CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE REQUISITES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE, 

 AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DEFINITION. 



1. IN order that we may possess a language perfectly 

 suitable for the investigation and expression of general truths, 

 there are two principal, and several minor, requisites. The 

 first is, that every general name should have a meaning, 

 steadily fixed, and precisely determined. When, by the ful 

 filment of this condition, such names as we possess are fitted 

 for the due performance of their functions, the next requisite, 

 and the second in order of importance, is that we should 

 possess a name wherever one is needed ; wherever there is 

 anything to be designated by it, which it is of importance to 

 express. 



The former of these requisites is that to which our atten 

 tion will be exclusively directed in the present chapter. 



2. Every general name, then, must have a certain and 

 knowable meaning. Now the meaning (as has so often been 

 explained) of a general connotative name, resides in the 

 connotation ; in the attribute on account of which, and to 

 express which, the name is given. Thus, the name animal 

 being given to all things which possess the attributes of 

 sensation and voluntary motion, the word connotes those 

 attributes exclusively, and they constitute the whole of its 

 meaning. If the name be abstract, its denotation is the same 

 with the connotation of the corresponding concrete : it desig 

 nates directly the attribute, which the concrete term implies. 

 To give a precise meaning to general names is, then, to fix 

 with steadiness the attribute or attributes connoted by each 

 concrete general name, and denoted by the corresponding 

 abstract. Since abstract names, in the order of their creation, 



