ve use of a name; as a matter of grammatical usage, the same
word may be used either way, but logically in any actual proposition
it must be either one or the other.

ABSTRACT NAMES are names for the common attributes or concepts on
which classes are constituted. A concrete name is a name directly
applicable to an individual in all his attributes, that is, as he
exists in the concrete. It may be written on a ticket and pinned to
him. When we have occasion to speak of the point or points in which a
number of individuals resemble one another, we use what is called an
abstract name. "Generous man," "clever man," "timid man," are concrete
names; "generosity," "cleverness," "timidity," are abstract names.

It is disputed whether abstract names are connotative. The question
is a confused one: it is like asking whether the name of a town is
municipal. An abstract name is the name of a connotation as a separate
object of thought or reference, conceived or spoken of in abstraction
from individual accidents. Strictly speaking it is notative rather
than _con_notative: it cannot be said to have a connotation because
it is itself the symbol of what is called the connotation of a general
name.[4]

The distinction between abstract names and concrete names is
virtually a grammatical distinction, that is, a distinction in mode
of predication. We may use concrete names or abstract names at our
pleasure to express the same meaning. To say that "John is a timid
man" is the same thing as saying that "Timidity is one of the
properties or characteristics or attributes of John". "Pride and
cruelty generally go together;" "Proud men are generally cruel men."

General names are predicable of individuals because they possess
certain attributes: to predicate the possession of those attributes is
the same thing as to predicate the general name.

Abstract forms of predication are employed in common speech quite as
frequently as concrete, and are, as we shall see, a great source of
ambiguity and confusion.

[Footnote 1: It has been somewhat too hastily assumed on the
authority of Mansel (Note to Aldrich, pp. 16, 17) that Mill
inverted the scholastic tradition in his use of the word
_Connotative_. Mansel puts his statement doubtfully, and
admits that there was some licence in the use of the word
Connotative, but holds that in Scholastic Logic an adjective
was said to "signify _primarily_ the attribute, and to
_c