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If the name be abstract, its denotation is the same with the connotation of the corresponding concrete; it designates directly the attribute, which the concrete term implies. To give a precise meaning to general names is, then, to fix with steadiness the attribute or attributes connoted by each concrete general name, and denoted by the corresponding abstract.
I believe that the duality of meaning and denotation, though capable of a true interpretation, is misleading if taken as fundamental. The denotation, I believe, is not a constituent of the proposition, except in the case of proper names, i.e. of words which do not assign a property to an object, but merely and solely name it.
If we know that the proposition "a is the so-and-so" is true, i.e. that a is so-and-so and nothing else is, we call a the denotation of the phrase "the so-and-so." A very great many of the propositions we naturally make about "the so-and-so" will remain true or remain false if we substitute a for "the so-and-so," where a is the denotation of "the so-and-so."
If, therefore, there be any peculiar sort of agreeableness which is common though not to all, yet to the principal things which are called beautiful, it is better to limit the denotation of the term to those things, than to leave that kind of quality without a term to connote it, and thereby divert attention from its peculiarities.
By these latter words, as the cause, so the extension of this curse is expressed; and that under a threefold denotation. Every thing that is in the earth. All flesh wherein is the breath of life. Every thing that is under heaven. Ver. 18. "But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee."
Scott is merely a noise or shape conventionally used to designate a certain person; it gives us no information about that person, and has nothing that can be called meaning as opposed to denotation. Given what these words stand for, the author of Waverley is no longer arbitrary.
In these lines, fully as much is conveyed to the reader by the mere melody of m's and r's and l's as by the content, or denotation, of the words. For instance, the word "innumerable," which denotes to the intellect merely "incapable of being numbered," is in this connection made to suggest to the senses the murmuring of bees.
When a name has fallen into this state, in which by predicating it of any object we assert literally nothing about the object, it has become unfit for the purposes either of thought or of the communication of thought; and can only be made serviceable by stripping it of some part of its multifarious denotation, and confining it to objects possessed of some attributes in common, which it may be made to connote.
It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a word the things which it names is the only part of its meaning that counts; but with many words the connotation I use the word in the rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its implications, associations, and general emotional coloring has more effect on human nature.
Of the four rhetorical moods, or methods, of discourse, exposition lends itself the least to the assistance of the quality of style. Explanations are communicated from intellect to intellect. Words, in exposition, must be chosen chiefly with a view to definite denotation. The expository writer must be clear at any cost; he must aim to be precise rather than to be suggestive.
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