SECT. 4.] Modality. 297 



domain, the domain, at any rate under its simplest treatment, 

 is a very limited one. Propositions of the pure form, All 

 (or some) A is (or is not) B, are found in practice to form 

 but a small portion even of our categorical statements. We 

 are perpetually meeting with others which express the re 

 lation of B to A with various degrees of necessity or pro 

 bability ; e. g. A must be J9, A may be B : or the effect of 

 such facts upon our judgment, e.g. I am perfectly certain 

 that A is B, I think that A may be B ; with many others of 

 a more or less similar type. The question at once arises, 

 How are such propositions to be treated ? It does not seem 

 to have occurred to the old logicians, as to some of their suc 

 cessors in modern times, simply to reject all consideration of 

 this topic. Their faith in the truth and completeness of 

 their system of inference was far too firm for them to sup 

 pose it possible that forms of proposition universally recog 

 nized as significant in popular speech, and forms of inference 

 universally recognized there as valid, were to be omitted 

 because they were inconvenient or complicated. 



4. One very simple plan suggests itself, and has in 

 deed been repeatedly advocated, viz. just to transfer all that 

 is characteristic of such propositions into that convenient re 

 ceptacle for what is troublesome elsewhere, the predicate 1 . 

 Has not another so-called modality been thus got rid of 2 ? 



1 This appears to be the purport draws apparently no such distinction 



of some statements in a very con- as that between the true and false 



fused passage in Whately s Logic modality referred to in the next note. 



(Bk. II., ch. iv. 1). &quot;A modal What is really surprising is that 



proposition may be stated as a pure even Hamilton puts the two (the true 



one by attaching the mode to one of and the false modality) upon the 



the terms, and the proposition will same footing. &quot;In regard to these 



in all respects fall under the forego- [the former] the case is precisely the 



ing rules;... It is probable that all same; the mode is merely a part of 



knowledge is useful ; probably use- the predicate.&quot; Logic, i. 257. 

 ful is here the predicate.&quot; He 2 I allude of course to such ex- 



