NAMES. 25 



is composed, was termed by the schoolmen the suppositio 

 materialis of the word. In any other sense we cannot intro 

 duce one of these words into the subject of a proposition, 

 unless in combination with other words ; as, A heavy body 

 fell, A truly important fact was asserted, A member of parlia 

 ment was in the room. 



An adjective^howjever, is capable of standing by itself as 

 the predicate of a proposition ; as when we say, Snow is white ; 

 and occasionally even as the subject, for we may say, White is 

 an agreeable colour. The adjective is often said to be so used 

 by a grammatical ellipsis : Snow is white, instead of Snow is 

 a white object; White is an agreeable colour, instead of, A 

 white colour, or, The colour white, is agreeable. The Greeks 

 and Romans were allowed, by the rules of their language, to 

 employ this ellipsis universally in the subject as well as in the 

 predicate of a proposition. In English this cannot, generally 

 speaking, be done. We may say, The earth is round ; but we 

 cannot say, Round is easily moved ; we must say, A round 

 object This distinction, however, is rather grammatical than 

 logical. Since there is no difference of meaning between 

 round, and a round object, it is only custom which prescribes 

 that on any given occasion one shall be used, and not the 

 other. We shall, therefore, without scruple, speak of adjec 

 tives as names, whether in their own right, or as representative 

 of the more circuitous forms of expression above exemplified. 

 The other classes of subsidiary words have no title whatever 

 to be considered as names. An adverb, or an accusative case, 

 cannot under any circumstances (except when their mere letters 

 and syllables are spoken of) figure as one of the terms of a 

 proposition. 



Words which are not capable of being used PS names, but 

 only as parts of names, were called by some of the schoolmen 

 Syncategorematic terms : from avv, with, and Karr/yopta*, to 

 predicate, because it was only with some other word that they 

 could be predicated. A word which could be used either as 

 the subject or predicate of a proposition without being accom 

 panied by any other word, was termed by the same authorities 

 a Categorematic term. A combination of one or more Gate- 



