a name peculiar to an individual is Cæsar commanded in a particular ⚫ not necessarily of this description. It battle. The still more general exmay be significant of some attribute, pressions, "the Roman army," or or some union of attributes, which, "the Christian army," may be indibeing possessed by no object but one, vidualised in a similar manner. Andetermines the name exclusively to other case of frequent occurrence has that individual. "The sun is a already been noticed; it is the followname of this description; "God," ing. The name, being a many-worded when used by a monotheist, is another. one, may consist, in the first place, of These, however, are scarcely examples a general name, capable therefore in of what we are now attempting to itself of being affirmed of more things illustrate, being, in strictness of lan- than one, but which is, in the second guage, general, not individual names: place, so limited by other words joined for, however they may be in fact pre- with it, that the entire expression can dicable only of one object, there is only be predicated of one object, connothing in the meaning of the words sistently with the meaning of the themselves which implies this: and, general term. This is exemplified in accordingly, when we are imagining such an instance as the following: and not affirming, we may speak of "the present Prime Minister of Engmany suns; and the majority of man- land. Prime Minister of England kind have believed, and still believe, is a general name; the attributes that there are many gods. But it is which it connotes may be possessed easy to produce words which are real by an indefinite number of persons: instances of connotative individual in succession however, not simul⚫ names. It may be part of the mean-taneously; since the meaning of the ing of the connotative name itself, that there can exist but one individual possessing the attribute which it connotes: as for instance, "the only son of John Stiles;" "the first emperor of Rome." Or the attribute connoted may be a connexion with some determinate event, and the connexion may be of such a kind as only one individual could have; or may at least be such as only one individual actually had; and this may be implied in the form of the expression. "The father of Socrates" is an example of the one kind (since Socrates could not have had two fathers); "the author of the Iliad," "the murderer of Henri Quatre," of the second. For, though it is conceivable that more persons than one might have participated in the authorship of the Iliad, or in the murder of Henri Quatre, the employment of the article the implies that, in fact, this was not the case. What is here done by the word the, is done in other cases by the context: thus, "Cæsar's army is an individual if it appears from the context that the army meant is that which name, name itself imports (among other things) that there can be only one such person at a time. This being the case, and the application of the name being afterwards limited by the article and the word present, to such individuals as possess the attributes at one indivisible point of time, it becomes applicable only to one individual. And as this appears from the meaning of the name, without any extrinsic proof, it is strictly an individual name. From the preceding observations it will easily be collected, that whenever the names given to objects convey any information, that is, whenever they have properly any meaning, the meaning resides not in what they denote, but in what they connote. The only names of objects which connote nothing are proper names; and these have, strictly speaking, no signification.* * A writer who entitles his book Philo sophy; or, The Science of Truth, charges me in his very first page (referring at the foot of it to this passage) with asserting that general names have properly no signification. And he repeats this statement many times in the course of his volume, with If, like the robber in the Arabian | the chalk, enable us to distinguish Nights, we make a mark with chalk the object when we see it; but it on a house to enable us to know it enables us to distinguish it when it again, the mark has a purpose, but it is spoken of, either in the records of has not properly any meaning. The our own experience, or in the dischalk does not declare anything about course of others; to know that what the house; it does not mean, This is we find asserted in any proposition such a person's house, or This is a house of which it is the subject, is asserted which contains booty. The object of of the individual thing with which making the mark is merely distinc- we were previously acquainted. tion. I say to myself, All these houses are so nearly alike that if I lose sight of them I shall not again be able to distinguish that which I am now looking at, from any of the others; I must therefore contrive to make the appearance of this one house unlike that of the others, that I may hereafter know when I see the mark—not indeed any attribute of the house-but simply that it is the same house which I am now looking at. Morgiana chalked all the other houses in a similar manner, and defeated the scheme: how? simply by obliterating the difference of appearance between that house and the others. The chalk was still there, but it no longer served the purpose of a distinctive mark. When we impose a proper name, we perform an operation in some degree analogous to what the robber intended in chalking the house. We put a mark, not indeed upon the object itself, but, so to speak, upon the idea of the object. A proper name is but an unmeaning mark which we connect in our minds with the idea of the object, in order that whenever the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, we may think of that individual object. Not being attached to the thing itself, it does not, like comments, not at all flattering, thereon. It is well to be now and then reminded to how great a length perverse misquotation (for, strange as it appears, I do not believe that the writer is dishonest) can sometimes go. It is a warning to readers when they see an author accused, with volume and page referred to, and the apparent guarantee of inverted commas, of maintaining something more than commonly absurd, not to give implicit credence to the assertion without verifying the reference. When we predicate of anything its proper name; when we say, pointing to a man, this is Brown or Smith, or pointing to a city, that it is York, we do not, merely by so doing, convey to the reader any information about them, except that those are their names. By enabling him to identify the individuals, we may connect them with information previously possessed by him; by saying, This is York, we may tell him that it contains the Minster. But this is in virtue of what he has previously heard concerning York; not by anything implied in the name. It is otherwise when objects are spoken of by connotative names. When we say, The town is built of marble, we give the hearer what may be entirely new information, and this merely by the signification of the many-worded connotative name, "built of marble." Such names are not signs of the mere objects, invented because we have occasion to think and speak of those objects individually; but signs which accompany an attribute: a kind of livery in which the attribute clothes all objects which are recognised as possessing it. They are not mere marks, but more, that is to say, significant marks; and the connotation is what constitutes their significance. As a proper name is said to be the name of the one individual which it is predicated of, so (as well from the importance of adhering to analogy, as for the other reasons formerly assigned) a connotative name ought to be considered a name of all the various individuals which it is predicable of, or in other words denotes, and not of what it connotes. But by learning what things it is a name of, we do not learn the meaning of the name: for to the same thing we may, with equal propriety, apply many names, not equivalent in meaning. Thus, I call a certain man by the name Sophroniscus : I call him by another name, The father of Socrates. Both these are names of the same individual, but their meaning is altogether different; they are applied to that individual for two different purposes: the one, merely to distinguish him from other persons who are spoken of; the other to indicate a fact relating to him, the fact that Socrates was his son. I further apply to him these other expressions: a man, a Greek, an Athenian, a sculptor, an old man, an honest man, a brave man. All these are, or may be, names of Sophroniscus, not indeed of him alone, but of him and each of an indefinite number of other human beings. Each of these names is applied to Sophroniscus for a different reason, and by each whoever understands its meaning is apprised of a distinct fact or number of facts concerning him; but those who knew nothing about the names except that they were applicable to Sophroniscus, would be altogether ignorant of their meaning. It is even possible that I might know every single individual of whom a given name could be with truth affirmed, and yet could not be said to know the meaning of the name. A child knows who are its brothers and sisters, long before it has any definite conception of the nature of the facts which are involved in the signification of those words. In some cases it is not easy to decide precisely how much a particular word does or does not connote; that is, we do not exactly know (the case not having arisen) what degree of difference in the object would occasion a difference in the name. Thus, it is clear that the word man, besides animal life and rationality, connotes also a certain external form; but it would be impossible to say precisely what form; that is, to decide how great a deviation from the form ordinarily found in the beings whom we are accustomed to call men, would suffice in a newly-discovered race to make us refuse them the name of man. Rationality, also, being a quality which admits of degrees, it has never been settled what is the lowest degree of that quality which would entitle any creature to be considered a human being. In all such cases, the meaning of the general name is so far unsettled and vague; mankind have not come to any positive agreement about the matter. When we come to treat of Classification, we shall have occasion to show under what conditions this vagueness may exist without practical inconvenience; and cases will appear in which the ends of language are better promoted by it than by complete precision; in order that, in natural history for instance, individuals or species of no very marked character may be ranged with those more strongly characterised individuals or species, to which, in all their properties taken together, they bear the nearest resemblance. But this partial uncertainty in the connotation of names can only be free from mischief when guarded by strict precautions. One of the chief sources, indeed, of lax habits of thought, is the custom of using connotative terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more precise notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing what objects they are used to denote. It is in this manner that we all acquire, and inevitably so, our first knowledge of our vernacular language. A child learns the meaning of the words man, or white, by hearing them applied to a variety of individual objects, and finding out, by a process of generalization and analysis which he could not himself describe, what those different objects have in common. the case of these two words the process is so easy as to require no assistance from culture; the objects called In human beings, and the objects called white, differing from all others by qualities of a peculiarly definite and obvious character. But in many other cases, objects bear a general resemblance to one another, which leads to their being familiarly classed together under a common name, while, without more analytic habits than the generality of mankind possess, it is not immediately apparent what are the particular attributes, upon the possession of which in common by them all, their general resemblance depends. When this is the case, people use the name without any recognised connotation, that is, without any precise meaning; they talk, and consequently think, vaguely, and remain contented to attach only the same degree of significance to their own words, which a child three years old attaches to the words brother and sister. The child at least is seldom puzzled by the starting up of new individuals, on whom he is ignorant whether or not to confer the title; because there is usually an authority close at hand competent to solve all doubts. But a similar resource does not exist in the generality of cases; and new objects are continually presenting themselves to men, women, and children, which they are called upon to class proprio motu. They, accordingly, do this on no other principle than that of superficial similarity, giving to each new object the name of that familiar object, the idea of which it most readily recalls, or which, on a cursory inspection, it seems to them most to resemble: as an unknown substance found in the ground will be called, according to its texture, earth, sand, or a stone. In this manner, names creep on from subject to subject, until all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the word comes to denote a number of things not only independently of any common attribute, but which have actually no attribute in common; or none but what is shared by other things to which the name is capriciously refused.* Even scientific writers have aided in this perversion of general language from its purpose; sometimes because, like the vulgar, they knew no better; and sometimes in deference to that aversion to admit new words, which induces mankind, on all subjects not considered technical to attempt to make the original stock of names serve with but little augmentation to express a constantly increasing number of objects and distinctions, and, consequently, to express them in a manner progressively more and more imperfect. To what a degree this loose mode of classing and denominating objects has rendered the vocabulary of mental and moral philosophy unfit for the purposes of accurate thinking, is best known to whoever has most meditated on the present condition of those branches of knowledge. Since, however, the introduction of a new technical language as the vehicle of speculations on subjects belonging to the domain of daily discussion, is extremely difficult to effect, and would not be free from inconvenience even if effected, the problem for the philosopher, and one of the most difficult which he has to resolve, is, in retaining the existing phraseology, how best to alleviate its imperfections. This can only be accomplished by "Take the familiar term Stone. It is applied to mineral and rocky materials, to the kernels of fruit, to the accumulations in the gall-bladder and in the kidney; while it is refused to polished minerals (called gems), to rocks that have the cleavage suited for roofing (slates), and to baked clay (bricks). It occurs in the designation of the magnetic oxide of iron (loadstone), and not in speaking of other Such a term is wholly metallic ores. unfit for accurate reasoning, unless hedged round on every occasion by other phrases; as building stone, precious stone, gall stone, &c. Moreover, the methods of definition are baffled for want of sufficient community to ground upon. There is no quality uniformly present in the cases where it is applied, and uniformly absent where it is not applied; hence the definer would have to employ largely the licence of striking off existing applications, and taking in new ones."-BAIN, Logic, ii. 172. giving to every general concrete name which there is frequent occasion to predicate, a definite and fixed connotation; in order that it may be known what attributes, when we call an object by that name, we really mean to predicate of the object. And the question of most nicety is, how to give this fixed connotation to a name, with the least possible change in the objects which the name is habitually employed to denote; with the least possible disarrangement, either by adding or substraction, of the group of objects which, in however imperfect a manner, it serves to circumscribe and hold together; and with the least vitiation of the truth of any propositions which are commonly received as true. This desirable purpose, of giving a fixed connotation where it is wanting, is the end aimed at whenever any one attempts to give a definition of a general name already in use; every definition of a connotative name being an attempt either merely to declare, or to declare and analyse, the connotation of the name. And the fact, that no questions which have arisen in the moral sciences have been subjects of keener controversy than the definitions of almost all the leading expressions, is a proof how great an extent the evil to which we have adverted has attained. two or more names, accidentally written and spoken alike.* tative names, it is proper to observe, that * Before quitting the subject of connothe first writer who, in our times, has adopted from the schoolmen the word to connote, Mr. James Mill, in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, employs it in a signification different from that in which it is here used. He uses the word in a sense coextensive with its etymology, applying it to every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one thing (which is consequently termed its signification, includes also a tacit reference to some other that of concrete general names, his lanthing. In the case considered in the text, guage and mine are the converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signification of the name to lie in the attriattribute, and connoting the things possess bute, he speaks of the word as noting the ing the attribute. And he describes abstract names as being properly concrete names with their connotation dropped: which would be said to be dropped, what whereas, in my view, it is the denotation was previously connoted becoming the whole signification. with that which so high an authority, and In adopting a phraseology at variance one which I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are involved scarcely be felt in its full force by any one in its signification. This necessity can who has not found by experience how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on the philo-ophy of language without such a word. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that some of the most prevalent of the errors with which Logic has been infected and a large part of the cloudiness and confusion of ideas which have en For Names with indeterminate connotation are not to be confounded with names which have more than one veloped it, would, in all probability, have connotation, that is to say, ambiguous been avoided, if a term had been in common words. A word may have several use to express exactly what I have signified And the schoolmeanings, but all of them fixed and by the term to connote. men to whom we are indebted for the recognised ones; as the word post, greater part of our logical language, gave for example, or the word box, the us this also, and in this very sense. various senses of which it would be though some of their general expressions countenance the use of the word in the endless to enumerate. And the pau- more extensive and vague acceptation in city of existing names, in comparison which it is taken by Mr. Mill, yet when with the demand for them, may often they had to define it specifically as a techrender it advisable and even neces- with that admirable precision which always nical term, and to fix its meaning as such, sary to retain a name in this multi-characterises their definitions, they clearly plicity of acceptations, distinguishing these so clearly as to prevent their being confounded with one another. Such a word may be considered as explained that nothing was said to be connoted except forms, which word may generally, in their writings, be understood as synonymous with attributes. Now, if the word to connote, so well |