NAMES. 27 



individually. For some individual objects we require, and 

 consequently have, separate distinguishing names ; there is a 

 name for every person, and for every remarkable place. Other 

 objects, of which we have not occasion to speak so frequently, 

 we do not designate by a name of their own ; but when the 

 necessity arises for naming them, we do so by putting together 

 several words, each of which, by itself, might be and is used 

 for an indefinite number of other objects; as when I say, this 

 stone: &quot;this&quot; and &quot;stone&quot; being, each of them, names that 

 may be used of many other objects besides the particular one 

 meant, though the only object of which they can both be used 

 at the given moment, consistently with their signification, may 

 be the one of which I wish to speak. 



Were this the sole purpose for which names, that are 

 common to more things than one, could be employed ; if they 

 only served, by mutually limiting each other, to afford a 

 designation for such individual objects as have no names of 

 their own ; they could only be ranked among contrivances for 

 economizing the use of language. But it is evident that this 

 is not their sole function. It is by their means that we are I 

 enabled to assert general propositions ; to affirm or deny any 

 predicate of an indefinite number of things at once. The^ 

 distinction, therefore, between general names, and individual! 



or singular names, is fundamental ; and may be consicTered as: 

 the first grand&quot; division of names. 



A general name is familiarly defined, a name which is 

 capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of 

 an indefinite number of things. An individual or singular 

 name is a name which is only capable of being truly affirmed, 

 in the same sense, of one thing. 



Thus, man is capable of being truly affirmed of John, 

 George, Mary, and other persons without assignable limit ; 

 and it is affirmed of all of them in the same sense ; for the 

 word man expresses certain qualities, and when we predicate 

 it of those persons, we assert that they all possess those 

 qualities. But John is only capable of being truly affirmed of 

 one single person, at least in the same sense. For though 

 there are many persons who bear that name, it is not conferred 



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