wit
and wisdom, some queer stories, and an indefinite number of other
things. But all this significance is local or accidental; it only exists
for those who know the individual or have heard him described: whereas a
general name gives information about any thing or person it denotes to
everybody who understands the language, without any particular knowledge
of the individual.

We must distinguish, in fact, between the peculiar associations of the
proper name and the commonly recognised meaning of the general name.
This is why proper names are not in the dictionary. Such a name as
London, to be sure, or Napoleon Buonaparte, has a significance not
merely local; still, it is accidental. These names are borne by other
places and persons than those that have rendered them famous. There are
Londons in various latitudes, and, no doubt, many Napoleon Buonapartes
in Louisiana; and each name has in its several denotations an altogether
different suggestiveness. For its suggestiveness is in each application
determined by the peculiarities of the place or person denoted; it is
not given to the different places (or to the different persons) because
they have certain characteristics in common.

However, the scientific grounds of the doctrine that proper names are
non-connotative, are these: The peculiarities that distinguish an
individual person or thing are admitted to be infinite, and anything
less than a complete enumeration of these peculiarities may fail to
distinguish and identify the individual. For, short of a complete
enumeration of them, the description may be satisfied by two or more
individuals; and in that case the term denoting them, if limited by such
a description, is not a proper but a general name, since it is
applicable to two or more in the same sense. The existence of other
individuals to whom it applies may be highly improbable; but, if it be
logically possible, that is enough. On the other hand, the enumeration
of infinite peculiarities is certainly impossible. Therefore proper
names have no assignable connotation. The only escape from this
reasoning lies in falling back upon time and place, the principles of
individuation, as constituting the connotation of proper names. Two
things cannot be at the same time in the same place: hence 'the man who
was at a certain spot on the bridge of Lodi at a certain instant in a
certain year' suffices to identify Napoleon Buonaparte for that instant.
Supposing no one else