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Updated: May 20, 2025
Hence, white is the name of all things so coloured, given indeed because of the quality, but really the name of the thing, and no more the name of the quality than are names generally, since every one of them, if it signifies anything at all, must imply an attribute. All concrete general names are connotative.
Thus, we find that even a proposition with a proper name for subject, means to assert that an individual thing has the attributes connoted by the predicate, the name being thought of only as means for giving information of a physical fact. This is still more the case in propositions with connotative subjects.
When the positive is connotative, so is the corresponding negative, for the non-possession of an attribute is itself an attribute. Names negative in form, e.g. unpleasant, are often really positive; and others, e.g. idle, sober, though seemingly positive, are really negative. Privatives are names which are equivalent each to a positive and a negative name taken together.
Let the predicate be, as we have said, a connotative term; and to take the simplest case first, let the subject be a proper name: “The summit of Chimborazo is white.” The word white connotes an attribute which is possessed by the individual object designated by the words “summit of Chimborazo;” which attribute consists in the physical fact, of its exciting in human beings the sensation which we call a sensation of white.
A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies an attribute. By a subject is here meant any thing which possesses attributes. Thus John, or London, or England, are names which signify a subject only. Whiteness, length, virtue, signify an attribute only. None of these names, therefore, are connotative. But white, long, virtuous, are connotative.
The real Caesar, for example, wrote a manuscript of which I see a real reprint, and say 'the Caesar I mean is the author of THAT. The workings of my thought thus determine both its denotative and its connotative significance more fully. It now defines itself as neither irrelevant to the real Caesar, nor false in what it suggests of him.
Words not otherwise connotative may, in the mode just adverted to, acquire a special or technical connotation.
This leads to the consideration of a third great division of names, into connotative and non-connotative, the latter sometimes, but improperly, called absolute. This is one of the most important distinctions which we shall have occasion to point out, and one of those which go deepest into the nature of language. A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only, or an attribute only.
The very word harmony which we use to denote the first mode is itself connotative of a way of being affected, of being moved emotionally. The mood of this mode is quiet, oneness, peace. We feel as if we were closely and compactly put together.
In regard to those concrete names which are not general but individual, a distinction must be made. Proper names are not connotative: they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals.
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