2S 



NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



intended to convey. The series of 

 events may be said to constitute the 

 relation ; the schoolmen called it the 

 foundation of the relation, funda- 1 

 mentum relationis. ^ ^ | 



In this manner any fact, or series • 

 of facts, in which two different | 

 objects are implicated, and which is j 

 therefore predicable of both of them, I 

 may be either considered as consti- ; 

 tuting an attribute of the one, or an I 

 attribute of the other. According as ! 

 we consider it in the former, or in | 

 the latter aspect, it is connoted by j 

 the one or the other of the two corre- 

 lative names. Father connotes the 

 fact, regarded as constituting an 

 attribute of A; son connotes the 

 same fact, as constituting an attri- 

 bute of B. It may evidently be 

 regarded with equal propriety in 

 either light. And all that appears 

 necessary to account for the exist- 

 ence of relative names, is, that when- 

 ever there is a fact in which two in- 

 dividuals are concerned, an attribute 

 grounded on that fact may be ascribed 

 to either of these individuals. 



A name, therefore, is said to be 

 relative, when, over and above the ob- 

 ject which it denotes, it implies in its 

 signification the existence of another 

 object, also deriving a denomination 

 from the same fact which is the ground 

 of the first name. Or (to express the 

 same meaning in other words) a name 

 is relative, when, being the name of 

 one thing, its signification cannot be 

 explained but by mentioning another. 

 Or we may state it thus — when the 

 name cannot be employed in discourse 

 so as to have a meaning, unless the 

 name of some other thing than what 

 it is itself the name of, be either 

 expressed or understood. These de- 

 finitions are all, at bottom, equivalent, 

 being modes of variously expressing 

 this one distinctive circumstance — 

 that every other attribute of an object 

 might, without any contradiction, be 

 conceived still to exist if no object 

 besides that one had ever existed ; * 



• Or rather, all objects except itself and 

 the percipient mind ; for, as we snail see 



but those of its attributes which are 

 expressed by relative names, would 

 on that supposition be swept away. 



§ 8. Names have been further dis- 

 tinguished into univocal and cequi- 

 vocal: these, however, are not two 

 kinds of names, but two different 

 modes of employing names. A name 

 is univocal, or applied univocally, with 

 respect to all things of which it can 

 be predicated in the same sense ; it is 

 sequivocal, or applied sequivocally, as 

 respects those things of which it is 

 predicated in different senses. It is 

 scarcely necessary to give instances 

 I of a fact so familiar as the double 

 meaning of a word. In reality, as 

 has been already observed, an sequi- 

 vocal or ambiguous word is not one 

 name, but two names, accidentally 

 coinciding in sound. File meaning a 

 steel instrument, and file meaning a 

 line of soldiers, have no more title to 

 be considered one word, because 

 written alike, than grease and Greece 

 have, because they are pronounced 

 alike. They are one sound, appro 

 priated to form two different words. 



An intermediate case is that of a 

 name used analogically or metaphori- 

 cally ; that is, a name which is pre- 

 dicated of two things, not univocally, 

 or exactly in the same signification, 

 but in significations somewhat similar, 

 and which being derived one from the 

 other, one of them may be considered 

 the primary, and the other a secondary 

 signification. As when we speak of a 

 brilliant light and a brilliant achieve- 

 ment. The word is not applied in the 

 same sense to the light and to the 

 achievement ; but having been applied 

 to the light in its original sense, that 

 of brightness to the eye, it is trans- 

 hereafter, to ascribe any attiibute to an 

 object, necessarily implies a mind to per- 

 ceive it. 



The simple and clear explanation given 

 in tiie text, of relation and relative names, 

 a subject so long the opprobrium of meta- 

 phypics, was given (as far as I know) for 

 tbe first time, by Mr. James Mill, in his 

 Analysis of the Ph«*.tiomena of the Human 

 Mind: 



