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NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



If, like the robber in the Arabian 

 Nights, we make a mark with chalk 

 on a house to enable us to know it 

 again, the mark has a purpose, but it 

 has not properly any meaning. The 

 chalk does not declare anything about 

 the house ; it does not mean, This is 

 such a person's house, or This is a house 

 which contains booty. The object of 

 making the mark is merely distinc- 

 tion. I say to myself, All these houses 

 are so nearly alike that if I lose sight 

 of them I shall not again be able to 

 distinguish that which I am now look- 

 ing at, from any of the others ; I must 

 therefore contrive to make the appear- 

 ance of this one house unlike that of 

 the others, that I may hereafter know 

 when I see the mark — not indeed any 

 attribute of the house — but simply 

 that it is the same house which I am 

 now looking at. Morgiana chalked 

 all the other houses in a similar 

 manner, and defeated the scheme : 

 how ? simply by obliterating the dif- 

 ference of appearance between that 

 house and the others. The chalk 

 was still there, but it no longer 

 served the purpose of a distinctive 

 mark. 



When we impose a proper name, 

 we perform an operation in some de- 

 gree analogous to what tlie robber 

 intended in chalking th« house. We 

 put a mark, not indeed upon the ob- 

 ject itself, but, so to speak, upon the 

 idea of the object. A proper name 

 is but an unmeaning mark which we 

 connect in our minds with the idea 

 of the object, in order that whenever 

 the mark meets our eyes or occurs to 

 our thoughts, we may think of that 

 individual object. Not being attached 

 to the thing itself, it does not, like 



comments, not at all flattering', thereon. 

 It is well to be now and then reminded to 

 liow gieat a length perverse misquotation 

 (for, strange hs it appears, I <io not believe 

 that the writer is dishonest) can snmetimes 

 go. It is a warning to readers when they 

 see an author accused, with volume and 

 page referred to, and the apparent gtia- 

 ranree of inverted commas, of maintaining 

 something more than commonly absurd, 

 not to give implicit credence to the asser- 

 tion without verifying the reference. 



the chalk, enable tis to distinguish 

 the object when we see it ; but it 

 enables us to distinguish it when it 

 is spoken of, either in the records of 

 our own experience, or in the dis- 

 course of others ; to know that what 

 we find asserted in any proposition 

 of which it is the subject, is asserted 

 of the individual thing with which 

 we were previously acquainted. 



When we predicate of anything its 

 proper name ; when we say, pointing 

 to a man, this is Brown or Smith, or 

 pointing to a city, that it is York, we 

 do not, merely by so doing, convey 

 to the reader any information about 

 them, except that those are their 

 names. By enabling him to identify 

 the individuals, we may connect them 

 with information previously possessed 

 by him ; by saying, This is York, w^e 

 may tell him that it contains the 

 Minster. But this is in virtue of 

 what he has previously heard concern- 

 ing York ; not by anything implied 

 in the name. It is otherwise when 

 objects are spoken of by connotative 

 names. When we say. The town is 

 built of marble, we give the hearer 

 what may be entirely new informa- 

 tion, and this merely by the significa- 

 tion of the many- worded connotative 

 name, "built of marble." Such names 

 are not signs of the mere objects, in- 

 vented because we have occasion to 

 think and speak of those objects in- 

 dividually ; but signs which accom- 

 pany an attribute : a kind of livery 

 in which the attribute clothes all 

 objects which are recognised as pos- 

 sessing it. They are not mere marks, 

 but more, that is to say, significant 

 marks ; and the connotation is what 

 constitutes their significance. 



As a proper name is said to be the 

 name of the one individual which it 

 is predicated of, so (as well from the 

 importance of adhering to analogy, 

 as for the other reasons formerly as- 

 signed) a connotative name ought to 

 be considered a name of all the various 

 individuals which it is predicable of, 

 or in other words denotes, and not of 

 what it connotes. But by learning 



