52 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



good; negative, as not-man, not-tree, not-good. To 

 every positive concrete name, a corresponding negative 

 one might be framed. After giving a name to any 

 one thing, or to any plurality of things, we might 

 create a second name which should be a name of all 

 things whatever except that particular thing or things. 

 These negative names are employed whenever we have 

 occasion to speak collectively of all things other than 

 some thing or class of things. When the positive 

 name is connotative, the corresponding negative 

 name is connotative likewise ; but in a peculiar way, 

 connoting not the presence but the absence of an 

 attribute. Thus, not-white denotes all things what- 

 ever except white things ; and connotes the attribute 

 of not possessing whiteness. For the non-possession 

 of any given attribute is also an attribute, and may 

 receive a name as such ; and thus negative concrete 

 names may obtain negative abstract names to corre- 

 spond to them. 



Names which are positive in form are often 

 negative in reality, and others are really positive 

 though their form is negative. The word inconvenient, 

 for example, does not express the mere absence of 

 convenience ; it expresses a positive attribute, that of 

 being the cause of discomfort or annoyance. So the 

 word unpleasant, notwithstanding its negative form, 

 does not connote the mere absence of pleasantness, 

 but a less degree of what is signified by the word 

 painful, which, it is hardly necessary to say, is positive. 



&c. By employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for 

 which alone the name is needed, namely, to distinguish this 

 particular kind of involving and implying from all other kinds, and 

 to assure to it the degree of habitual attention which its import- 

 ance demands. 



