REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 469 



that the concrete name must of course convey a meaning, or, in other words, 

 that there is some property common to all things which it denotes, people 

 give a name to this common property ; from the concrete Civilized, they 

 form the abstract Civilization. But since most people have never com- 

 pared the different things which are called by the concrete name, in such a 

 manner as to ascertain what properties these things have in common, or 

 whether they have any ; each is thrown back upon the marks by which he 

 himself has been accustomed to be guided in his application of the term ; 

 and these, being merely vague hearsays and current phrases, are not the 

 same in any two persons, nor in the same person at different times. Hence 

 the word (as Civilization, for example) which professes to be the designa- 

 tion of the unknown common property, conveys scarcely to any two minds 

 the same idea. No two persons agree in the things they predicate of it ; 

 and when it is itself predicated of any thing, no other person knows, nor 

 does the speaker himself know with precision, what he means to assert. 

 Many other words which could be named, as the Avord honor, or the word 

 gentleman, exemplify this uncertainty still more strikingly. 



It needs scarcely be observed, that general propositions of which no 

 one can tell exactly what they assert, can not possibly have been brought 

 to the test of a correct induction. Whether a name is to be used as 

 an instrument of thinking, or as a means of communicating the result of 

 thought, it is imperative to determine exactly the attribute or attributes 

 which it is to express ; to give it, in short, a fixed and ascertained connota- 

 tion. 



§ 3. It would, however, be a complete misunderstanding of the proper of- 

 fice of a logician in dealing with terms already in use, if we were to think 

 that because a name has not at present an ascertained connotation, it is 

 competent to any one to give it such a connotation at his own choice. The 

 meaning of a term actually in use is not an arbitrary quantity to be fixed, 

 but an unknown quantity to be sought. 



In the first place, it is obviously desirable to avail ourselves, as far as 

 possible, of the associations already connected with the name; not enjoin- 

 ing the employment of it in a manner which conflicts with all previous 

 habits, and especially not so as to require the rupture of those strongest 

 of all associations between names, which are created by familiarity with 

 propositions in which they are predicated of one another. A philosopher 

 would have little chance of having his example followed, if he were to give 

 such a meaning to his terms as should require us to call the North Ameri- 

 can Indians a civilized people, or the higher classes in Europe savages ; or 

 to say that civilized people live by hunting, and savages by agriculture. 

 Were there no other reason, the extreme difficulty of effecting so complete 

 a revolution in speech would be more than a sufficient one. The endeavor 

 should be, that all generally received propositions into which the term en- 

 ters, should be at least as true after its meaning is fixed, as they were be- 

 fore ; and that the concrete name, therefore, should not receive such a con- 

 notation as shall prevent it from denoting things which, in common lan- 

 guage, it is currently affirmed of. The fixed and precise connotation which 

 it receives should not be in deviation from, but in agreement (as far as it 

 goes) with, the vague and fluctuating connotation Avhich the term already 

 had. 



To fix the connotation of a concrete name, or the denotation of the c or- 

 responding abstract, is to define the name. When this can be done, 





