IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 123 



is a true proposition, because Socrates and wise are 

 names applicable to, or, as he expresses it, names 

 of, the same person ; it is very remarkable that so 

 powerful a thinker should not have asked himself 

 the question, But how came they to be names of the 

 same person ? Surely not because such was the inten- 

 tion of those who invented the words. When man- 

 kind fixed the meaning of the word wise, they were 

 not thinking of Socrates, nor when his parents gave 

 him the name Socrates, were they thinking of wisdom. 

 The names happen to fit the same person because of a 

 certain fact, which fact was not known, nor in being, 

 when the names were invented. If we want to know 

 what the fact is, we shall find the clue to it in the 

 connotation of the names. 



A bird, or a stone, a man, or a wise man, means 

 simply, an object having such and such attributes. 

 The real meaning of the word man, is those attributes, 

 and not John, Peter, Thomas, &c. The word mortal, 

 in like manner connotes a certain attribute or attri- 

 butes ; and when we say, All men are mortal, the 

 meaning of the proposition is, that all beings which 

 possess the one set of attributes, possess also the 

 other. If, in our experience, the attributes connoted 

 by man are always accompanied by the attribute con- 

 noted by mortal, it will follow as a consequence, that 

 the class man will be wholly included in the class 

 mortal, and that mortal will be a name of all things of 

 which man is a name : but why? Those objects are 

 brought under the name, by possessing the attributes 

 connoted by it : but their possession of the attributes 

 is the real condition on which the truth of the propo- 

 sition depends ; not their being called by the name. 

 Connotative names do not precede, but follow, the 

 attributes which they connote. If one attribute hap- 



