NAMES. 43 



convey any information, that is,, whenever they have 

 properly any meaning, the meaning resides not in 

 what they denote, but in what they connote. The 

 only names of objects which connote nothing are 

 proper names ; and these have, strictly speaking, no 

 signification. 



If, like the robber in the Arabian Nights, we make 

 a mark with chalk upon a house to enable us to know 

 it again, the mark has a purpose, but it has not pro- 

 perly any meaning. The chalk does not declare any- 

 thing about the house ; it does not mean, This is such 

 a person's house, or This is a house which contains 

 booty. The object of making the mark is merely 

 distinction. I say to myself, All these houses are so 

 nearly alike, that if I lose sight of them I shall not 

 again be able to distinguish that which 1 am now 

 looking at, from any of the others ; I must therefore 

 contrive to make the appearance of this one house 

 unlike that of the others, that I may hereafter know, 

 when I see the mark not indeed any attribute of the 

 house but simply that it is the same house which I 

 am now looking at. Morgiana chalked all the other 

 houses in a similar manner, and defeated the scheme : 

 how? simply by obliterating the difference of ap- 

 pearance between that house and the others. The 

 chalk was still there, but it no longer served the 

 purpose of a distinctive mark. 



When we impose a proper name, we perform an 

 operation in some degree analogous to what the robber 

 intended in chalking the house. We put a mark, not 

 indeed upon the object itself, but, if I may so speak, 

 upon the idea of the object. A proper name is but 

 an unmeaning mark which we connect in our minds 

 with the idea of the object, in order that whenever 

 the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, 



