50 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



such groups to determine the application of general terms is ob 

 viously an absolutely necessary condition for the utility of language 

 as a means of intercourse, and for securing uniformity of thought 

 behind uniformity of language. This group of attributes, con 

 ventionally determined by competent authorities in each depart 

 ment of knowledge not so much by any conscious act or compact 

 as by tacit* agreement in usage forms the Conventional Intension 

 or Connotation 1 of the concept or term. 2 



32. FIXITY AND LIMITS OF CONNOTATION. It is, as we 

 have said, a necessary assumption for the accurate communication 

 of thought by language that terms should be understood to convey 

 the same meaning 3 to the minds of all. And indeed language is 

 a special help to thought precisely because of the unquestionably 

 powerful influence exerted by the term in making/lm/and definite 

 at least some elements of the living, palpitating, vaguely outlined 

 and ever-varying content of the concept in the individual thinker s 

 mind. This is the aim in fixing connotation. Logic impera 

 tively demands that, if truth is to be secured, the connotation of 

 the terms employed in any process of inference or proof remain 

 unchanged throughout. But this is the most it can hope to 

 secure. An ideal language would have absolute fixity of conno 

 tation. But the language we use is a plastic medium : it is subject 

 to gradual processes of generalization and specialization in the 

 application of its general terms : these may have not quite the same 

 connotation in technical use and in everyday discourse : 4 more 

 over, in new departments of knowledge the connotation of new 

 terms must be at first vague and elastic ; and the progress of 

 science in a particular department is bound to react on the received 

 connotation of its terms and more or less to alter this latter. For 

 all these reasons connotation is not absolutely rigid, but more or 



1 For historical note on the use of the terms &quot;connotation,&quot; &quot; connotative,&quot; see 

 JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 140-42. 



2 &quot; For anyone who is given the meaning of a name but knows nothing of the 

 objects denoted by the name, subjective intension coincides with connotation. Were 

 the ideal of knowledge to be reached, subjective intension would coincide with com 

 prehension.&quot; KEYNES, op. cit., p. 26, note. 



a When we speak of the meaning or signification of a term or concept, without 

 further qualification, the reference is as a rule to the implicational meaning, to the 

 attributes connoted by the term ; for these form the fixed standard of meaning: and 

 it is this that secures identity of denotation for the term in the minds of all. 



4 Of course where a term has some special signification or meaniug attached to 

 it in some science, clearly different from the commonly accepted sense, it becomes 

 equivocal, or equivalent to two terms : e.g. &quot; accident &quot; as opposed to &quot; substance &quot; 

 in philosophy, and in the usual sense of &quot; He met with an accident &quot;. 



