NAMES. 41 



unmeaning, which we call a proper name, a word 

 which answers the purpose of showing what thing it 

 is we are talking about, but not of telling anything 

 about it ; yet a name peculiar to an individual is not 

 necessarily of this description. It may be significant 

 of some attribute, or some union of attributes, which 

 being possessed by no object but one, determines the 

 name exclusively to that individual. "The sun "is 

 a name of this description; " God," when used by a 

 Christian, is another. These, however, are scarcely 

 examples of what we are now attempting to illustrate, 

 being, in strictness of language, general, and not 

 individual names : for, however they may be in fact 

 predicable only of one object, there is nothing in the 

 meaning of the words themselves which implies this : 

 and, accordingly, when we are imagining and not 

 affirming, we may speak of many suns ; and the 

 majority of mankind have believed, and still believe, 

 that there are many gods. But it is easy to produce 

 words which are real instances of connotative indi- 

 vidual names. It may be part of the meaning of the 

 connotative name itself, that there exists but one 

 individual possessing the attribute which it connotes ; 

 as, for instance, " the only son of John Stiles ;" " the 

 first emperor of Rome." Or the attribute connoted 

 may be a connexion with some determinate event, and 

 the connexion may be of such a kind as only one 

 individual could have ; or may at least be such as only 

 one individual actually had ; and this may be implied 

 in the form of the expression. " The father of So- 

 crates," is an example of the one kind (since Socrates 

 could not have had two fathers) ; " the author of the 

 Iliad," "the murderer of Henri Quatre," of the 

 second. For, although it is conceivable that more 

 persons than one might have participated in the 



