its real nature through words. Comprehensiveness and exclusivity consist in the distinction achieved by the name alone, as when you say “human being” or “person.” For once the referent of such a name is understood, it provides the same distinction as “rational animal” does insofar as it is free from objections.

As for conceiving that it contains both a general and a specific meaning, this is not peculiar to definition, as explained earlier. What is distinctive to definition amounts to no more than the distinction achieved by names. This is clear to anyone who reflects upon it. Admittedly, the name alone may not draw attention to the fact that some of its attributes are shared with other things while others are distinctive to it. Yet this can be brought to one’s attention both by a definition and by other means. Thus, a definition contains nothing beyond what is found in names or in the attributes mentioned of the thing named.

These are two familiar kinds:

First: the meanings of individual names.

Second: knowledge of compound sentences, both nominal and verbal, through which statements are made about things and things are described.

Neither kind requires an artificially constructed definition. It is therefore established that definition offers no benefit that is not already available in names and ordinary discourse without contrivance. The claim that definition has a distinctive benefit thus falls away.