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18. When a child has learnt to know that a rose is a flower, a daisy a flower, and so on, if you show it a buttercup, it will probably know that that is a flower too. If so, it will have got the notion of a class of things, which are alike in some considerable points, though unlike in others.
19. Such names as denote any of the individuals that are contained in a class of things, are called common nouns or appellatives. (tree, flower, soldier, house.)
Common, because they are common to every individual comprised in the class. Appellative from appellare to call, because they are the names by which external objects are called.
20. In the names of materials no individual is distinguished. (water, milk, sand, iron, money, grass.)
21. The names of persons and places are called proper names.
Proper from being proper, that is peculiar, to the individual bearing the name. (John, the Thames, London.)
22. Another class of substantives represent qualities or modes of action which are conceived by the mind as having an independent existence. When I have seen, or read of, a number of virtuous actions, I get the general notion of virtue. When I have seen a number of red things, I form the notion of redness, and so on. The names of such notions are called abstract substantives, from abstrahere to draw away, because the notions themselves are drawn off, as it were, from the mass of appearances presented to our view. Hence:
23. An abstract substantive is the name of a quality or property conceived by the mind as having an independent existence.
24. As distinguished from abstract substantives, the names of things that really exist are called concrete.
Concrete from concrētus, condensed or compacted; the abstract notion being compressed, as it were, and fixed in an actually existing individual.
25. A collective substantive, or noun of multitude, is a singular substantive that expresses a collection of many individuals. (flock, swarm, nation, people.)
The whole body forms one notion in the mind, which is quite distinct from our notion of each of the individuals composing it.
26. Examples
1. What kind of noun is man?
2. What kind of noun is tree?
3. What kind of noun is soldier?
4. What kind of noun is army?
5. What kind of noun is John?
6. What kind of noun is king?
7. What kind of noun is strength?
8. What kind of noun is grotto?
9. What kind of noun is gravity?
10. What kind of noun is prudence?
11. What kind of noun is iron?
12. What kind of noun is temperance?
13. What kind of noun is robber?
14. What kind of noun is Caesar?
15. What kind of noun is London?
16. What kind of noun is soberness?
17. What kind of noun is laughter?
18. What kind of noun is silver?
19. What kind of noun is length?
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