32 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



among names, not according to the words they are composed of, but ac- 

 cording to their signification. 



§ 3. All names are names of something, real or imaginary ; but all things 

 have not names appropriated to them individually. For some individual 

 objects we require, and consequently have, separate distinguishing names ; 

 there is a name for every person, and for every remarkable place. Other 

 objects, of which we have not occasion to speak so frequently, we do not 

 designate by a name of their own ; but when the necessity arises for nam- 

 ing them, we do so by putting together several words, each of which, by 

 itself, might be and is used for an indefinite number of other objects ; as 

 when I say, this stone : " this " and " stone " being, each of them, names 

 that may be used of many other objects besides the particular one meant, 

 though the only object of which they can both be used at the given mo- 

 ment, consistently with their signification, may be the one of which I wish 

 to speak. 



Were this the sole purpose for which names, that are common to more 

 things than one, could be employed ; if they only served, by mutually lim- 

 iting each other, to afford a designation for such individual objects as have 

 no names of their own : they could only be ranked among contrivances for 

 economizing the use of language. But it is evident that this is not their 

 sole function. It is by their means that we are enabled to assert general 

 propositions ; to affirm or deny any predicate of an indefinite number of 

 things at once. The distinction, therefore, between general names, and in- 

 dividual or singular names, is fundamental ; and may be considered as the 

 first grand division of names. 



A general name is familiarly defined, a name which is capable of being 

 truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things. 

 An individual or singular name is a name which is only capable of being 

 truly affirmed, in the same sense, of one thing. 



Thus, inan is capable of being truly affirmed of John, George, Mary, and 

 other persons without assignable limit ; and it is affirmed of all of them in 

 the same sense; for the word man expresses certain qualities, and when we 

 predicate it of those persons, we assert that they all possess those qualities. 

 But J'ohji is only capable of being truly affirmed of one single person, at 

 least in the same sense. For, though there are many persons who bear 

 that name, it is not conferred upon them to indicate any qualities, or any 

 thing which belongs to them in common ; and can not be said to be affirm- 

 ed of them in any sense at all, consequently not in the same sense. "The 

 king who succeeded William the Conqueror," is also an individual name. 

 For, that there can not be more than one person of whom it can be truly 

 affirmed, is implied in the meaning of the words. Even " the king," when 

 the occasion or the context defines the individual of whom it is to be un- 

 derstood, may justly be regarded as an individual name. 



It is not unusual, by way of explaining what is meant by a general name, 

 to say that it is the name of a class. But this, though a convenient mode 

 of expression for some purposes, is objectionable as a definition, since it 

 explains the clearer of two things by the more obscure. It would be more 

 logical to reverse the proposition, and turn it into a definition of the w^ord 

 class: "A class is the indefinite multitude of individuals denoted by a gen- 

 eral name." 



It is necessary to distinguish general from collective names. A general 

 name is one which can be predicated of each individual of a multitude ; a 



