34 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



wliiteness to Avhich it is applied in common : the word magnitude, in re- 

 spect of the various degrees of magnitude and the various dimensions of 

 space ; the word weight, in respect of the various degrees of weight. Such 

 also is the word attribute itself, the common name of all particular attri- 

 butes. But when only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in 

 kind, is designated by the name ; as visibleness ; tangibleness ; equality ; 

 squareness ; milk-whiteness ; then the name can hardly be considered gen- 

 eral; for though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the at- 

 tribute itself is always conceived as one, not many.* To avoid needless lo- 

 gomachies, the best course would probably be to consider these names as 

 neither general nor individual, and to place them in a class apart. 



It may be objected to our definition of an abstract name, that not only 

 the names which we have called abstract, but adjectives, which we have 

 placed in the concrete class, are names of attributes; that white, for exam- 

 ple, is as much the name of the color as tohiteness is. But (as before re- 

 marked) a word ought to be considered as the name of that which we intend 

 to be understood by it when we put it to its principal use, that is, when we 

 employ it in predication. When we say snow is white, milk is white, linen 

 is white, we do not mean it to be understood that snow, or linen, or milk, 

 is a color. We mean that they are things having the color. The reverse 

 is the case with the word whiteness ; what we affirm to be whiteness is not 

 snow, but the color of snow. Whiteness, therefoi'e, is the name of the col- 

 or exclusively: white is a name of all things whatever having the color; a 

 name, not of the quality whiteness, but of every white object. It is true, 

 this name was given to all those various objects on account of the quality; 

 and we may therefore say, without impropriety, that the quality forms part 

 of its signification ; but a name can only be said to stand for, or to be a 

 name of, the things of which it can be predicated. We shall presently see 

 that all names which can be said to have any signification, all names by ap- 

 plying which to an individual we give any information respecting that in- 

 dividual, may be said to imply an attribute of some sort; but they are not 

 names of the attribute ; it has its own proper abstract name. 



§ 5. This leads to the consideration of a third great division of names, 

 into co7inotative and non-connotative, the latter sometimes, but improperly, 

 called absolute. This is one of the most important distinctions wliich we 

 shall have occasion to point out, and one of those which go deepest into 

 the nature of language. 



A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only, or an attri- 

 bute only. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies 

 an attribute. By a subject is here meant any thing which possesses attri- 

 butes. Thus John, or London, or England, are names which signify a sub- 

 ject only. Whiteness, length, virtue, signify an attribute only. None of 

 these names, therefore, are connotative. But white, long, virtuous, are con- 

 notative. The word white, denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the 

 foam of the sea, etc., and implies, or in the language of the schoolmen, con- 

 notes,\ the attribute whiteness. J'he word white is not predicated of the 

 attribute, but of the subjects, snow, etc. ; but when we predicate it of 

 them, we convey the meaning that the atti'ibute whiteness belongs to them. 

 The same may be said of the other words above cited. Virtuous, for ex- 



* Vide infra, note at the end of § 3, book ii., chap. ii. 



t Notare, to mark ; connotare, to mark along with ; to mark one thing with or in addition 

 to another. 



