117. But the needs of language often require a singular term to
denote some thing which has not had a proper name assigned to it. This
is effected by taking a common term, and so limiting it as to make it
applicable, under the given circumstances, to one thing only. Such a
limitation may be effected in English by prefixing a demonstrative or
the definite article, or by appending a description, e.g. 'this pen,'
'the sofa,' 'the last rose of summer.' When a proper name is unknown,
or for some reason, unavailable, recourse may be had to a designation,
e.g. 'the honourable member who spoke last but one.'



_Collective Terms_.


118. The division of terms into singular and common being, like
those which have preceded it, fundamental and exhaustive, there is
evidently no room in it for a third class of Collective Terms. Nor is
there any distinct class of terms to which that name can be given. The
same term may be used collectively or distributively in different
relations. Thus the term 'library,' when used of the books which
compose a library, is collective; when used of various collections of
books, as the Bodleian, Queen's library, and so on, it is
distributive, which, in this case, is the same thing as being a common
term.

119, The distinction between the collective and distributive use of
a term is of importance, because the confusion of the two is a
favourite source of fallacy. When it is said 'The plays of Shakspeare
cannot be read in a day,' the proposition meets with a very different