colour, &c. (both in the singular and plural number), exactly as if they were common terms, though they still retain in other connexions their use as abstract terms or attributives. This remark will be found of great importance in some of the subsequent sections. Note 1.-Nothing has been said above of the common distinction between abstract and concrete terms. An abstract term would be defined as a term expressive of an attribute or group of attributes considered apart from the individuals of which it is predicable; a concrete term as a term expressive of an attribute or group of attributes considered in reference to the individuals of which it is predicable, as well as of an individual or group of individuals itself. The terms John, the tenth legion, man, human, would all be called concrete; humanity would be called an abstract term. It will be noticed that I have availed myself of the expression 'abstract term,' but avoided, as too wide to be of practical service, the contrasted expression concrete term.' Concrete terms include what I have called attributives, as well as singular, collective, and common terms. 9 Mr. Mill (Logic, bk. i. ch. ii. § 4) states that Locke and several later writers have applied the expression 'abstract name' to all general names, that is, attributives and common terms as well as what I have called abstract terms. This statement, however, is not uniformly true of Locke. See, for instance, Essay, bk. iii. ch. viii. Mr. Mill himself, following the practice of the Schoolmen, takes the expression in the same limited sense as in the text. By the older logicians singular and collective terms were not regarded as concrete, no account being taken of them in this distinction. Note 2.-The term 'attributive' (which has already been employed by Harris and James Mill) is used in preference to the term 'adjective,' both because it includes participles, and because it seems undesirable in a work on Logic to employ a technical term of Grammar. Harris (Hermes, bk. i. ch. vi.) includes amongst 'attributives' verbs; but a verb, as has already been stated, is, in Logic, always represented by the copula and a participle. I have placed attributives before abstract terms, because they are more nearly allied to singular, collective, and common terms, being, for the most part, either predicated of these terms or employed to qualify them. They seem also as a rule to precede abstract terms in their formation. Thus human, red, brave, good, willing, must have been employed before the corresponding terms humanity, redness, bravery, goodness, willingness. Note 3.-For the sake of completeness, I have spoken of a term as expressing an attribute or a group of attributes. There is however no distinct name for a term expressing a single attribute incapable of analysis, and the only peculiarity of such terms is, as will be seen below, that they are incapable of definition. Locke called attributes which were incapable of analysis' simple ideas,' but the expression simple term' would not be applicable in a corresponding sense. Note 4.-That common terms, attributives, and abstract terms are formed from a comparison of individual objects or groups of objects, and that consequently they are results of thought, is obvious. But it may not be so easy to perceive that this is the case with singular and collective terms. These terms however are appropriated to individual objects or groups of objects in order to distinguish them from others, and the necessity for such distinction can only arise after a comparison of this or that individual or group with others, and a perception of certain points of resemblance and difference between them. Unless I had observed some difference between John and Thomas, this table and that, the thirteenth legion and the fourteenth, it would never have occurred to me to distinguish them by separate names; but this very observation of a difference involves an act of comparison, and consequently an act of thought. Note 5.-It is important to notice that in a series of terms, like man, human, humanity, all expressing the same attributes, the later and more abstract terms can hardly fail to suggest the earlier and more concrete, and it is so because the earlier terms of the series have been longer formed and are therefore, as a rule, more familiar to us. Thus humanity' can hardly fail to suggest to us the word 'human,' from which it is formed, and 'human' will suggest the word 'man,' from the Latin equivalent of which it is also formed, and whose attributes it expresses. Nor can we use the word 'man' without thinking of this or that individual man with whom we are familiar. A common term, in fact, expresses simply an individual object divested of all its peculiar attributes, and regarded as possessing only those attributes which it has in common with all the other objects which are designated * by the same name. But it is indifferent on which object of the group the mind concentrates its attention, and we are all along conscious that the particular object selected is simply representative of the group. And hence it is that a common name simultaneously suggests to the mind a group of individual objects and a bundle of attributes characteristic of that group. For a further discussion of this subject, see Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xxxv. and xxxvi.; Mansel's Prolegomena Logica, ch. i.; and Mill's Examination of Hamilton, ch. xvii. Note 6.-Mr. Mill maintains that attributives, when employed as predicates, are really common terms. Thus the propositions 'All triangles are three-sided,' 'All wise men are just,' are regarded by him as only abbreviated modes of saying 'All triangles are three-sided figures,' 'All wise men are just men.' I should allow that the attributive in the predicate, when taken in conjunction with the subject, always suggests a common term which may be substituted for it, as in the syllogism All wise men are virtuous, All virtuous men are happy; .. All wise men are happy.' But, though the attributive may always admit of being expressed as a common term, while it continues to be expressed as an attributive there seem to be present to the mind only attributes, whereas, when it becomes a common term, there seems also to be present a group of individuals possessing those attributes. CHAPTER II On the Denotation and Connotation of A TERM may be said to denote or designate individuals or groups of individuals, to connote or mean attributes or groups of attributes1. 1 It ought, perhaps, to have been stated in the earlier editions of this work that the term connotation is here employed in a somewhat different sense from that which is attached to it either in the scholastic logic or in the system of Mr. Mill. In the scholastic logic, a connotative term is 'one which primarily signifies an attribute, secondarily a subject,' as 'white,' the contrasted term being called an 'absolute term,' as 'man' or 'whiteness.' See Mansel's Aldrich, cap. 1, § 3, note g. This distinction, though it may have existed before, seems to have been first brought into prominence by Occam. For good statements of it, see Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III. p. 364, n. 831; Vol. IV. pp. 109, 110, n. 459. Duns Scotus seems to have been the first logician to employ connotation in this sense. See Prantl, Vol. III. p. 134, n. 598. According to Mr. Mill's nomenclature, a connotative term is one which denotes a subject and implies an attribute.' By Mr. Mill, not only singular and collective, but also abstract terms are regarded as non-connotative. In the scholastic logic, what I have called attributives are alone recognised as connotative terms. See Mill's Logic, Bk. I. ch. ii. § 5. As the term is already employed with so much uncertainty, it appears to me not inexcusable to claim still further licence, and to appropriate the expressions 'denotation' and 'connotation' of 'terms' in a sense parallel to that which is expressed by the dis |