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:

1. 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 xaрaкτýp 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

instances. A lens originally meant a lenticular shaped or double convex piece of glass, that being the kind of glass most frequently used by opticians. But as glasses of other shapes came to be used along with lenses, the name was extended to concave or even to perfectly flat pieces of glass. The words lever, plane, cone, cylinder, arc, conic section, curve, prism, magnet, pendulum, ray, light, and many others, have been similarly generalized.

In common language we may observe that even proper or singular names are often generalized, as when in the time of Cicero a good actor was called a Roscius after an actor of preeminent talent. The name Cæsar was adopted by the successor of Julius Cæsar as an official name of the Emperor, with which it gradually became synonymous, so that in the present day the Kaisers of Austria and the Czars of Russia both take their title from Cæsar. Even the abstract name Cæsarism has been formed to express a kind of imperial system as established by Cæsar. The celebrated tower built by a king of Egypt on the island of Pharos, at the entrance of the harbour of Alexandria, has caused lighthouses to be called phares in French, and pharos in obsolete English. From the celebrated Roman General Quintus Fabius Maximus any one who avoids bringing a contest to a crisis is said to pursue a Fabian policy.

In science also singular names are often extended, as when the fixed stars are called distant suns, or the companions of Jupiter are called his moons. It is indeed one theory, and a probable one, that all general names were created by the process of generalization going on in the early ages of human progress. As the comprehension of general notions requires higher intellect than the apprehension of singular and concrete things, it seems natural that names should at first denote individual objects, and should afterwards be extended to classes. We have a

glimpse of this process in the case of the Australian natives who had been accustomed to call a large dog Cadli, but when horses were first introduced into the country they adopted this name as the nearest description of a horse. A very similar incident is related by Captain Cook of the natives of Otaheite. It may be objected, however, that a certain process of judgment must have been exerted before the suitability of a name to a particular thing could have been perceived, and it may be considered probable that specialization as well as generalization must have acted in the earliest origin of language much as it does at present.

Specialization is an exactly opposite process to generalization and is almost equally important. It consists in narrowing the extension of meaning of a general name, so that it comes to be the name only of an individual or a minor part of the original class. It is thus we are furnished with the requisite names for a multitude of new implements, occupations and ideas with which we deal in advancing civilization. The name physician is derived from the Greek voikós, natural, and púσis, nature, so that it properly means one who has studied nature, especially the nature of the human body. It has become restricted, however, to those who use this knowledge for medical purposes, and the investigators of natural science have been obliged to adopt the new name physicist. The name naturalist has been similarly restricted to those who study animated nature. The name surgeon originally meant handicraftsman, being a corruption of chirurgeon, derived from the Greek xeɩpovpyós, hand-worker. It has long been specialized however to those who perform the mechanical parts of the sanatory art.

Language abounds with equally good examples. Minister originally meant a servant, or one who acted as a minor of another. Now it often means specially the most