It needs scarcely be observed, that general propositions of which no one can tell exactly what they assert, cannot possibly have been brought to the test of a correct induction. Whether a name is to be used as an instrument of thinking, or as a means of communicating the result of thought, it is imperative to determine exactly the attribute or attributes which it is to express: to give it, in short, a fixed and ascertained connotation. § 3. It would, however, be a complete misunderstanding of the proper office of a logician in dealing with terms already in use, if we were to think that because a name has not at present an ascertained connotation, it is competent to any one to give it such a connotation at his own choice. The meaning of a term actually in use is not an arbitrary quantity to be fixed, but an unknown quantity to be sought. In the first place, it is obviously desirable to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of the associations already connected with the name; not enjoining the employment of it in a manner which conflicts with all previous habits, and especially not so as to require the rupture of those strongest of all associations between names, which are created by familiarity with propositions in which they are predicated of one another. A philosopher would have little chance of having his example followed, if he were to give such a meaning to his terms as should require us to call the North American Indians a civilized people, or the higher classes in France or England savages; or to say that civilized people live by hunting, and savages by agriculture. Were there no other reason, the extreme difficulty of effecting so complete a revolution in speech would be more than a sufficient one. The endeavour should be, that all generally received propositions into which the term enters, should be at least as true after its meaning is fixed, as they were before; and that the concrete name, therefore, should not receive such a connotation as shall prevent it from denoting things which, in common language, it is currently affirmed of. The fixed and precise connotation which it receives, should not be in deviation from, but in agreement (as far as it goes) with, the vague and fluctuating connotation which the term already had.