NAMES. 



17 



to assert general propositions ; to 

 affirm or deny any predicate of an 

 indefinite number of things at once. 

 The distinction, therefore, between 

 general names, and individual or singu- 

 lar names, is fundamental ; and may 

 be considered as the first grand divi- 



y sion of names. 



^ A general name is familiarly de- 



fined, a name which is capable of 

 being truly affirmed, in the same 

 sense, of each of an indefinite number 

 of things. An individual or singular 

 name is a name which is only capable 

 of being truly affirmed, in the same 

 sense, of one thing. 



Thus, man is capable of being 

 truly affirmed of John, George, Mary, 

 and other persons without assignable 

 limit ; and it is affirmed of all of 

 them in the same sense ; for the word 

 man expresses certain qualities, and 

 when we predicate it of those persons, 

 we assert that they all possess those 

 qualities. But John is only capable 

 of being truly affirmed of one single 

 person, at least in the same sense. 

 Tor, though there are many persons 

 who bear that name, it is not con- 

 ferred upon them to indicate any 

 qualities, or anything which belongs 

 to them in common ; and cannot be 

 said to be aifirmed of them in any 

 sense at all, consequently not in the 

 same sense. "The king who suc- 

 ceeded William the Conqueror," is 

 also an individual name. For, that 

 there cannot be more than one person 

 of whom it can be truly aflSrmed, is 

 implied in the meaning of the words. 

 Even "<Ae king," when the occasion or 

 the context defines the individual of 

 whom it is to be understood, may justly 

 be regarded as an individual name. 



It is not unusual, by way of ex- 

 plaining what is meant by a general 

 name, to say that it is the name of a 

 class. But this, though a convenient 

 mode of expression for some purposes, 

 is objectionable as a definition, since 

 it explains the clearer of two things 

 by the more obscure. It would be 

 more logical to reverse the proposi- 

 tion, and turn it into a definition of 



the word class : " A class is the inde- 

 finite multitude of individuals denoted 

 by a general name." 



It is necessary to distinguish general 

 from collective names. A general name 

 is one which can be predicated of each 

 individual of a multitude ; a collec- 

 tive name cannot be predicated of 

 each separately, but only of all taken 

 together. "The 76th regiment of 

 foot in the British army," which is 

 a collective name, is not a general 

 but an individual name ; for though 

 it can be predicated of a multitude of 

 individual soldiers taken jointly, it 

 cannot be predicated of them severally. 

 We may say, Jones is a soldier, and 

 Thompson is a soldier, and Smith is 

 a soldier, but we cannot say, Jones 

 is the 76th regiment, and Thompson 

 is the 76th regiment, and Smith is 

 the 76th regiment. We can only say, 

 Jones, and Thompson, and Smith, and 

 Brown, and so forth (enumerating all 

 the soldiers), are the 76th regiment. 



" The 76th regiment " is a collec- 

 tive name, but not a general one : " a 

 regiment " is both a collective and a 

 general name. General with respect 

 to all individual regiments, of each of 

 which separately it can be affirmed : 

 collective with respect to the indi- 

 vidual soldiers of whom any regiment 

 is composed. 



§ 4. The second general division of 

 names is into concrete and abstract. 

 A concrete name is a name which 

 stands for a thing ; an abstract name 

 is a name which stands for an attri- 

 bute of a thing. Thus John, the sea, 

 this table, are names of things. White, 

 also, is the name of a thing, or rather 

 of things. Whiteness, again, is the 

 name of a quality or attribute of 

 those things. Man is a name of 

 many things ; humanity is a name of 

 an attribute of those things. Old is 

 a name of things ; old age is a name 

 of one of their attributes. 



I have used the words concrete and 

 abstract in the sense annexed to them 

 by the schoolmen, who, notwithstand- 

 ing the imperfections of their philo- 



