REQUISITES OF LANGUAGE. 241 



from denoting things which, in common language, it 

 is currently affirmed of. The fixed and precise con- 

 notation which it receives, should not be in deviation 

 from, but in agreement (as far as it goes) with, the 

 vague and fluctuating connotation which the term 

 already had. 



To fix the connotation of a concrete name, or the 

 denotation of the corresponding abstract, is to define 

 the name. When this can be done without rendering 

 any received assertions inadmissible, the name can be 

 defined in accordance with its received use, which is 

 vulgarly called defining not the name but the thing. 

 What is meant by the improper expression of defining 

 a thing (or rather a class of things for nobody talks 

 of defining an individual), is to define the name, 

 subject to the condition that it shall denote those 

 things. This, of course, supposes a comparison of 

 the things, feature by feature and property by pro- 

 perty, to ascertain what attributes they agree in ; and 

 not unfrequently an operation still more strictly in- 

 ductive, for the purpose of ascertaining some un- 

 obvious agreement which is the cause of the obvious 

 agreements. 



For, in order to give a connotation to a name con- 

 sistently with its denoting certain objects, we have to 

 make our selection from among the various attributes 

 in which those objects agree. To ascertain in what 

 they do agree is, therefore, the first logical operation 

 requisite. When this has been done as far as is neces- 

 sary or practicable, the question arises, which of these 

 common attributes shall be selected to be associated 

 with the name. For if the class which the name 

 denotes be a Kind, the common properties are innu- 

 merable; and even if not, they are often extremely 



VOL. II. K 



