NAMES. 35 



that there can exist but one individual possessing the attribute 

 which it connotes : as, for instance, " the only son of John 

 Stiles;" "the first emperor of Home." Or the attribute 

 connoted may be a connexion with some determinate event, 

 and the connexion may be of such a kind as only one individual 

 could have ; or may at least be such as only one individual 

 actually had; and this may be implied in the form of the 

 expression. " The father of Socrates " is an example of the 

 one kind (since Socrates could not have had two fathers) ; 

 " the author of the Iliad," " the murderer of Henri Quatre," 

 of the second. For, though it is conceivable that more 

 persons than one might have participated in the authorship of 

 the Iliad, or in the murder of Henri Quatre, the employment 

 of the article the implies that, in fact, this was not the case. 

 What is here done by the word the, is done in other cases by 

 the context : thus, " Caesar's army " is an individual name, if 

 it appears from the context that the army meant is that which 

 Caesar commanded in a particular battle. The still more 

 general expressions, "the Roman army," or "the Christian 

 army," may be individualized in a similar manner. Another 

 case of frequent occurrence has already been noticed ; it is the 

 following. The name, being a many- worded one, may consist, 

 in the first place, of a general name, capable therefore in itself 

 of being affirmed of more things than one, but which is, in the 

 second place, so limited by other words joined with it, that the 

 entire expression can only be predicated of one object, consis- 

 tently with the meaning of the general term. This is exem- 

 plified in such an instance as the following : " the present 

 prime minister of England." Prime Minister of England is a 

 general name ; the attributes which it connotes may be pos- 

 sessed by an indefinite number of persons : in succession 

 however, not simultaneously ; since the meaning of the name 

 itself imports (among other things) that there can be only 

 one such person at a time. This being the case, and the 

 application of the name being afterwards limited by the article 

 and the word present, to such individuals as possess the 

 attributes at one indivisible point of time, it becomes applicable 

 only to one individual. And as this appears from the mean- 



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