SECT. 13.] Modality. 307 



the matter almost entirely, for on the purely mental side the 

 necessary and the impossible would be just the same ; one 

 implying full conviction of the truth of a proposition, and the 

 other of that of its contradictory. So too, on the same side, it 

 would not be easy to distinguish between the contingent and 

 the possible. On the view in question, therefore, the modality 

 of a proposition was determined by a reference to the nature 

 of the subject-matter. In some propositions the nature of 

 the subject-matter decided that the predicate was necessarily 

 joined to the subject ; in others that it was impossible that 

 they should be joined ; and so on. 



13. The artificial character of such a four-fold division 

 will be too obvious to modern minds for it to be necessary to 

 criticize it. A very slight study of nature and consequent 

 appreciation of inductive evidence suffice to convince us that 

 those uniformities upon which all connections of phenomena, 

 whether called necessary or contingent, depend, demand ex 

 tremely profound and extensive enquiry ; that they admit of 

 no such simple division into clearly marked groups; and 

 that, therefore, the pure logician had better not meddle with 

 them 1 . 



The following extract from Grote s Aristotle (Vol. I. p. 

 192) will serve to show the origin of this four-fold division, 

 its conformity with the science of the day, and consequently 

 its utter want of conformity with that of our own time : 

 &quot; The distinction of Problematical and Necessary Propositions 

 corresponds, in the mind of Aristotle, to that capital and 

 characteristic doctrine of his Ontology and Physics, already 

 touched on in this chapter. He thought, as we have seen, 

 that in the vast circumferential region of the Kosmos, from 



1 It may be remarked that Whate- gent matter, without any apparent 

 ly (Logic, Bk. n. ch. n. 2) speaks suspicion that they belong entirely 

 of necessary, impossible and contin- to an obsolete point of view. 



202 



