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CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE REQUISITES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LAN- 

 GUAGE; AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DEFINITION. 



I. IN order that we may possess a language 

 perfectly suitable for the investigation and expression 

 of general truths, there are two principal, and several 

 minor, requisites. The first is, that every general 

 name should have a meaning, steadily fixed, and pre- 

 cisely determined. When, by the fulfilment of this 

 condition, such names as we possess are fitted for the 

 due performance of their functions, the next requisite, 

 and the second in order of importance, is that we 

 should possess a name wherever one is needed; wher- 

 ever there is anything to be designated by it, which 

 it is of importance to express. 



The former of these requisites is that to which 

 our attention will be exclusively directed in the 

 present chapter. 



2. Every general name, then, must have a 

 certain and knowable meaning. Now the meaning (as 

 has so often been explained) of a general connotative 

 name, resides in the connotation; in the attribute on 

 account of which, and to express which, the name is 

 given. Thus, the name animal being given to all 

 things which possess the attributes of sensation and 

 voluntary motion, the word connotes those attributes 

 exclusively, and they constitute the whole of its mean- 

 ing. If the name be abstract, its denotation is the 

 same with the connotation of the corresponding con- 

 crete: it designates directly the attribute, which the 



