NAMES. " 17 



For, as one word is frequently not a name, but only part of a name, 

 so a number of wortls often compose one single name, and no more. 

 Thus, in the opening of the Faradi/ic Lost, these lines — 



the fruit 



Of that forbidckMi tree, whose mortal taste 

 Brought death iiito ihe vvorki, and all our woe, 

 With loss of Eden, til^ one greater Mail 

 Restore us, and regain the bhssful seat, — 



form in tlie estimation of the logician only one name j-one C.ategOre- 

 matic term. A mode of determining whether any set of Words makes 

 only one name, or more than one, is by predicating something of it, apd' 

 obsei'ving whether, by this predication, we make only one assertion" or 

 several. Thus, when we say, John Nokes, who was the mayor of the , 

 town, died yesterday, — by this predication we make but one assertion ; 

 whence it appears that " John Nokes, who was the mayor of the town," 

 is no more than one name. It is true diat in this proposition, besides 

 the assertion that John Nokes died yesterday, there is included another 

 assertion, namely, that John Nokes was mayor of the town. But this 

 last assertion was already made : we did not make it by adding the 

 predicate, " died yestei'day." Suppose, however, that the words had 

 been, John Nakes, aiicl the mayor of the town, they would have formed 

 two names instead of one. For when we say, John Nokes and the 

 mayor of the town died yesterday, we mg-ke two assertions ; one, that 

 John Nokes died yesterday ; the other, that the mayor of the tovra 

 died yesterday. 



It being needless to illusti-ate, at any greater length, the subject of 

 many-worded names, we proceed to the distinctions which have been 

 established among names, not according to the words they are com- 

 posed of, but according to theii- signification. 



§ 3. All names are names of something, real or imaginary ; but all 

 things have not names appropriated to them individually. For some 

 individual objects we require, and consequently have, separate distin- 

 guishing names ; there is a name for every person, and for every re- 

 markable place. Other object36, of which we haA^e not occasion to 

 speak so frequently, we <3o not designate by a naine of their own ; but 

 when the necessity arises for naming them, we do so by putting to- 

 gether several words, each of which, by itself, miglit be and is used for 

 an indefinite number of other objects ; as when I say, this stone: "this" 

 and " stene" being, each of them, names that may be used of many 

 other objects besides the particular one meant, although the only ob- 

 ject of which they can both be used at the given moment, consistently 

 with their signification, may be the one of which I wish to speak. 



Were this the sole purpose for which names that are common to 

 more things than one, could be employed ; if they oidy served, by 

 mutually limiting each other, to aiibrd a designation for such individual 

 objects as have no names of their own ; they could only be ranked among 

 contrivances for economizing the tise of language. But it is evident 

 that this is not their solo function. It is by their means that we are 

 enabled to assert general propositions ; to affinn or deny any predicate 

 of an indefinite number of things at once. The disthiction, therefore, 

 between general names, and individiuil or singular names, is funda- 

 mental ; and may be considered as the first gi'and division of names. 

 C 



