439 



UNIVERSAL. 



UNIVERSAL. 



490 



in the year 1733,'was occasioned by two acts of the General Assembly; 

 the first, passed in 1730, for putting an end to the practice of record- 

 ing the protests, or reasons of dissent, given in by individual members 

 against the decisions of church judicatories ; the other, passed in 1732, 

 providing that in cases in which what is called the jus devolution, or 

 right of the presbytery to nominate to vacant livings in consequence 

 of no qualified person being presented by the patron within six 

 months, came into operation, the presbytery should always appoint 

 the person chosen by the heritors and elders. The act of 1732 was 

 not satisfactory to some members of the church because it did not 

 restore (in the cases in which the appointment fell to presbyteries) the 

 more democratic practice which had been established in 1649, placing 

 the election with the elders, or members of the kirk session, alone. 



The clergyman who took the lead in the movement against the acts 

 of 1730 and 1732 was Ebenezer Erskine, then one of the ministers of 

 Stirling, who had the co-operation of his brother, Ralph Erskine, 

 minister of the parish of Dunfermliue. [ERSKINE, EBEXEZEE, in BIOG. 

 Div.] Fifteen members of Assembly protested against the passing of 

 the act of 1732. As the Assembly refused to record this protest, 

 Ebenezer Erskine, in a sermon which he preached a few months later, 

 as moderator of the synod of Perth and Stirling, denounced the pro- 

 ceeding as arbitrary and tyrannical. Upon this sermon the synod 

 passed a resolution of censure, from which Erskine appealed to the 

 General Assembly ; but the sentence was confirmed by that supreme 

 court in 1733, and he was rebuked and admonished at the bar of the 

 house. He protested, three other clergymen adhering to him, against 

 this decision, and declared he would continue the conduct for which he 

 had been censured ; upon which the Commission of Assembly was 

 authorised to proceed against the four protesters, and they were sus- 

 pended in August, 1733, and deposed on the 16th of November 

 following. This sentence of the Commission however was removed by 

 the Assembly of 1734, which at the same time repealed both the act 

 of 1730 and that of 1732. But in the meantime the deposed 

 brethren, having been joined by four other clergymen, had constituted 

 themselves into a separate presbytery, under the name of The Associate 

 Presbytery ; the eight clergymen continuing to officiate in their several 

 churches as usual, till the affair was once more brought before the 

 Assembly of 173,9. Even in that house the motion for proceeding 

 to a sentence of deposition was lost ; but they were finally deposed, 

 and their parishes declared vacant by an act of the next Assembly, 

 passed 15th May, 1740, by a majority of 140 to 30. 



The Seceders, or Associate Synod, as they called themselves, 

 remained a united body till the 9th of April, 1747, when they split 

 into two on a quarrel about a clause in the oath required to be taken 

 by the burgesses or freemen of some of the burghs in Scotland, 

 declaratory of their profession and hearty allowance of " the true 

 religion at present professed within the realm, and authorised by the 

 laws thereof." The larger division, who held that the oath might con- 

 scientiously be taken by Seceders, kept the name of the Associate 

 Synod, but were popularly designated Burghers ; while those who held 

 that it would be wrong to take the oath took the name of the General 

 Associate Synod, and were known as Anti-burghers. In 1820 the 

 Burghers and Anti-burghers coalesced again into the United Associate 

 Synod of the Secession Church. In 1847, this body, when it united 

 with the Relief Church, consisted of 24 presbyteries, representing 

 about 400 congregations. 



The practice of subscribing the Solemn League and Covenant was 

 made imperative upon all members of the Secession by the Associate 

 Synod in 1744; but fell into desuetude after a few years. One chief 

 cause of this was the growth among the Seceders of opinions adverse 

 to the principle of national religious establishments altogether, a 

 principle strongly maintained, and placed on very high ground, in the 

 Covenant. But this change of sentiment subsequently gave rise to 

 the separation of small sections from both divisions of the body who, 

 adhering to the principle of an established church, called themselves 

 Original Seceders, on the ground that the first Seceders from the 

 Established Church held that principle. The members of these 

 sections were known as Old Light Burghers, and Old Light Anti- 

 burghers. [SECEDEBS.] 



The Relief Church originated in the secession of a clergyman, Mr. 

 Gillespie, from the Established Church hi 1752, on a question of 

 church patronage. Mr. Gillespie did not, for a considerable time, 

 attempt to form any separate ecclesiastical organisation, but kept on 

 friendly terms with many ministers and members of the establishment 

 who sympathised with his views. Others who left the establishment 

 for similar reasons erected places of worship, which were known as 

 Relief Churches, because affording relief from the grievances of lay 

 patronage in the Established Church. From these scattered congrega- 

 tions at length arose several Presbyteries, constituting the Relief 

 Synod. This body, in 1847, at the time of its junction with the 

 United Secession Synod, comprised nine presbyteries, representing 

 114 congregations. 



The United Presbyterian Church now consists of about 550 con- 

 gregations, constituting ol presbyteries. The Synod meets annually in 

 May, usually at Edinburgh. 



UNIVERSAL; UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR (Logic). By 

 a universal, in old logic, is meant a term which stands for more things 

 than one : that is, any word which means more than an individua^ 



which applies to a class of objects. In this manner it was applied to 

 the five PREDICABLES, which were also called universals. For the 

 dispute about the character of universals, see NOMINALISTS ; but this 

 dispute belongs to metaphysics, not to logic. 



The distinction of universal and particular, as applied to propositions, 

 uses the word universal in a different sense. A proposition is universal 

 when it makes its assertion or denial about every one of the things 

 spoken of ; and particular when it makes such an assertion or denial of 

 some as implies that others are, or may be, left unspoken of. Thus " all 

 men are mortal" is universal, and also " no man is perfect." But "^some 

 men are born in England " and " some animals cannot live in this 

 climate" are particular. These are the direct logical forms, but it 

 happens commonly that the universal and particular characters are ex- 

 pressed by a great variety of idiomatic turns, and even that forms of 

 expression which, literally speaking, imply universality, are used in a 

 particular sense. Thus " men do not willingly abandon life " strictly 

 means that all men are unwilling to quit life : nevertheless it would 

 be generally understood to speak of most men all but a few. Except 

 when speaking of laws of nature or necessary conditions of the mind, 

 few writers have much occasion for universal propositions, and con- 

 sequently the forms of speech which belong to all, pass into use when 

 the proposition is intended to be predicated only of most. 



The particular proposition, in its pure logical form, is of no very com- 

 mon occurrence. The reader must understand that all which is not 

 mentioned is, in the science of logic, considered as unspoken of : now the 

 particular proposition of common life generally denies of the rest what 

 it affirms of some, or affirms of the rest what it denies of some. Thus 

 he who should say " some men are mortal " would be held to utter an 

 untnith, because he would be thought to imply that the rest are not ; 

 and a naturalist, wishing to state that some species of a certain animal 

 have fur, in order to state just what his argument requires, would 

 think it necessary to say " some at least," or to use some other form of 

 speech which would signify that, for anything he said to the contrary, 

 all the other species might have fur also. But the logical proposition 

 is always understood to make all possible admission or allowance as to 

 every matter which is not directly spoken of ; and " some men are 

 mortal " means that nothing whatever is either said or implied about 

 the rest. 



The most common form of speech perhaps is the one compounded 

 of the two particular propositions, the affirmative and the negative, of 

 which the emphatic part is expressed, and the rest implied. Thus, 

 two men going into a company, the first expecting to see all dressed in 

 mourning, and the second thinking none would be so, would come 

 away expressing the same fact in sentences of very different meaning. 

 The first would say " some were not in mourning," the second would 

 say " some were in mourning," both meaning to say " some were and 

 some were not," but each giving only that part of the assertion which 

 contained the (to him) unexpected fact.' It would be desirable that 

 writers on logic should make a closer analysis of the common forms of 

 speech, and a comparison of them with the strict and true logical 

 forms. 



The universal proposition includes all cases in which there is nothing 

 left unspoken of, and therefore contains all propositions in which the 

 subject is an individual, or cannot be divided into parts. Thus, 

 " Milton was an Englishman " is as much a universal proposition as 

 " all men are mortal." It was at one time a matter of discussion 

 whether propositions asserting matter of individuals could be properly 

 called universal ; but whether this terra were applicable or not, it was 

 always seen that the rules of deduction applying to such propositions 

 were precisely those which obtain in propositions about the appella- 

 tion of which no doubt could exist. But the preceding proposition is 

 not universal because it includes all Milton, but because it includes all 

 Miltons : that is, all Miltons who can answer to a description which is 

 implied in the word as there used. And if, by the closeness of the 

 implied definition, and the number of conditions which are to be 

 fulfilled, there be left but one of men alive or dead whom it is possible 

 to mean, the proposition is not the less true. Thus, when every A is 

 shown to be B, and every B to be c, it follows that every A is c, even 

 though the description given of A be so close that there can be found 

 but one object answering to it in the world. 



And just in the same manner as all may, logically speaking, be only 

 one, so some, or those which are spoken of as some, may be one only, 

 or several, or nearly all, or even all. Some AS are Bs is logically true 

 (such is the convention of the formal part of that science) when there 

 is only one A which is B ; and also when every A is B. 



If we look at the specific elements of propositions, we find that, 

 while the subject is defined, as to whether it be universal or particular, 

 by the express addition of words, or by an implication which has the 

 same effect, the character of the predicate follows the nature of the 

 proposition, and depends solely upon whether it be affirmative or 

 negative. In all affirmative propositions the predicate is spoken of 

 particularly; in all negative propositions, universally. Thus, " AS are 

 BS " in itself does not describe the manner in which A is used : it may 

 be some AS or all AS ; but it does particularise the predicate, B. Here 

 AB (so many as are spoken of, be it some or all) are BS ; each one of 

 these AS is a B, but other BS may or may not exist, about which con- 

 sequently nothing is affirmed. "All horses are animals;" all the 

 horses make up as many of the animals as there are horses : under 



