38 NAMES AND PKOPOSITIONS. 



When we impose a proper name, we perform an operation in some de- 

 gree analogous to what the robber intended in chalking the house. We 

 put a mark, not indeed upon the object itself, but, so to speak, upon the 

 idea of the object. A proper name is but an unmeaning mark M'hich we. 

 connect in our minds with the idea of the object, in order that whenever 

 the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, we may tliink of that 

 individual object. Not being attached to the thing itself, it does not, like 

 the chalk, enable us to distinguish the object when we see it; but it ena- 

 bles us to distinguish it when it is spoken of, either in the records of our 

 own experience, or in the discourse of others ; to know that what we find 

 asserted in any proposition of which it is the subject, is asserted of the in- 

 dividual thing with which we were previously acquainted. 



When we predicate of any thing its proper name ; when we say, point- 

 ing to a man, this is Brown or Smith, or pointing to a city, that it is York, 

 we do not, merely by so doing, convey to the reader any information about 

 them, except that those are their names. By enabling him to identify the 

 individuals, we may connect them with information previously possessed 

 by him ; by saying, This is York, we may tell him that it contains the Min- 

 ster. But this is in virtue of what he has previously heard concerning 

 York; not by any thing implied in the name. It is otherwise when ob- 

 jects are spoken of by connotative names. When w^e say. The town is 

 built of marble, we give the hearer what may be entirely new information, 

 and this merely by the signification of the many-worded connotative name, 

 " built of marble." Such names are not signs of the mere objects, invented 

 because we have occasion to think and speak of those objects individually ; 

 but signs which accompany an attribute; a kind of livery in which the 

 attribute clothes all objects which are recognized as possessing it. They 

 are not mere marks, but more, that is to say, significant marks; and the 

 connotation is what constitutes their significance. 



As a proper name is said to be the name of the one individual which it 

 is predicated of, so (as well from the importance of adhering to analogy, as 

 for the other reasons formerly assigned) a connotative name ought to be 

 considered a name of all the various individuals which it is predicable of, 

 or in other words denotes, and not of what it connotes. But by learning 

 i^what things it is a name of, we do not learn the meaning of tlie name : for 

 to the same thing we may, with equal propriety, apply many names, not 

 equivalent in meaning. Thus, I call a certain man by the name Sophronis- 

 cus : I call him by another name. The father of Socrates. Both these are 

 names of the same individual, but their meaning is altogether different ; 

 they are applied to that individual for two different purposes : the one, 

 merely to distinguish him from other persons vt^ho are spoken of ; the other 

 to indicate a fact relating to him, the fact that Socrates was his son. I 

 further apply to him these other expressions : a man, a Greek, an Athenian, 

 a sculptor, an old man, an honest man, a brave man. All these are, or may 

 be, names of Sophroniscus, not indeed of him alone, but of him and each 

 of an indefinite number of other human beings. Each of these names is 

 applied to Sophroniscus for a different reason, and by each whoever under- 

 stands its meaning is apprised of a distinct fact or number of facts con- 

 cerning him ; but those who knew nothing about the names except that 

 they were applicable to Sophroniscus, would be altogether ignorant of their 

 meaning. It is even possible that I might know every single individual of 

 whom a given name could be with truth affirmed, and yet could not be said 

 to know the meaning of the name. A child knows who are its brothers 



