REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 217 



without any more definite connotation than that of a vague 

 resemblance ; general propositions come in time to be made, 

 in which predicates are applied to those names, that is, 

 general assertions are made concerning the whole of the 

 things which are denoted by the name. And since by each 

 of these propositions some attribute, more or less precisely 

 conceived, is of course predicated, the ideas of these various 

 attributes thus become associated with the name, and in a 

 sort of uncertain way it comes to connote them ; there is a 

 hesitation to apply the name in any new case in which any of 

 the attributes familiarly predicated of the class do not exist. 

 And thus, to common minds, the propositions which they are 

 in the habit of hearing or uttering concerning a class, make 

 up in a loose way a sort of connotation for the class-name. 

 Let us take, for instance, the word Civilized. How few could 

 be found, even among the most educated persons, who would 

 undertake to say exactly what the term Civilized connotes. 

 Yet there is a feeling in the minds of all who use it, that they 

 are using it with a meaning ; and this meaning is made up, in 

 a confused manner, of everything which they have heard or 

 read that civilized men, or civilized communities, are, or may 

 be expected to be. 



It is at this stage, probably, in the progress of a concrete 

 name, that the corresponding abstract name generally comes 

 into use. Under the notion that the concrete name must of 

 course convey a meaning, or in other words, that there is some 

 property common to all things which it denotes, people give a 

 name to this common property; from the concrete Civilized, 

 they form the abstract Civilization. But since most people 

 have never compared the different things which are called by 

 the concrete name, in such a manner as to ascertain what pro- 

 perties these things have in common, or whether they have 

 any ; each is thrown back upon the marks by which he him- 

 self has been accustomed to be guided in his application of the 

 term : and these, being merely vague hearsays and current 

 phrases, are not the same in any two persons, nor in the same 

 person at different times. Hence the word (as Civilization, 

 for example) which professes to be the designation of the 



