NAMING. 213 



formity is required as a justification for drawing the inference 

 in even a single case. This uniformity, therefore, may be 

 ascertained once for all ; and if, being ascertained, it can be 

 remembered, it will serve as a formula for making, in parti- 

 cular cases, all such inferences as the previous experience 

 will warrant. But we can only secure its being remembered, 

 or give ourselves even a chance of carrying in our memory any 

 considerable number of such uniformities, by registering them 

 through the medium of permanent signs ; which (being, from 

 the nature of the case, signs not of an individual fact, but of 

 an uniformity, that is, of an indefinite number of facts similar 

 to one another) are general signs ; universals ; general names, 

 and general propositions. 



4. And here I cannot omit to notice an oversight 

 committed by some eminent thinkers ; who have said that 

 the cause of our using general names is the infinite multi- 

 tude of individual objects, which, making it impossible to 

 have a name for each, compels us to make one name serve 

 for many. This is a very limited view of the function of 

 general names. Even if there were a name for every indi- 

 vidual object, we should require general names as much as 

 we now do. Without them we could not express the result 

 of a single comparison, nor record any one of the uni- 

 formities existing in nature ; and should be hardly better off 

 in respect to Induction than if we had no names at all. With 

 none but names of individuals, (or in other words, proper 

 names,) we might, by pronouncing the name, suggest the idea 

 of the object, but we could not assert any proposition ; 

 except the unmeaning ones formed by predicating two proper 

 names one of another. It is only by means of general names 

 that we can convey any information, predicate any attribute, 

 even of an individual, much more of a class. Rigorously 

 speaking we could get on without any other general names 

 than the abstract names of attributes ; all our propositions 

 might be of the form " such an individual object possesses 

 such an attribute," or " such an attribute is always (or never) 

 conjoined with such another attribute." In fact, however, 



