Note 36 — Chapter II

It is not of course meant that when we start from an extensive definition, we are classing things together at random without any guiding principle of selection. No doubt we shall be guided by a resemblance between the objects which we place in the same class, and in this sense intension may be said always to have the priority. But the resemblance may be unanalysed, so that we may be far more familiar with the application of the class-name than with its implication; and even when a connotation has been assigned to the name, it may be extensively controlled, and constantly subject to modification, just because we are much more concerned to keep the denotation fixed than the connotation.