KEQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 467 



This is a very limited view of the function of general names. Even if 

 there were a name for every individual object, we should require general 

 names as much as we now do. Without them we could not express the 

 result of a single comparison, nor record any one of the uniformities ex- 

 isting in nature; and should be hardly better off in respect to Induction 

 than if we had no names at all. With none but names of individuals (or, 

 in other words, proper names), Ave might, by pronouncing the name, sug- 

 gest the idea of the object, but we could not assert any proposition ; ex- 

 cept the unmeaning ones formed by predicating two proper names one of 

 anothei'. It is only by means of general names that we can convey any 

 information, predicate any attribute, even of an individual, much more of 

 a class. Rigorously speaking, we could get on without any other general 

 names than the abstract names of attributes; all our propositions might 

 be of the form " such an individual object possesses such an attribute," or 

 " such an attribute is always (or never) conjoined with such another attri- 

 bute." In fact, however, mankind have always given genei'al names to 

 objects as well as attributes, and indeed before attributes : but the general 

 names given to objects imply attributes, derive their whole meaning from 

 attributes ; and are chiefly useful as the language by means of which we 

 predicate the attributes which they connote. 



It remains to be considered what principles are to be adhered to in 

 giving general names, so that these names, and the general propositions in 

 which they fill a place, may conduce most to the purposes of Induction. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE REQUISITES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE, AND THE PRINCI- 

 PLES OF DEFINITION. 



§ 1. In order that we may possess a language perfectly suitable for the 

 investigation and expression of general truths, there are two principal, and 

 several minor requisites. The first is, that every general name should 

 have a meaning, steadily fixed, and precisely determined. When, by the 

 fulfillment of this condition, such names as we possess are fitted for the 

 due performance of their functions, the next requisite, and the second in 

 order of importance, is that we should possess a name wherever one is 

 needed ; wherever there is any thing to be designated by it, which it is of 

 importance to express. 



The former of these requisites is that to which our attention will be ex- 

 clusively directed in the present chapter. 



§ 2. Every general name, then, must have a certain and knowable mean- 

 ing. Now the meaning (as has so often been explained) of a general con- 

 notative name, resides in the connotation ; in the attribute on account of 

 which, and to express which, the name is given. Thus, the name animal 

 being given to all things which possess the attributes of sensation and 

 voluntary motion, the word connotes those attributes exclusively, and they 

 constitute the whole of its meaning. If the name be abstract, its denota- 

 tion is the same with the connotation of the corresponding concrete; it 

 designates directly the attribute, which the concrete term implies. To give 

 a precise meaning to general names is, then, to fix with steadiness the 



