NAMES. 35 



ample, is the name of a class, which includes Socrates, Howard, the Man of 

 Ross, and an undefinable number of other individuals, past, present, and to 

 come. These individuals, collectively and severally, can alone be said with 

 propriety to be denoted by the word : of them alone can it properly be said 

 to be a name. But it is a name applied to all of them in consequence of 

 an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute 

 which has received the name of virtue. It is applied to all beings that are 

 considered to possess this attribute; and to none which are not so con- 

 sidered. 



All concrete general names are connotative. The word man, for exam- 

 ple, denotes Peter, Jane, John, and an indefinite number of other individu- 

 als, of whom, taken as a class, it is the name. But it is applied to them, 

 because they possess, and to signify that they possess, certain attributes. 

 These seem to be, corporeity, animal life, rationality, and a certain exter- 

 nal form, which for distinction we call the human. Every existing thing, 

 which possessed all these attributes, would be called a man ; and any thing 

 which possessed none of them, or only one, or two, or even three of them 

 without the fourth, would not be so called. For example, if in the interior 

 of Africa there were to be discovered a race of animals possessing reason 

 equal to that of human beings, but with the form of an elephant, they 

 would not be called men. Swift's Houyhnhnms would not be so called. 

 Or if such newly-discovered beings possessed the form of man without any 

 vestige of reason, it is probable that some other name than that of man 

 would be found for them. How it happens that there can be any doubt 

 about the matter, will appear hereafter. The word man, therefore, signi- 

 fies all these attributes, and all subjects which possess these attributes. 

 But it can be predicated only of the subjects. What we call men, are the 

 subjects, the individual Stiles and Nokes; not the qualities by which their 

 humanity is constituted. The name, therefore, is said to signify the sub- 

 jects directly, the attributes indirectly ; it denotes the subjects, and im- 

 plies, or involves, or indicates, or as we shall say henceforth connotes, the 

 attributes. It is a connotative name. 



Connotative names have hence been also called denominative, because 

 the subject which they denote is denominated by, or receives a name from 

 the attribute which they connote. Snow, and other objects, receive the 

 name white, because they possess the atti'ibute which is called whiteness ; 

 Peter, James, and others receive the name man because they possess the 

 attributes which are considered to constitute humanity. The attribute, or 

 ittributes, may therefore be said to denominate those objects, or to give 

 :hem a common name.* 



It has been seen that all conci*ete general names are connotative. Even 

 ibstract names, though the names only of attributes, may in some instances 

 DC justly considered as connotative; for attributes themselves may have 

 vttributes ascribed to them ; and a word which denotes attributes may con- 

 lote an attribute of those attributes. Of this description, for example, is 

 ;uch a word as fault; equivalent to bad or hiirtfid quality. This word is 

 I name common to many attributes, and connotes hurtfulness, an attribute 



* Archbishop Whately, who, in the later editions of his Elements of Logic, aided in reviving 

 he important distinction treated of in the text, proposes the term "Attributive" as a substi- 

 ute for "Connotative" (p. 22, 9th edit.). The expression is, in itself, appropriate; but as 

 : has not the advantage of being connected with any verb, of so markedly distinctive a char- 

 cter as " to connote," it is not, I think, fitted to supply the place of the word Connotative in 

 cientific use. 



