34 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



those names rather than any others; and this is true; but 

 the name, once given, is independent of the reason. A man 

 may have been named John, because that was the name of his 

 father; a town may have been named Dartmouth, because it 

 is situated at the mouth of the Dart But it is no part of the 

 signification of the word John, that the father of the person so 

 called bore the same name ; nor even of the word Dartmouth, 

 to be situated at the mouth of the Dart. If sand should choke 

 up the mouth of the river, or an earthquake change its course, 

 and remove it to a distance from the town, the name of the 

 town would not necessarily be changed. That fact, therefore, 

 can form no part of the signification of the word ; for other- 

 wise, when the fact confessedly ceased to be true, no one would 

 any longer think of applying the name. Proper names are 

 attached to the objects themselves, and are not dependent on 

 the continuance of any attribute of the object. 



But there is another kind of names, which, although they 

 are individual names, that is, predicable only of one object, 

 are really connotative. For, though we may give to an in- 

 dividual a name utterly unmeaning, which we call a proper 

 name, a word which answers the purpose of showing what 

 thing it is we are talking about, but not of telling anything 

 about it ; yet a name peculiar to an individual is not neces- 

 sarily of this description. It may be significant of some 

 attribute, or some union of attributes, which, being possessed 

 by no object but one, determines the name exclusively to that 

 individual. " The sun" is a name of this description ; " God," 

 when used by a monotheist, is another. These, however, are 

 scarcely examples of what we are now attempting to illus- 

 trate, being, in strictness of language, general, not individual 

 names : for, however they may be in fact predicable only of 

 one object, there is nothing in the meaning of the words 

 themselves which implies this : and, accordingly, when we 

 are imagining and not affirming, we may speak of many suns ; 

 and the majority of mankind have believed, and still believe, 

 that there are many gods. But it is easy to produce words 

 which are real instances of connotative individual names. It 

 may be part of the meaning of the connotative name itself, 



