27 



CHAPTER II. 



OF NAMES. 



1. "A NAME," says Hobbes*, u is a word taken 

 at pleasure to serve for a mark, which may raise in 

 our mind a thought like to some thought we had 

 before, and which being pronounced to others, may 

 be to them a sign of what thought the speaker hadf 

 before in his mind." This simple definition of a name, 

 as a word (or set of words) serving the double pur- 

 pose, of a mark to recall to ourselves the likeness of a 

 former thought, and a sign to make it known to 

 others, appears unexceptionable. Names, indeed, do 

 much more than this; but whatever else they do, 

 grows out of, and is the result of this : as will appear 

 in its proper place. 



Are names more properly said to be the names of 

 things, or of our ideas of things ? The first is the 

 expression in common use ; the last is that of some 

 philosophers, who conceived that in adopting it they 

 were introducing a highly important distinction. The 

 eminent thinker, just quoted, seems to countenance the 

 latter opinion. "But seeing," he continues, "names 

 ordered in speech (as is defined) are signs of our con- 

 ceptions, it is manifest they are not signs of the things 

 themselves ; for that the sound of this word stone 

 should be the sign of a stone, cannot be understood 



* Computation or Logic, chap. ii. 



t In the original, "had, or had not" These last words, as 

 involving a subtlety foreign to our present purpose, I have forborne 

 to quote. 



