26 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



words, which induces mankind, on all subjects not considered technical, 

 to attempt to make the original small stock of names serv'e with but 

 little augmentation to express a constantly increasing number of objeCt!§ 

 and distinctions, and, consequently, ,to, express them in a manner pro- 

 gressively more and more imperfect. 



To what degree this loose mode of classing and denominating objects 

 has rendered the vocabulary of mental and moi-al philosophy unfit for 

 the piu'poses of accurate thinking, is best known to whoever has most 

 reflected on the present condition of those branches of knowledge. 

 Since, however, the introduction of a new technical language as the- 

 vehicle of speculations on hioral subjects, would not, in this country at 

 least, be tolerated, and if tolerated, would deprive those subjects of 

 the benefit of the habitual feelings, which have gi-own round the- estab- 

 lished phrases and the recognized groups, and which would not for a 

 long time take an equally strong hold of new ones ; the problem for 

 the philosopher, and one of the most difficult which he has to resolve, 

 is, in retaining the existing phraseology, how best to alleviate its im- 

 perfections. This can only be accomplished by giving to every general 

 concrete name which he has fi'equent occasion to predicate, a definite 

 and fixed connotation ; in or-der that it may be known what attributes, 

 when we call an object by that name, we really moan to predicate of 

 the object. And the question of most nicety is, how to give this fixed 

 connotation to a name, with the least possible change in the objects 

 which the name is habitually employed to denote ; with the least pos- 

 sible disarrangement, either by adding or subtraction, of the gi'oup of 

 objects which it serves, in however imperfect a manner, to circumscribe 

 and hold together ; and with the least vitiation of the truth of any 

 propositions which are commonly received as true. 



This desirable pui-pose, of giving a fixed connotation where it is 

 wanting, is the encl aimed at whenever any one attempts to give a defi- 

 nition of a general name already in use ; every definition of a conno- 

 " tative name being an attempt either merely to declare, or to declare 

 and analyze, the connotation of the name. And the fact, that no ques- 

 tions which have arisen in the moral sciences have been subjects of 

 keener controversy than the definitions of almost all the leading expres- 

 sions, is a proof how gi'eat an extent the evil to which we have 

 9,dverted has attained. 



Names with indeterminate connotation are not to be confounded 

 with names which have more than one connotation, that is to say, wdth 

 ambiguous words. A word may have several meanings, but all of 

 them fixed and recognized ones ; as the word post, for example, or the 

 work hox,, the various senses of which it would be endless to enumer- 

 ate. And the paucity of existing names, in comparison with the 

 demand for them, may often render it advisable and even necessary to 

 retain a name in this multiplicity of acceptations, distinguishing these 

 BO clearly as to prevent their being confounded with one another. 

 Such a word may be considered as two or more names, accidentally 

 ^vritten and spoken alike.* 



* Before quitting the subject of connotative names, it is proper to observe, that the only 

 recent writer who, to my knowledge, has adopted from the schoolmen the word to connote, 

 Mr. Mill, in his Analysig of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, employs it in a signification 

 different from that in which it is here used. He uses the word in a sense coextensive with 

 its etymology, applying it to every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one 

 thing, (which is, consequently, termed its signification), jncludes.also a tacit reference to 



