NAMES. 27 



§6. The fourth principal dinsion of names, is mtoj^os/tire and«ey«//re. 

 Positive, as man, tree, good ; negative, as not-^7nan, not-free^ not-good. 

 To every positive concrete name, a corresponding negative ohe might 

 be framed. After, giving a name to any one thing, or to any plurality 

 of things, we ifnight create a second name which should be a name of 

 all things whatever except tliat particular thing or things. These neg- 

 ative names are employed whenever wo have occasion to speali collec- 

 tively of all things other than some thing or class of -things. When 

 the positive name is connotative, the coiTcsponding negative name is 

 connotative likewise ; but in a peculiar- way, connoting not the pres- 

 ence but the absence of an attribute. Thus, not-ioMte denotes all 

 things whatever except white tilings ; and connotes t^ attinbutc of not 

 possessing whiteness. For the non-possession of any given attribute 

 is also an attribute, and may receive a name as such ; and thus nega- 

 tive concrete names may obtain negative abstract names to correspond 

 to them. 



Names which are positive in form are often negative in reality, and 

 others are really positive though their form is negative. The word 

 inconvenient, for example, does not express the mere absence of con- 

 venience ; it expresses a positive attribute, that of being the cause ,of 

 discomfort or annoyance. So the word unpleasant, notwithstanding its 

 negative form, does not connote the mere absence of pleasantness, but 

 a less degree of what is signified by the word painful, which, it is 

 hardly necessary to say, is positive. Idle, on the other hand, is a word 

 which, though positive in form, expresses nothing but what would be 

 signified either by the phrase not working, or by the phrase not dis- 

 posed to work ; and sober, either by not drunk or by not drimkcn. 



There is a class of names called privative. A privative name is 



some other thin^. In the case considered in the text, that of concrete general names', his 

 language and mine are the converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signifi- 

 cation of the name to lie in the attribute, he speaks of the word as notitig the attribute-, and 

 connoting the things possessing the attribute. And he describes abstract names as being 

 properly concrete names with their connotation dropped : whereas, in my view, it is the 

 denotation which would be said to be dropped, what was previously connoted becoming the 

 whole signification. 



In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an authority, and one 

 which 1 am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I 

 have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express 

 the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are in- 

 volved in its signification. This necessity cpn scarcely be felt in its full force by any odq 

 who has not found by experience, how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on 

 the philosophy of language without such a word. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that 

 some of the most prevalent of the errors with which logic has been infected, and a large 

 part of the cloudiness and confusion of ideas which have enveloped it, would, in all proba- 

 bility, have been avoided, if a term had been in common use to express exactly what I have 

 signified by the term to connote. And the schoolmen, to whom we are indebted for the 

 greater part of our logical language, gave us this also, and in this very sense. For, although 

 some of their general expressions countenance the use of the word in the more extensive 

 and vague acceptation in which it is taken by Mr. Mill, yet when they had to define it spe- 

 cifically as a technical term, and to fix its meaning as such, with that admirable precision 

 which always characterized their definitions, they clearly explaineti that nothing was said 

 to be connoted except /orms, which word may generally, in their writings, be understood as 

 synonymous with attributes. 



Now, if the word to connote, so well suited to the purpose to which they applial it, be di. 

 verte<l from that purpose by being taken to fulfil another, for which it does not seem to me ta 

 be at all required ; I am unable to find any expression to replace it, but suc-h as are commonly 

 employed in a sense so much more general, that it would be uselessattempting to associato 

 them peculiarly with this precise idea. Such are the words, to involve, to imply, &c. By 

 employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for which alone the name is needed, 

 namely, to distinguish this particulat kind of involving: and implying from all other kiods, 

 and to assure to it the degree of habitual attention which its importance demands. 



