32 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



an ^indefinable number of otber individuals, past, present, and 

 to come. These individuals, collectively and severally, can 

 alone be said with propriety to be denoted by the word : of 

 them alone can it properly be said to be a name. But it is a 

 name applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute 

 which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute 

 which has received the name of virtue. It is applied to all 

 beings that are considered to possess this attribute ; and to 

 none which are not so considered. 



All concrete general names are connotative. The word 

 man, for example, denotes Peter, Jane, John, and an indefinite 

 number of other individuals, of whom, taken as a class, it is 

 the name. But it is applied to them, because they possess, 

 and to signify that they possess, certain attributes. These 

 seem to be, corporeity, animal life, rationality, and a certain 

 external form, which for distinction we call the human. Every 

 existing thing, which possessed all these attributes, would be 

 called a man ; and anything which possessed none of them, or 

 only one, or two, or even three of them without the fourth, 

 would not be so called. For example, if in the interior of 

 Africa there were to be discovered a race of animals possessing 

 reason equal to that of human beings, but with the form of an 

 elephant, they would not be called men. Swift s Howyhnhnms 

 would not be so called. Or if such newly-discovered beings 

 possessed the form of man without any vestige of reason, it is 

 probable that some other name than that of man would be 

 found for them. How it happens that there can be any doubt 

 about the matter, will appear hereafter. The word man, 

 therefore, signifies all these attributes, and all subjects which 

 possess these attributes. But it can be predicated only of the 

 subjects. What we call men, are the subjects, the individual 

 Stiles and Nokes ; not the qualities by which their humanity 

 is constituted. The name, therefore, is said to signify the 

 subjects directly, the attributes indirectly; it denotes the 

 subjects, and implies, or involves, or indicates, or as we shall 

 say henceforth connotes, the attributes. It is a connotative 

 name. 



Connotative names have hence been also called denominative, 



