Class-names are general terms, such as men, chair, tree, army, nation. Words like redness, sweetness, justice, are probably general in that they denote a combination of qualities or may be subdivided into kinds.
The way the term is employed in the proposition should determine its singular or general nature.
6. COLLECTIVE AND DISTRIBUTIVE TERMS.
A collective term is a general term which indicates an indefinite number of objects as one whole. Such words as class, crowd, army, forest, nation, are collective.
A distributive term is a general term which indicates an indefinite number of objects as a whole, and also may be used to refer to each one of the group separately. Such as man, pupil, tree, book.
It is easy to distinguish collective from distributive terms when we attempt to use them in the designation of individuals. Pointing to a body of troops, one may remark, “There is the regiment.” But when pointing to one man in the regiment, he could hardly say, “There is the regiment.” “Regiment” is therefore collective because it may be used with reference to the whole body of troops but cannot be used in connection with any individual of that body. On the other hand in the sentence, “Man is mortal,” “man” refers to the whole family of men. It also indicates any one of them. As, “This man, John Doe, is mortal.” Thus “man” is distributive. The distributive term, therefore, can be used in a two-fold sense; namely, to denote the whole or to denote each.
It must be noted that, viewed from a different standpoint, some collective terms become distributive in nature. As for example in the proposition, “The army of the world is composed of able bodied men,” army is used with reference to all armies. While it may be used to designate some particular army, as The American army.
Collective terms have been classified as general terms. It must be borne in mind, however, that such may be made singular by some modifying word. For example, people is a general term, but American people is a singular term in that it refers to one people, being thus limited by the word American.
7. CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT TERMS.
A concrete term is a term which denotes a thing; e. g., this man, that tree, John Doe, denote in each case a thing. Man and tree, denote many things. All are concrete.