A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II
John Stuart Mill · en
§ 5. A word which carries on its face that it belongs to a nomenclature,
seems at first sight to differ from other concrete general names in
this--that its meaning does not reside in its connotation, in the
attributes implied in it, but in its denotation, that is, in the
particular group of things which it is appointed to designate; and
cannot, therefore, be unfolded by means of a definition, but must be
made known in another way. This opinion, however, appears to me
erroneous. Words belonging to a nomenclature differ, I conceive, from
other words mainly in this, that besides the ordinary connotation, they
have a peculiar one of their own: besides connoting certain attributes,
they also connote that those attributes are distinctive of a Kind. The
term "peroxide of iron," for example, belonging by its form to the
systematic nomenclature of chemistry, bears on its face that it is the
name of a peculiar Kind of substance. It moreover connotes, like the
name of any other class, some portion of the properties common to the
class; in this instance the property of being a compound of iron and the
largest dose of oxygen with which iron will combine. These two things,
the fact of being such a compound, and the fact of being a Kind,
constitute the connotation of the name peroxide of iron. When we say of
the substance before us, that it is the peroxide of iron, we thereby
assert, first, that it is a compound of iron and a maximum of oxygen,
and next, that the substance so composed is a peculiar Kind of
substance.