tain attributes.... What we call men, are the subjects, the individual Styles and Nokes; not the qualities by which their humanity is constituted. The name therefore ís said to signify the subjects directly, the attributes indirectly; it denotes the subjects, and implies, or involves, or indicates, or, as we shall say henceforth, connotes, the attributes. It is a connotative name....

"Proper names are not connotative: they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals. When we name a child by the name Paul, or a dog by the name Cæsar, these names are simply marks used to enable those individuals to be made subjects of discourse. It may be said, indeed, that we must have had some reason for giving them those names rather than any others; and this is true; but the name, once given, is independent of the reason. A man may have been named John, because that was the name of his father; a town may have been named Dartmouth, because it is situated at the mouth of the Dart. But it is no part of the signification of the word John, that the father of the person so called bore the same name; nor even of the word Dartmouth to be situated at the mouth of the Dart. If sand should choke up the mouth of the river, or an earthquake change its course, and remove it to a distance from the town, the name of the town would not necessarily be changed."

I quote this in Mr Mill's own words, because though it expresses most clearly the view accepted by Mr Mill and many others, it is nevertheless probably erroneous, The connotation of a name is confused with the etymological meaning, or the circumstances which caused it to be affixed to a thing. Surely no one who uses the name England, and knows what it denotes, can be ignorant of the peculiar qualities and circumstances of the country,

and these form the connotation of the term. To any one who knows the town Dartmouth the name must imply the possession of the circumstances by which that town is characterised at the present time. If the river Dart should be destroyed or removed, the town would so far be altered, and the signification of the name changed. The name would no longer denote a town situated on the Dart, but one which was formerly situated on the Dart, and it would be by a mere historical accident that the form of the name did not appear suitable to the town. So again any proper name such as John Smith, is almost without meaning until we know the John Smith in question. It is true that the name alone connotes the fact that he is a Teuton, and is a male; but, so soon as we know the exact individual it denotes, the name surely implies, also, the peculiar features, form, and character, of that individual. In fact, as it is only by the peculiar qualities, features, or circumstances of a thing, that we can ever recognise it, no name could have any fixed meaning unless we attached to it, mentally at least, such a definition of the kind of thing denoted by it, that we should know whether any given thing was denoted by it or not. If the name John Smith does not suggest to my mind the qualities of John Smith, how shall I know him when I meet him? for he certainly does not bear his name written upon his brow*.

This, however, is quite an undecided question; and as Mr Mill is generally considered the best authority upon the subject, it may be well for the reader provisionally to accept his opinion, that singular or proper names are non-connotative, and all concrete general names are connotative. Abstract names, on the other hand, can hardly

*Further objections to Mr Mill's views on this point will be found in Mr Shedden's Elements of Logic. London, 1864. PP. 14, &c.

possess connotation at all, for as they already denote the attributes or qualities of something, there is nothing left which can form the connotation of the name. Mr Mill, indeed, thinks that abstract names may often be considered connotative, as when the name fault connotes the attribute of hurtfulness as belonging to fault. But if fault is a true abstract word at all I should regard hurtfulness as a part of its denotation; I am inclined to think that faultiness is the abstract name, and that fault is generally used concretely as the name of a particular action or thing that is faulty, or possesses faultiness. But the subject cannot be properly discussed here, and the reader should note Mr Mill's opinion that abstract names are usually non-connotative, but may be connotative in some

cases.

The subject of Extension and Intension may be pursued in Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect. VIII. ; or in Thomson's Laws of Thought, Sections 48 to 52. It is much noticed in Spalding's Logic (Encyclopædia Britannica, 8th ed.).

LESSON VI.

THE GROWTH OF LANGUAGE.

WORDS, we have seen, become equivocal in at least three different ways-by the accidental confusion of different words, by the change of meaning of a word by its habitual association with other things than its original meaning, and by analogical transfer to objects of a similar nature. We must however consider somewhat more closely certain changes in language which arise out of the

last cause, and which are in constant progress. We can almost trace in fact the way in which language is created and extended, and the subject is to the logician one of a highly instructive and important character. There are two great and contrary processes which modify language as follows:

I. Generalization, by which a name comes to be applied to a wider class of objects than before, so that the extension of its meaning is increased, and the intension diminished.

2. Specialization, by which a name comes to be restricted to a narrower class, the extension being decreased and the intension increased.

The first change arises in the most obvious manner, from our detecting a resemblance between a new object, which is without a name, and some well-known object. To express the resemblance we are instinctively led to apply the old name to the new object. Thus we are well acquainted with glass, and, if we meet any substance having the same glassy nature and appearance, we shall be apt at once to call it a kind of glass; should we often meet with this new kind of glass it would probably come to share the name equally with the old and original kind of glass. The word coal has undergone a change of this kind; originally it was the name of charked or charred wood, which was the principal kind of fuel used five hundred years ago. As mineral coal came into use it took the name from the former fuel, which it resembled more nearly than anything else, but was at first distinguished as sea-coal or pit-coal. Being now far the more common of the two, it has taken the simple name, and we distinguish charred wood as charcoal. Paper has undergone a like change; originally denoting the papyrus used in the Roman Empire, it was transferred to the new writing material made of cotton or linen rags, which was introduced at a quite

uncertain period. The word character is interesting on account of its logical employment; the Greek xapakτýp denoted strictly a tool for engraving, but it became transferred by association to the marks or letters engraved with it, and this meaning is still retained by the word when we speak of Greek characters, Arabic characters, i. e. figures or letters. But inasmuch as objects often have natural marks, signs, or tokens, which may indicate them as well as artificial characters, the name was generalized, and now means any peculiar or distinctive mark or quality by which an object is easily recognised.

Changes of this kind are usually effected by no particular person and with no distinct purpose, but by a sort of unconscious instinct in a number of persons using the name. In the language of science, however, changes are often made purposely, and with a clear apprehension of the generalization implied. Thus soap in ordinary life is applied only to a compound of soda or potash with fat; but chemists have purposely extended the name so as to include any compound of a metallic salt with a fatty substance. Accordingly there are such things as lime-soap and lead-soap, which latter is employed in making common diachylon plaster. Alcohol at first denoted the product of ordinary fermentation commonly called spirits of wine, but chemists having discovered that many other substances had a theoretical composition closely resembling spirits of wine, the name was adopted for the whole class, and a long enumeration of different kinds of alcohols will be found in Dr Roscoe's lessons on chemistry. The number of known alcohols is likewise subject to indefinite increase by the progress of discovery. Every one of the chemical terms acid, alkali, metal, alloy, earth, ether, oil, gas, salt, may be shown to have undergone great generalizations.

In other sciences there is hardly a less supply of