REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 219 



speech would be more than a sufficient one. The endeavour 

 should be, that all generally received propositions into which 

 the term enters, should be at least as true after its meaning is 

 fixed, as they were before; and that the concrete name, there 

 fore, should not receive such a connotation as shall prevent it 

 from denoting things which, in common language, it is cur 

 rently affirmed of. The fixed and precise connotation which 

 it receives, should not be in deviation from, but in agreement 

 (as far as it goes) with, the vague and fluctuating connotation 

 which the term already had. 



To fix the connotation of a concrete name, or the deno 

 tation of the corresponding abstract, is to define the name. 

 AVhen this can be done without rendering any received asser 

 tions inadmissible, the name can be defined in accordance with 

 its received use, which is vulgarly called defining not the name 

 but the thing. What is meant by the improper expression of 

 defining a thing, (or rather a class of things for nobody talks 

 of defining an individual,) is to define the name, subject to the 

 condition that it shall denote those things. This, of course, 

 supposes a comparison of the things, feature by feature and 

 property by property, to ascertain what attributes they agree 

 in ; and not unfrequently an operation strictly inductive, for 

 the purpose of ascertaining some unobvious agreement, which 

 is the cause of the obvious agreements. 



For, in order to give a connotation to a name, consistently 

 with its denoting certain objects, we have to make our selec 

 tion from among the various attributes in which those objects 

 agree. To ascertain in what they do agree is, therefore, the 

 first logical operation requisite. When this has been done as 

 far as is necessary or practicable, the question arises, which 

 of these common attributes shall be selected to be associated 

 with the name. For if the class which the name denotes be 

 a Kind, the common properties are innumerable ; and even if 

 not, they are often extremely numerous. Our choice is first 

 limited by the preference to be given to properties which are 

 well known, and familiarly predicated of the class ; but even 

 these are often too numerous to be all included in the defini 

 tion, and, besides, the properties most generally known may 



