CHAPTER VI. 



OF PROPOSITIONS MERELY VERBAL. 



1. As a preparation for the inquiry which is the proper 

 object of Logic, namely, in what manner propositions are to 

 be proved, we have found it necessary to inquire what they 

 contain which requires, or is susceptible of, proof; or (which 

 is the same thing) what they assert. In the course of this 

 preliminary investigation into the import of Propositions, we 

 examined the opinion of the Conceptualists, that a proposition 

 is the expression of a relation between two ideas; and the 

 doctrine of the Nominalists, that it is the expression of an 

 agreement or disagreement between the meanings of two 

 names. We decided that, as general theories, both of these 

 are erroneous; and that, though propositions may be made 

 both respecting names and respecting ideas, neither the one 

 nor the other are the subject-matter of Propositions considered 

 generally. We then examined the different kinds of Proposi 

 tions, and found that, with the exception of those which are 

 merely verbal, they assert five different kinds of matters of fact, 

 namely, Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time, Causation, 

 and Resemblance ; that in every proposition one of these five 

 is either affirmed, or denied, of some fact or phenomenon, or of 

 some object the unknown source of a fact or phenomenon. 



In distinguishing, however, the different kinds of matters 

 of fact asserted in propositions, we reserved one class of pro 

 positions, which do not relate to any matter of fact, in the 

 proper sense of the term, at all, but to the meaning of names. 

 Since names and their signification are entirely arbitrary, such 

 propositions are not, strictly speaking, susceptible of truth 

 or falsity, but only of conformity or disconformity to usage or 

 convention ; and all the proof they are capable of, is proof of 

 usage ; proof that the words have been employed by others in 



