226 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



Waverley " asserts identity of denotation between Scott 

 and the author of Waverley. But there is some difficulty 

 in choosing among alternative meanings of this con- 

 tention. In the first place, it should be observed that the 

 author of Waverley is not a mere name, like Scott. Scott is 

 merely a noise or shape conventionally used to designate 

 a certain person ; it gives us no information about that 

 person, and has nothing that can be called meaning as 

 opposed to denotation. (I neglect the fact, considered 

 above, that even proper names, as a rule, really stand for 

 descriptions.) But the author of Waverley is not merely 

 conventionally a name for Scott ; the element of mere 

 convention belongs here to the separate words, the and 

 author and of and Waverley. Given what these words 

 stand for, the author of Waverley is no longer arbitrary. 

 When it is said that Scott is the author of Waverley, we 

 are not stating that these are two names for one man, as 

 we should be if we said ** Scott is Sir Walter." A man's 

 name is what he is called, but however much Scott had 

 been called the author of Waverley, that would not have 

 made him be the author ; it was necessary for him 

 actually to write Waverley, which was a fact having 

 nothing to do with names. 



If, then, we are asserting identity of denotation, we 

 must not mean by denotation the mere relation of a name 

 to the thing named. In fact, it would be nearer to the 

 truth to say that the meaning of " Scott " is the denota- 

 tion of " the author of Waverley." The relation of 

 " Scott " to Scott is that " Scott " means Scott, just as 

 the relation of " author " to the concept which is so called 

 is that "author" means this concept. Thus if we 

 distinguish meaning and denotation in " the author of 

 Waverley," we shall have to say that " Scott " has mean- 

 ing but not denotation. Also when we say " Scott is the 



