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76 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



meaning, that same collocation combined with other circumstances, that 

 form combined with other matter^ does convey move, and the proposition 

 in those other circumstances daes._.assert more, tlian merely that relation 

 between the two names. 



The only propositions of which Hobbes's principle is a sufficient account, 

 are that limited and unimportant class in which both the predicate and 

 the subject are proper names. For, as has already been remarked, jDroper 

 names have strictly no meaning; they are mere marks for individual ob- 

 jects : and when a proper name is predicated of another proper name, all 

 the signification conveyed is, that both the names are marks for the same 

 object. But this is precisely what Hobbes produces as a theory of predi- 

 cation in general. His doctrine is a full explanation of such predications 

 as these : Hyde was Clarendon, or, Tully is Cicero. It exhausts the mean- 

 ing of those propositions. But it is a sadly inadequate theory of any oth- 

 ers. That it should ever have been thought of as such, can be accounted 

 for only by the fact, that Hobbes, in common with the other Nominalists, 

 bestowed little or no attention upon the connotation of words ; and sought 

 for their meaning exclusively in what they denote : as if all names had been 

 (what none but proper names really are) marks put upon individuals ; and 

 as if there were no difference between a proper and a general name, except 

 that the first denotes only one individual, and the last a greater number. 



It has been seen, however, that the meaning of all names, except proper 

 names and that portion of the class of abstract names which are not conno- 

 tative, resides in the connotation. When, therefore, we are analvzing the 

 meaning of any proposition in which the predicate and the subject, or 

 either of them, are connotative names, it is to the connotation of those 

 terms that we must exclusively look, and not to what they denote, or in the 

 language of Hobbes (language so far correct) are names of. 



In asserting that the truth of a proposition depends on the conformity of 

 import between its terms, as, for instance, that the proposition, Socrates is 

 wise, is a true proposition, because Socrates and wise are names applicable 

 to, or, as he expresses it, names of, the same person ; it is very remarkable 

 that so powerful a thinker should not have asked himself the question, But 

 how came they to be names of the same person ? Surely not because such 

 was the intention of those who invented the words. When mankind fixed 

 the meaning of the word wise, they were not thinking of Socrates, nor, 

 when his parents gave him the name of Socrates, were they thinking of 

 wisdom. The names happen to fit the same person because of a certain 

 fact, which fact was not known, nor in being, when the names wei'e in- 

 vented. If we want to know what the fact is, we shall find the clue to it 

 in the connotation of the names. 



A bird or a stone, a man, or a wise man, means simply, an object having 

 such and such attributes. The real meaning of the word man, is those at- 

 tributes, and not Smith, Brown, and the remainder of the individuals. The 

 word 'mortal, in like manner connotes a certain attribute or attributes ; and 

 when we say. All men are mortal, the meaning of the proposition is, that all 

 beings which possess the one set of attributes, possess also the other. If, 

 in our experience, the attributes connoted by inan are always accompanied 

 by the attribute connoted by mortal, it will follow as a consequence, that 

 the class man will be wholly included in the class mortal, and that mortal 

 will be a name of all things of which man is a name : but Avhy ? Those 

 objects are brought under the name, by possessing the attributes connoted 

 by it : but their possession of the attributes is the real condition on which 



