36 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



of those various attributes. When, for example, we say that slowness, in 

 a horse, is a fault, we do not mean that the slow movement, the actual 

 change of place of the slow horse, is a bad thing, but that the properly or 

 peculiarity of the horse, from which it derives that name, the quality of be- 

 ing a slow mover, is an undesirable peculiarity. 



In regard to those concrete names which are not general but individual, 

 a distinction must be made. 



Proper names are not connotative : they denote the individuals who are 

 called by them ; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belong- 

 ing to those individuals. When we name a child by the name Paul, or a 

 dog by the name CaBsar, these names are simply marks used to enable those 

 individuals to be made subjects of discourse. It may be said, indeed, that 

 we must have had some reason for giving them those names rather than 

 any others ; and this is true ; but the name, once given, is independent 

 of the reason. A man may have been named John, because that was the 

 name of his father ; a town may have been named Dartmouth, because it is 

 situated at the mouth of the Dart. But it is no part of the signification of 

 the word John, that the father of the person so called bore the same name ; 

 nor even of the word Dartmouth, to be situated at the mouth of the Dart. 

 If sand should choke up the mouth of the river, or an earthquake change 

 its course, and remove it to a distance from the town, the name of the 

 town would not necessarily be changed. That fact, therefore, can form no 

 part of the signification of the word ; for otherwise, when the fact confess- 

 edly ceased to be true, no one would any longer think of applying the 

 name. Proper names are attached to the objects themselves, and are not 

 dependent on the continuance of any attribute of the object. 



But there is another kind of names, which, although they are individual 

 names — that is, predicable only of one object — are really connotative. For, 

 though we may give to an individual a name utterly unmeaning, which we 

 call a proper name — a word which answers the purpose of showing what 

 thing it is we are talking about, but not of telling any thing about it ; yet 

 a name peculiar to an individual is not necessarily of this description. It 

 may be significant of some attribute, or some union of attributes, which, 

 being possessed by no object but one, determines the name exclusively to 

 that individual. "The sun" is a name of this description; "God," when 

 used by a monotheist, is another. These, however, are scarcely examples 

 of what we are now attempting to illustrate, being, in strictness of lan- 

 guage, general, not individual names : for, however they may be in fact 

 predicable only of one object, there is nothing in the meaning of the words 

 themselves which implies this : and, accordingly, when we are imagining 

 and not afiirming, we may speak of many suns; and the majority of man- 

 kind have believed, and still believe, that there are many gods. But it is 

 easy to produce words which are real instances of connotative individual 

 names. It may be part of the meaning of the connotative name itself, that 

 there can exist but one individual possessing the attribute which it con- 

 notes : as, for instance, " the only son of John Stiles ;" " the first emperor 

 of Rome." Or the attribute connoted may be a connection with some de- 

 terminate event, and the connection may be of such a kind as only one in- 

 dividual could have ; or may at least be such as only one individual actually 

 had ; and this may be implied in the form of the expression. " The father 

 of Socrates " is an example of the one kind (since Socrates could not have 

 had two fathers) ; " the author of the Iliad," " the murderer of Henri Qua- 

 tre," of the second. For, though it is conceivable that more persons than 



