IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 



59 



of abstract names which are not con- 

 notative, resides in the connotation. 

 When, therefore, we are analysing the 

 meaning of any proposition in which 

 the predicate and the subject, or 

 either of them, are connotative names, 

 it is to the connotation of those terms 

 that we must exclusively look, and not 

 to what they denote, or, in the language 

 of Hobbes, (language so far correct,) 

 are names of. 



In asserting that the truth of a 

 proposition depends on the conformity 

 of import between its terms, as, for 

 instance, that the proposition, Socrates 

 is wise, is a true proposition, because 

 Socrates and wise are names applicable 

 to, or, as he expresses it, names of, 

 the same person ; it is very remark- 

 able that so powerful a thinker 

 should not have asked himself the 

 question, But how came they to be 

 names of the same person ? Surely 

 not because such was the intention of 

 those who invented the words. When 

 mankind fixed the meaning of the 

 word wise, they were not thinking of 

 Socrates, nor, when his parents gave 

 him the name of Socrates, were they 

 thinking of wisdom. The names 

 huppen to fit the same person because 

 of a certain fact, which fact was not 

 known, nor in being, when the names 

 were invented. If we want to know 

 what the fact is, we shall find the 

 clue to it in the connotation of the 

 names. 



A bird or a stone, a man or a wise 

 man, means simply an object having 

 such and such attributes. The real 

 meaning of the word man, is those 

 attributes, and not Smith, Brown, 

 and the remainder of the individuals. 

 The word mortal, in like manner, con- 

 notes a certain attribute or attri- 

 butes ; and when we say, All men are 

 mortal, the meaning of the proposi- 

 tion is, that all beings which possess 

 the one set of attributes possess also 

 the other. If, in our experience, the 

 attributes connoted by man are always 

 accompanied by the attribute connoted 

 by mortal, it will follow as a conse- 

 quence, that the class man will be 



wholly included in the class mortal, 

 and that mortal will be a name of all 

 things of which man is a name : but 

 why ? Those objects are brought 

 under the name by possessing the 

 attributes connoted by it : but their 

 possession of the attributes is the real 

 condition on which the truth of the 

 proposition depends ; not their being 

 called by the name. Connotative 

 names do not precede, but follow, the 

 attributes which they connote. If 

 one attribute happens to be always 

 found in conjunction with another 

 attribute, the concrete names which 

 answer to those attributes will of 

 course be predicable of the same 

 subjects, and may be said, in Hobbes' 

 language, (in the propriety of which 

 on this occasion I fully concur,) to be 

 two names for the same things. But 

 the possibility of a concurrent applica- 

 tion of the two names, is a mere con- 

 sequence of the conjunction between 

 the two attributes, and was, in most 

 cases, never thought of when the 

 names were introduced and their 

 signification fixed. That the diamond 

 is combustible, was a proposition 

 certainly not dreamt of when the 

 words Diamond and Combustible first 

 received their meaning ; and could 

 not have been discovered by the most 

 ingenious and refined analysis of the 

 signification of those words. It was 

 found out by a very different process, 

 namely, by exerting the senses, and 

 learning from them, that the attri- 

 bute of combustibility existed in the 

 diamonds upon which the experiment 

 was tried ; the number or character 

 of the experiments being such, that 

 what was true of those individuals 

 might be concluded to be true of all 

 substances "called by the name," 

 that is, of all substances possessing 

 the attributes which the name con- 

 notes. The assertion, therefore, when 

 analysed, is, that wherever we find 

 certain attributes, there will be found 

 a certain other attribute : which is 

 not a question of the signification of 

 names, but of laws of nature ; the 

 order existing among phenomena. 



