstrations will be useless. Whence it is clear that definitions are not
arbitrary. And this is a secret which is hardly sufficiently know 1.” Leibniz' favourite illustration was
the "regular polyhedron with ten faces," the impossibility of which is not obvious at first sight.
It need hardly be added that, speaking generally, Euclid's definitions, and his use of them,
agree with the doctrine of Aristotle that the definitions themselves say nothing as to the existence of
the things defined, but that the existence of each of them must be proved or (in the case of the
"principles") assumed. In geometry, says Aristotle, the existence of points and lines only must be
assumed, the existence of the rest being proved. Accordingly Euclid's first three postulates declare
the possibility of constructing straight lines and circles (the only "lines" except straight lines used in
the Elements). Other things are defined and afterwards constructed and proved to exist: e.g. in Book
I., Def. 20, it is explained what is meant by an equilateral triangle; then (I.1) it is proposed to
construct it, and, when constructed, it is proved to agree with the definition.When a square is
defined (I.Def. 22), the question whether such a thing really exists is left open until, in I.46, it is
proposed to construct it and, when constructed, it is proved to satisfy the definition 2. Similarly with
the right angle (I.Def. 10, and I.11) and parallels (I.Def. 23, and I.27—29). The greatest care is
taken to exclude mere presumption and imagination. The transition from the subjective definition of
names to the objective definition of things is made, in geometry, by means of constructions (the first
principles of which are postulated), as in other sciences it is made by means of experience3.
Aristotle's requirements in a definition.
We now come to the positive characteristics b y which, according to Aristotle, scientific

1 Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz, Paris, Alcan, 1903, p. 431. Quoted by Vailati.
2 Trendelenburg, Elementa Logices Aristotileae, § 50.
3 Trendelenburg, Erläuterungen zu den Elementen der aristotelischen Logik, 3 ed. P . 107. On construction as proof
of existence in ancient geometry cf. H. G. Zeuthen, Die geometrische Construction als “Existenzbeweis" in der
antiken Geometric (in Mathematische Annalen,47. Band).
definitions must be marked.
First, the different attributes in a definition, when taken separately, cover more than the
notion defined, but the combination of them does n o t Aristotle illustrates this by the "triad," into
which enter the several notions of number, odd and prime, and the last "in both its two senses (a) of
not being measured by any (other) number (ώς μὴ μετρεîσθαι ἀριθμῷ) and (b) of not being
obtainable by adding numbers together (ώς μὴ συγκεîσθαι ὲξ ἀριθμῶν), a unit not being a number.
Of these attributes some are present in all other odd numbers as well, while the last [primeness in
the second sense] belongs also to the dyad, but in nothing but the triad are they all present"4. The
fact can be equally well illustrated from geometry. Thus, e.g. into the definition of a square (Eucl. I.,
Def. 22) there enter the several notions of figure, four-sided, equilateral, and right-angled, each of
which covers more than the notion into which all enter as attributes5.

4 Anal. post. II. 13, 96 a 33—b 1.

5 Trendelenburg, Erläuterungen, p. 108.