A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
individual could have; or may at least be such as only one individual
actually had; and this may be implied in the form of the expression.
"The father of Socrates" is an example of the one kind (since Socrates
could not have had two fathers); "the author of the Iliad," "the
murderer of Henri Quatre," of the second. For, though it is conceivable
that more persons than one might have participated in the authorship of
the Iliad, or in the murder of Henri Quatre, the employment of the
article _the_ implies that, in fact, this was not the case. What is here
done by the word _the_, is done in other cases by the context: thus,
"Cæsar's army" is an individual name, if it appears from the context
that the army meant is that which Cæsar commanded in a particular
battle. The still more general expressions, "the Roman army," or "the
Christian army," may be individualized in a similar manner. Another case
of frequent occurrence has already been noticed; it is the following.
The name, being a many-worded one, may consist, in the first place, of a
_general_ name, capable therefore in itself of being affirmed of more
things than one, but which is, in the second place, so limited by other
words joined with it, that the entire expression can only be predicated
of one object, consistently with the meaning of the general term. This
is exemplified in such an instance as the following: "the present prime
minister of England." Prime Minister of England is a general name; the
attributes which it connotes may be possessed by an indefinite number of
persons: in succession however, not simultaneously; since the meaning of
the name itself imports (among other things) that there can be only one
such person at a time. This being the case, and the application of the
name being afterwards limited by the article and the word _present_, to
such individuals as possess the attributes at one indivisible point of
time, it becomes applicable only to one individual. And as this appears
from the meaning of the name, without any extrinsic proof, it is
strictly an individual name.
From the preceding observations it will easily be collected, that
whenever the names given to objects convey any information, that is,
whenever they have properly any meaning, the meaning resides not in what
they _denote_, but in what they _connote_. The only names of objects
which connote nothing are _proper_ names; and these have, strictly
speaking, no signification.[6]