68 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



term based upon the denial of the positive attribute, &quot;/whuman,&quot; &quot; dis- 

 agreeable,&quot; &quot; sense/^j,&quot; &quot;wwfortunate,&quot; &quot;disrespectful&quot; are examples. Their 

 denotation is always tacitly confined to some limited universe of discourse : 

 &quot; senseless,&quot; for instance, being understood in practice to apply to those things 

 to which &quot; sensible &quot; could be appropriately applied, and not to all things 

 whatsoever such as distances, week-days, railways, etc. not endowed with 

 any capacity for &quot;sense&quot;. In rare cases e.g. &quot;unequal,&quot; &quot;uneven&quot; the 

 attributes implied by the negative terms are found in all the things of which 

 the positive attributes are denied, so that they remain genuine contradictories 

 of the positive terms, exhausting with the latter the whole sphere of their 

 common denotation. But in most cases they imply more than what is required 

 for the mere absence of the attributes connoted by thv positive terms, both 

 thereby failing to exhaust between them the common spnere of denotation. 

 While remaining mutually exclusive they cease to be collectively exhaustive, 

 and hence such pairs of terms are not true contradictories, but are either con 

 trary or simply repugnant. Between &quot; happy &quot; and &quot; unhappy,&quot; for instance, 

 there is the intermediate state of indifference which is the mere negation or 

 absence of the state of positive happiness. 



40. CONTRARY TERMS. Two concepts or terms are said to 

 be contrary when they connote the greatest conceivable degree of 

 difference between the things denoted by them in the sphere within 

 which they are actually applied. &quot; First &quot; and &quot; last &quot; (in the 

 universe of any order or series), &quot; black &quot; and &quot; white &quot; (in 

 that of colour), &quot; wise &quot; and &quot; foolish &quot; (in that of conduct), 

 &quot;happy&quot; and &quot;miserable,&quot; &quot;pleasant&quot; and &quot; painful,&quot; are ex 

 amples of such pairs of contraries. The distinction is obviously 

 a material one based exclusively on knowledge of facts. More 

 over, it is not an exhaustive division of terms : not all concepts 

 or terms have contraries, but only those occupying an ex 

 treme position in any given universe, and over against which, at 

 the opposite extreme, there are other and correlative terms. 

 Then, furthermore, between these contrary extremes we may 

 conceive an indefinite multitude of intermediate states or positions, 

 all more or less incompatible with either extreme, though not 

 contrary to it: unless we use the word &quot;contrary,&quot; as some 

 authors do, 1 in the wide sense in which it would include any 

 degree of incompatibility. Hence, too, it will be seen that two 

 contraries are not collectively exhaustive. Between two con 

 traries (in the strict sense) there is always a mean. Therefore, 

 although both cannot be true together of the same thing, they 

 may be false together of the same thing (unlike contradictories), 

 while the truth lies somewhere between them. Though the same 



1 C/. KEYNES, op. cit., p. 63. 



