Every general name, if used as a concrete term, has, or may have, a corresponding abstract term.  Sometimes the concrete term is modified to form the abstract, as ‘greedy—­greediness’; sometimes a word is adapted from another language, as ‘man—­humanity’; sometimes a composite term is used, as ‘mercury—­the nature of mercury,’ etc.  The same concrete may have several abstract correlatives, as ’man—­manhood, humanity, human nature’; ‘heavy—­weight, gravity, ponderosity’; but in such cases the abstract terms are not used quite synonymously; that is, they imply different ways of considering the concrete.

Whether a word is used as a concrete or abstract term is in most instances plain from the word itself, the use of most words being pretty regular one way or the other; but sometimes we must judge by the context.  ‘Weight’ may be used in the abstract for ‘gravity,’ or in the concrete for a measure; but in the latter sense it is syncategorematic (in the singular), needing at least the article ‘a (or the) weight.’  ‘Government’ may mean ‘supreme political authority,’ and is then abstract; or, the men who happen to be ministers, and is then concrete; but in this case, too, the article is usually prefixed.  ‘The life’ of any man may mean his vitality (abstract), as in “Thus following life in creatures we dissect”; or, the series of events through which he passes (concrete), as in ‘the life of Nelson as narrated by Southey.’

It has been made a question whether the denotation of an abstract term may itself be the subject of qualities.  Apparently ‘weight’ may be greater or less, ‘government’ good or bad, ‘vitality’ intense or dull.  But if every subject is modified by a quality, a quality is also modified by making it the subject of another; and, if so, it seems then to become a new quality.  The compound terms ‘great weight,’ ’bad government,’ ‘dull vitality,’ have not the same denotation as the simple terms ’weight, ‘government,’ ‘vitality’:  they imply, and may be said to connote, more special concrete experience, such as the effort felt in lifting a trunk, disgust at the conduct of officials, sluggish movements of an animal when irritated.  It is to such concrete experiences that we have always to refer in order fully to realise the meaning of abstract terms, and therefore, of course, to understand any qualification of them.

Sec. 5.  Concrete terms may be subdivided according to the number of things they denote and the way in which they denote them.  A term may denote one thing or many:  if one, it is called Singular; if many, it may do so distributively, and then it is General; or, as taken all together, and then it is Collective:  one, then; any one of many; many in one.

Among Singular Terms, each denoting a single thing, the most obvious are Proper Names, such as Gibraltar or George Washington, which are merely marks of individual things or persons, and may form no part of the common language of a country.  They are thus distinguished from other Singular Terms, which consist of common words so combined as to restrict their denotation to some individual, such as, ’the strongest man on earth.’