s chief instrument being words, is one reason why we must first
inquire into the right use of words. But further, the import of
propositions cannot really be examined apart from that of words; and
(since whatever can be an object of belief assumes the form of a
proposition, and in propositions all truth and error lie) this is a
paramount reason why we must, as a preliminary, consider the import of
names, the neglecting which, and confining ourselves to things, would
indeed be to discard all past experience. The right method is, to take
men's classifications of things as shown by names, correcting them as we
proceed.

CHAPTER II.

NAMES.

Hobbes's assertion that a name is a sign, not of a thing, but of our
conception of it, is untrue (unless he merely mean that the conception,
and not the thing itself, is imparted to the hearer); for we intend by
a name, not only to make men conceive what we conceive, but to inform
them what we believe as to the things themselves.

Names may be divided according to five principles of classification. The
_first_ way of dividing them is into General (not as equivalent to
Collective) and Individual names; the _second_, into Concrete, i.e. the
names of objects, and Abstract, i.e. the names of attributes (though
Locke improperly extends the term to all names gained by abstraction,
that is, to all general names). An abstract name is sometimes general,
e.g. colour, and sometimes singular, e.g. milk-whiteness. It may be
objected to calling attributes abstract, that also concrete adjectives,
e.g. white, are attributes. But a word is the name of the things of
which it can be predicated. Hence, white is the name of all things so
coloured, given indeed because of the quality, but really the name of
the thing, and no more the name of the quality than are names generally,
since every one of them, if it signifies anything at all, must imply an
attribute.

The _third_ division is into Connotative and Non-connotative (the latter
being wrongly called Absolute). By _connotative_ are meant, not (as Mr.
James Mill explains it) words which, pointing directly to one thing,
tacitly refer to another, but words which denote a subject and imply an
attribute; while _non-connotatives_ signify a subject only, or attribute
only. All concrete general names are connotative. They are also called
_denominative_, because the subject denoted receives a common name (e.g.
snow is named white) from the attribute