113. A Proper Name is a permanent singular term applicable to a
thing in itself; a Designation is a singular term devised for the
occasion, or applicable to a thing only in so far as it possesses some
attribute.

114. 'Homer' is a proper name; 'this man,' 'the author of the Iliad'
are designations.

115. The number of things, it is clear, is infinite. For, granting
that the physical universe consists of a definite number of
atoms--neither one more nor one less--still we are far from having
exhausted the possible number of things. All the manifold material
objects, which are made up by the various combinations of these atoms,
constitute separate objects of thought, or things, and the mind has
further an indefinite power of conjoining and dividing these objects,
so as to furnish itself with materials of thought, and also of fixing
its attention by abstraction upon attributes, so as to regard them as
things, apart from the substances to which they belong.

116. This being so, it is only a very small number of things, which
are constantly obtruding themselves upon the mind, that have singular
terms permanently set apart to denote them. Human beings, some
domestic animals, and divisions of time and place, have proper names
assigned to them in most languages, e.g. 'John,' 'Mary,' 'Grip,'
'January,' 'Easter,' 'Belgium,' 'Brussels,' 'the Thames,' 'Ben-Nevis.'
Besides these, all abstract terms, when used without reference to
lower notions, are of the nature of proper names, being permanently
set apart to denote certain special attributes, e.g. 'benevolence,'
'veracity,' 'imagination,' 'indigestibility, 'retrenchment.'