NAMES. 33 



because the subject which they denote is denominated by, or 

 receives a name from, the attribute which they connote. Snow, 

 and other objects, receive the name white, because they possess 

 the attribute which is called whiteness; Peter, James, and 

 others receive the name man, because they possess the attri- 

 butes which are considered to constitute humanity. The 

 attribute, or attributes, may therefore be said to denominate 

 those objects, or to give them a common name.* 



It has been seen that all concrete general names are conno- 

 tative. Even abstract names, though the names only of attri- 

 butes, may in some instances be justly considered as connota- 

 tive ; for attributes themselves may have attributes ascribed to 

 them ; and a word which denotes attributes may connote an 

 attribute of those attributes. Of this description, for example, 

 is such a word as fault ; equivalent to lad or hurtful quality. 

 This word is a name common to many attributes, and connotes 

 hurtfulness, an attribute of those various attributes. When, 

 for example, we say that slowness, in a horse, is a fault, we 

 do not mean that the slow movement, the actual change of 

 place of the slow horse, is a bad thing, but that the property 

 or peculiarity of the horse, from which it derives that name, 

 the quality of being a slow mover, is an undesirable peculiarity. 



In regard to those concrete names which are not general 

 but individual, a distinction must be made. 



Proper names are not connotative : they denote the indi- 

 viduals who are called by them ; but they do not indicate or 

 imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals. When 

 we name a child by the name Paul, or a dog by the name 

 Csesar, these names are simply marks used to enable those 

 individuals to be made subjects of discourse. It may be said, 

 indeed, that we must have had some reason for giving them 



* Archbishop Whately, who, iu the later editions of his Elements of Logic, 

 aided in reviving the important distinction treated of in the text, proposes the 

 term "Attributive'* as a substitute for " Connotative" (p. 22, 9th ed.) The 

 expression is, in itself, appropriate ; but as it has not the advantage of being 

 connected with any verb, of so markedly distinctive a character as "to connote," 

 it is not, I think, fitted to supply the place of the word Connotative in scienti- 

 fic use. 



VOL. I. 3 



