OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : NOVEMBER 13, 1867. 427 



negative ; of which the former have essential depth, but no essential 

 breadth, and the latter essential breadth, but no essential depth. It 

 must be noted, however, that this division is not the same as the similar 

 one which language makes. For example, being, according to this, 

 is an essentially negative term, inasmuch as it means that which can 

 be predicated of whatever you please, and so has an essential breadth ; 

 while nothing is an essentially positive term, inasmuch as it means 

 that of which you are at liberty to predicate what you please, and 

 therefore has an essential depth. The essential subjects of being can- 

 not be enumerated, nor the essential predicates of nothing. 



In essential breadth or depth, no two terms can be equal ; for, were 

 that the case, the two terms would have the same meaning, and there- 

 fore, for logical purposes, would be the same term. Two terms may 

 have unknown relations in these quantities, on account of one or other 

 of them not being distinctly conceived. 



Substantial breadth is the aggregate of real substances of which alone 

 a term is predicable with absolute truth. Substantial depth is the real 

 concrete form which belongs to everythiilg of which a term is predic- 

 able with absolute truth. 



General terms denote several things. Each of these things has in 

 itself no qualities, but only a certain conci'ete form which belongs to 

 itself alone. This was one of the points brought out in the controversy 

 in reference to the nature of universals.* As Sir WiUiam Hamilton 

 says, not even the humanity of Leibniz belongs to Newton, but a dif- 

 ferent humanity. It is only by abstraction, by an oversight, that two 

 things can be said to have common characters. Hence, a general term 

 has no substantial depth. On the other hand, particular terms, while 

 they have substantial depth, inasmuch as each of the things, one or other 

 of which are predicated of them, has a concrete form, yet have no sub- 

 stantial breadth, inasmuch as there is no aggregate of things to which 

 alone they are applicable. In order to place this matter in a clearer 

 light, I must remark, that I, in common with most logicians, take the 

 copula in the sense of a sign of atti'ibution, and not, like Hamilton, in 

 the sense of a sign of equality in extension or comprehension. He ex- 

 poses the proposition, " man is an animal," thus : — 



The extension of man Subject. 



equals Copula. 



a part or all of the extension of animal .... Predicate. 



* See, for example, De Generibus et Speciebus, p. 548. 



