s are
educable. That man cooks his food is probably a genuine proprium.

That horses run wild in Thibet: that gold is found in California: that
clergymen wear white ties, are examples of Accidents. Learning is an
accident in man, though educability is a proprium.

What is known technically as an INSEPARABLE ACCIDENT, such as the
black colour of the crow or the Ethiopian, is not easy to distinguish
from the Proprium. It is distinguished only by the third character,
deducibility from the essence.[2]

Accidents that are both common and peculiar are often useful for
distinguishing members of a class. Distinctive dresses or badges, such
as the gown of a student, the hood of a D.D., are accidents, but mark
the class of the individual wearer. So with the colours of flowers.

_Genus_, _Species_, _Differentia_, _Proprium_, and _Accidens_ have
been known since the time of Porphyry as the FIVE PREDICABLES. They
are really only terms used in dividing and defining. We shall return
to them and endeavour to show that they have no significance except
with reference to fixed schemes, scientific or popular, of Division or
Classification.

Given such a fixed scheme, very nice questions may be raised as to
whether a particular attribute is a defining attribute, or a proprium,
or an accident, or an inseparable accident. Such questions afford
great scope for the exercise of the analytic intellect.

We shall deal more particularly with degrees of generality when
we come to Definition. This much has been necessary to explain an
unimportant but much discussed point in Logic, what is known as the
inverse variation of Connotation and Denotation.

Connotation and Denotation are often said to vary inversely in
quantity. The larger the connotation the smaller the denotation, and
_vice versa_. With certain qualifications the statement is correct
enough, but it is a rough compendious way of expressing the facts and
it needs qualification.

The main fact to be expressed is that the more general a name is, the
thinner is its meaning. The wider the scope, the shallower the ground.
As you rise in the scale of generality, your classes are wider but the
number of common attributes is less. Inversely, the name of a species
has a smaller denotation than the name of its genus, but a richer
connotation. _Fruit-tree_ applies to fewer objects than _tree_,
but the objects denoted have more in common: so with _apple_ and
_fruit-tree_, _Ribston Pippin_ a