NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



without being connoted by the word, it follows from an attri 

 bute which the word does connote, viz. from the attribute 

 of rationality. But this is a Proprium of the second kind, 

 which follows by way of eausation. How it is that one pro 

 perty of a thing follows, or can be inferred, from another; 

 under what conditions this is possible, and what is the exact 

 meaning of the phrase ; are among the questions which will 

 occupy us in the two succeeding Books. At present it needs 1 

 only be said, that whether a Proprium follows by demonstra- * 

 tion or by causation, it follows necessarily ; that is to say, its 

 not following would be inconsistent with some law which we 

 regard as a part of the constitution either of our thinking 

 faculty or of the universe. 



8. Under the remaining predicable, Accidens, are in 

 cluded all attributes of a thing which are neither involved in 

 the signification of the name (whether ordinarily or as a term 

 of art), nor have, so far as we know, any necessary connexion 

 .with attributes which are so involved. They are commonly 

 /divided into Separable and Inseparable Accidents. Inseparable 

 accidents are those which although we know of no connexion 

 between them and the attributes constitutive of the species, 

 and although, therefore, so far as we are aware, they might be 

 absent without making the name inapplicable and the species 

 a different species are yet never in fact known to be absent. 

 A concise mode of expressing the same meaning is, that in 

 separable accidents are properties which are universal to the 

 species, but not necessary to it. Thus, blackness is an attri 

 bute of a crow, and, as far as we know, an universal one. But 

 if we were to discover a race of white birds, in other respects 

 resembling crows, we should not say, These are not crows ; we 

 should say, These are white crows. Crow, therefore, does not 

 connote blackness ; nor, from any of the attributes which it 

 does connote, whether as a word in popular use or as a term 

 of art, could blackness be inferred. Not only, therefore, can 

 we conceive a white crow, but we know of no reason why such 

 an animal should not exist. Since, however, none but black 

 crows are known to exist, blackness, in the present state of our 



