36 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



magnitude and the various dimensions of space ; the 

 word weight, in respect of the various degrees of 

 weight. Such also is the word attribute itself, the 

 common name of all particular attributes. But when 

 only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in 

 kind, is designated by the name ; as visibleness ; tan- 

 gibleness ; equality ; squareness ; milkwhiteness ; then 

 the name can hardly be considered general ; for though 

 it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the 

 attribute itself is always conceived as one, not many. 

 The question is, however, of no moment, and perhaps 

 the best way of deciding it would be to consider these 

 names as neither general nor individual, but to place 

 them in a class apart. 



It may be objected to our definition of an abstract 

 name, that not only the names which we have called 

 abstract, but adjectives, which we have placed in the 

 concrete class, are names of attributes; that white, 

 for example, is as much the name of the colour, as 

 whiteness is. But (as before remarked) a word ought 

 to be considered as the name of that which we intend 

 to be understood by it when we put it to its principal 

 use, that is, when we employ it in predication. When 

 we say, snow is white, milk is white, linen is white, 

 we do not mean it to be understood that snow, or 

 linen, or milk, is a colour. We mean that they are 

 things having the colour. The reverse is the case 

 with the word whiteness ; what we affirm to be white- 

 ness is not snow but the colour of snow. Whiteness, 

 therefore, is the name of the colour exclusively: 

 white is a name of all things whatever having the 

 colour; a name, not of the quality whiteness, but of 

 every white object. It is true, this name was given 

 to all those various objects on account of the quality ; 

 and we may therefore say, without impropriety, that 



