Universa Philosophia

Therefore an absolute term is one which by itself alone is perfectly significative. This I prove: First, because the word absolute is ordered to absolute signification and the constitution of a proposition, but every and only term perfectly signifying by itself alone signifies absolutely and independently of other terms, as will be plain in §.81. Likewise simply by itself alone it is subject and predicate, therefore an absolute term is one which by itself alone perfectly signifies. Secondly it is proved from the connotative term, which is opposed to it, which by itself alone does not signify perfectly, but always regards another term with which it perfects signification, as white by itself alone signifies imperfectly unless lion, man, or stone is added. For if someone hears in the school there is a white thing, he does not perceive whether it is a man, a lion, or a stone: but he is uneasy until he knows who that white thing is: but if he hears in the school there is a stone, he perfectly conceives the object. Therefore a connotative term is one which does not signify perfectly; but an absolute term is one which signifies perfectly; but indeed what does it matter to an absolute term to signify by the mode of standing by itself or of being adjacent, since this belongs to abstract and concrete terms: it is explained by the physicists, where things independent of others are called absolute: which can exist by themselves alone, without those from which they are absolute; but those which depend on others are said to have a relation to them, nor can they be without them; which is to connote them in their concept; as vision connotes color, without which it cannot be.