[58]
To these they
add property and difference. Properties serve to
establish definitions, differences to overthrow them.
A property is that which happens to one particular
object and that alone; speech and laughter for
instance are properties of man. Or it may be something specially belonging to an object, but not to it
alone; heating for instance is a property of fire. The
same thing may also have a number of properties:
light and heat are both properties of fire. Consequently, the omission of any property in a definition
will impair it, but the introduction of a property,
whatever it may be, will not necessarily establish a
definition.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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