REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 237 



concrete term implies. To give a precise meaning to 

 general names is, then, to fix with steadiness the 

 attribute or attributes connoted by each concrete 

 general name, and denoted by the corresponding 

 abstract. Since abstract names, in the order of their 

 creation, do not precede but follow concrete ones, as 

 is proved by the etymological fact that they are 

 almost always derived from them; we may consider 

 their meaning as determined by, and dependent upon, 

 the meaning of their concrete : and thus the problem 

 of giving a distinct meaning to general language, is all 

 included in that of giving a precise connotation to all 

 concrete general names. 



This is not difficult in the case of new names; of 

 the technical terms created by philosophic inquirers 

 for the purposes of science or art. But when a name 

 is in common use, the difficulty is greater ; the pro- 

 blem in this case not being that of choosing a conve- 

 nient connotation for the name, but . of ascertaining 

 and fixing the connotation with which it is already 

 used. That this can ever be a matter of doubt, is a 

 sort of paradox. But the vulgar (including in that 

 term all who have not accurate habits of thought) 

 seldom know exactly what assertion they intend to 

 make, what common property they mean to express, 

 when they apply the same name to a number of 

 different things. All which the name expresses with 

 them, when they predicate it of an object, is a con- 

 fused feeling of resemblance between that object and 

 some of the other things which they have been accus- 

 tomed to denote by the name. They have applied 

 the name Stone to various objects previously seen; 

 they see a new object, which appears to them some- 

 thing like the former, and they call it a stone, without 

 asking themselves in what respect it is like, or what 



