particulars, but are ambiguous: it is only by the context or the circumstances that we know what particulars they stand for. The word “now” stands for a particular, namely the present moment; but like pronouns, it stands for an ambiguous particular, because the present is always changing.
It will be seen that no sentence can be made up without at least one word which denotes a universal. The nearest approach would be some such statement as “I like this.” But even here the word “like” denotes a universal, for I may like other things, and other people may like things. Thus all truths involve universals, and all knowledge of truths involves acquaintance with universals.
Seeing that nearly all the words to be found in the dictionary stand for universals, it is strange that hardly anybody except students of philosophy ever realizes that there are such entities as universals. We do not naturally dwell upon those words in a sentence which do not stand for particulars; and if we are forced to dwell upon a word which stands for a universal, we naturally think of it as standing for some one of the particulars that come under the universal. When, for example, we hear the sentence, “Charles I ’s head was cut off,” we may naturally enough think of Charles I , of Charles I ’s head, and of the operation of cutting off his head, which are all particulars; but we do not naturally dwell upon what is meant by the word “head” or the word “cut,” which is a universal: We feel such words to be incomplete and insubstantial; they seem to demand a context before anything can be done with them. Hence we succeed in avoiding all notice of universals as such, until the study of philosophy forces them upon our attention.
Even among philosophers, we may say, broadly, that only those universals which are named by adjectives or substantives have been much or often recognized, while those named by verbs and prepositions have been usually overlooked. This omission has had a very great effect upon