Proper Terms are often said to be arbitrary signs, because their use does not depend upon any reason that may be given for them.  Gibraltar had a meaning among the Moors when originally conferred; but no one now knows what it was, unless he happens to have learned it; yet the name serves its purpose as well as if it were “Rooke’s Nest.”  Every Newton or Newport year by year grows old, but to alter the name would cause only confusion.  If such names were given by mere caprice it would make no difference; and they could not be more cumbrous, ugly, or absurd than many of those that are given ‘for reasons.’

The remaining kinds of Singular Terms are drawn from the common resources of the language.  Thus the pronouns ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it,’ are singular terms, whose present denotation is determined by the occasion and context of discourse:  so with demonstrative phrases—­’the man,’ ‘that horse.’  Descriptive names may be more complex, as ’the wisest man of Gotham,’ which is limited to some individual by the superlative suffix; or ‘the German Emperor,’ which is limited by the definite article—­the general term ‘German Emperor’ being thereby restricted either to the reigning monarch or to the one we happen to be discussing.  Instead of the definite, the indefinite article may be used to make general terms singular, as ‘a German Emperor was crowned at Versailles’ (individua vaga).

Abstract Terms are ostensively singular:  ‘whiteness’ (e.g.) is one quality.  But their full meaning is general:  ‘whiteness’ stands for all white things, so far as white.  Abstract terms, in fact, are only formally singular.

General Terms are words, or combinations of words, used to denote any one of many things that resemble one another in certain respects.  ‘George III.’ is a Singular Term denoting one man; but ‘King’ is a General Term denoting him and all other men of the same rank; whilst the compound ‘crowned head’ is still more general, denoting kings and also emperors.  It is the nature of a general term, then, to be used in the same sense of whatever it denotes; and its most characteristic form is the Class-name, whether of objects, such as ‘king,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘ghost’; or of events, such as ‘accession,’ ‘purchase,’ ‘manifestation.’  Things and events are known by their qualities and relations; and every such aspect, being a point of resemblance to some other things, becomes a ground of generalisation, and therefore a ground for the need and use of general terms.  Hence general terms are far the most important sort of terms in Logic, since in them general propositions are expressed and, moreover (with rare exceptions), all predicates are general.  For, besides these typical class-names, attributive words are general terms, such as ‘royal,’ ‘ruling,’ ‘woolly,’ ‘bleating,’ ‘impalpable,’ ‘vanishing.’