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 _connote_ or _signify secondarily_ ([Greek: prossemainein]) the subject of inhesion". The truth is that Mansel's view was a theory of usage not a statement of actual usage, and he had good reason for putting it doubtfully.