VERBAL AND UEAL mOPOSITIONS. 77 



of the object so named. Apart from this assmnption of real existence, 

 the class of propositions in which the predicate is of the essence of the 

 subject (that is, in which the ])redicate connotes the whole or j)art of 

 Avhat the subject connotes, but nothing besides), answers no purpose 

 but that of unfolding the whole or sonae part of the meaning of the 

 name, to those \vho did not previously know it. Accordingly, tlu; most 

 useful, and in strictness the only useful, kind of essential propositions, 

 are Definitions : which, to be complete, should unfold the whole of 

 what is involved in the meaning of the word defined ; that is (when it 

 is a connotative word), the whole of what it connotes. In defining a 

 name, however, it is not usual to specify its entire connotation, but so 

 much only as is sufficient to mark out the objects usually denoted by 

 it from all other known objects. And sometimes a merely accidental 

 property, not involved in the meaning of the name, answers this pur- 

 pose equally well. The various kinds of definition which these dis- 

 tinctions give rise to, and the pui-poses to which they are respectively 

 subservient, will be minutely considered in the proper place. 



§ 3. According to the above view of essential propositions, no prop- 

 osition can be reckoned such which relates to an individual by name, 

 that is, in which the subject is a proper name. Individuals have no 

 essences. When the schoolmen talked of the essence of an individual, 

 they did not mean the properties imphed in its name, for the names 

 of individuals imply no properties. They regarded as of the essence of 

 an individual whatever was of the essence of the species in which they 

 were accustomed to place that individual ; ^. e., of the class to which 

 it was most familiarly referred, and to which, therefore, they conceived 

 that it by natm-e belonged. Thus, because the proposition, Man is a 

 rational being, was an essential proposition, they affirmed the same 

 thing of the proposition, Julius Ctesar is a rational being. This fol- 

 lowed veiy naturally if genera and species wei'e to be considered as 

 entities, distinct from, but inhering in, the individuals composing them. 

 If man was a substance inhering in each individual man, the essence of 

 man (whatever that might mean), was naturally supposed to accom- 

 pany it ; to inhere in John Thompson, and form the common essence 

 of Thompson and Julius CcBsar. It might then be fairly said, that ra- 

 tionality, being of the essence of Man, was of the essence also of 

 Thompson. But if Man altogether be only the individual men and a 

 name bestowed upon them in consequence of certain common proper- 

 ties, what becomes of John Thompson's essence % 



A fundamental error is seldom expelled from philosophy by a single 



victory. It retreats slowly, defends every inch of gi'ound, and often 



retains a footing in some remote fastness after it has been driven from 



\ the open country. The essences of individuals were an unmeaning 



■ '; figment aiising from a misapprehension of the essences of classes, yet 

 even Locke, when he extirpated the parent error, could not shake 

 liimself free from that which was its fruit. He distinguished two sorts 

 of essences. Real and Nominal. His nominal essences were the es- 

 sences of classes, explained nearly as we have now explained them. 

 Nor is anything wanting to render the third book of Locke's Essay a 



•^ . nearly perfect treatise on the connotation of names, except to free its 

 language from the assumption of what are called Abstract Ideas, which 

 unfortunately is involved in the phraseology, although not necessarily 



