§ 5. 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. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies an attribute. By a subject is here meant anything 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 word white, denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the foam of the sea, &c., and implies, or as it was termed by the schoolmen, _connotes_[4], the attribute _whiteness_. The word white is not predicated of the attribute, but of the subjects, snow, &c.; but when we predicate it of them, we imply, or connote, that the attribute whiteness belongs to them. The same may be said of the other words above cited. Virtuous, for example, is the name of a class, which includes Socrates, Howard, the Man of Ross, and an undefinable number of other individuals, past, present, and to come. These individuals, collectively and severally, can alone be said with propriety to be denoted by the word: of them alone can it properly be said to be a name. But it is a name applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute which has received the name of virtue. It is applied to all beings that are considered to possess this attribute; and to none which are not so considered.
All concrete general names are connotative. The word _man_, for example, denotes Peter, Jane, John, and an indefinite number of other individuals, of whom, taken as a class, it is the name. But it is applied to them, because they possess, and to signify that they possess, certain attributes. These seem to be, corporeity, animal life, rationality, and a certain external form, which for distinction we call the human. Every existing thing, which possessed all these attributes, would be called a man; and anything which possessed none of them, or only one, or two, or even three of them without the fourth, would not be so called. For example, if in the interior of Africa there were to be discovered a race of animals possessing reason equal to that of human beings, but with the form of an elephant, they would not be called men. Swift's Houyhnhnms would not be so called. Or if such newly-discovered beings possessed the form of man without any vestige of reason, it is probable that some other name than that of man would be found for them. How it happens that there can be any doubt about the matter, will appear hereafter. The word _man_, therefore, signifies all these attributes, and all subjects which possess these attributes. But it can be predicated only of the subjects. What we call men, are the subjects, the individual Stiles and Nokes; not the qualities by which their humanity is constituted. The name, therefore, is said to signify the subjects _directly_, the attributes _indirectly_; it _denotes_ the subjects, and implies, or involves, or indicates, or as we shall say henceforth _connotes_, the attributes. It is a connotative name.