74 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



pofition can be predicated of the lefs general : One of thefe is, as the 

 genus is predicated of the fpecies, which I have already mentioned. It 

 IS caWed hy An{{ot]c aocd'vTroiiUfAivov*. The other Arlflotle calls (v 

 *vro}csif^ivu, when an accident is predicated of a fubftance, which is, 

 when it is affirmed that the accident is inherent in the fubftance ; as 

 when we predicate the colour ivhite of man. In this cafe likewife the 

 predicate is a more general idea than the fubjeit, containing not only 

 man in the inftance given, but every other fubftance of that colour. 

 And the fame diftindion will apply of containing virtually and ac- 

 tually : For ivhite contains man only virtually, but is contained in 

 man equally ; fo that what I have (aid of ideas containing and not 

 containing one another, applies equally to all propofitlons predicating 

 either the genus of the fpecies, or the accident of the fubftance ; t 

 and this may fuffice, as to propofitions in general, for our prefent 

 purpofe. Who would defire to know more upon this fubjedl, may 

 confult the fifth book of the firft volume of this work, where he 

 will find the whole doQrine of propofitions explained on the prin^ 

 ciples of Antient Philofophy. 



But propofitions alone will not make fcience. For fuppofe that 

 we cannot perceive the connexion betwixt the two ideas, in the 

 propofition, nor difcover that the one makes part of the other ; 

 what is to be done in that cafe ? This Ariftotle tells us, and not any 

 other philofopher antient or modern, that I know. We muft find 

 out, he fays, a third idea, which we muft apply to each of the ideas 

 in the propofition, and which, therefore, he very properly calls a 

 middle term ; and, in this way, try to difcover the connedlon be- 

 twixt the two ideas in the propofition. This operation of the intel- 

 le£t, by which we apply the middle term to the two ideas or terms 

 of the propofition, and by which we form other propofitions, is cal- 

 led 



* See the beginning of the Book of Categories. 



I See, with refpeft to thefe two kinds of Predication, vol. I. p. 383. 



