88 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



be an invariable characteristic of all mundane living things ; it is, therefore, 

 at least an inseparable accident of these things. But when we have analysed 

 the nature, structure, and functions of the living organism, and have come to 

 see that by virtue of its composite nature and of the physical conditions in 

 which it subsists it is necessarily liable to dissolution and death, and 

 will actually die unless known physical agencies are suspended or modi 

 fied in its regard, then we have a right to regard &quot;mortality &quot; as a physical 

 property of all living organisms (87). So, too, as an invariable rule, ani 

 mals that chew the cud have been found to be cloven-hoofed, but unless and 

 until the physiologist finds some reason why the possession of cloven hoofs 

 should necessarily accompany the chewing of the cud, we have no right to 

 regard the former attribute as a property of ruminants. With the progress 

 of science attributes may and do pass from the class of inseparable to that of 

 separable accidents witness the discovery of coloured swans in Australia or 

 to the class of properties in the stricter sense. 



The whole inquiry into the nature of the distinction between accident 

 and the other predicables, as well as into the concept of property, has a very 

 close connexion not only with the distinction between necessary and contin 

 gent judgments (85-88), and between metaphysical and physical truth, 

 but also with the whole question of the relation between cause and effect in 

 Induction. 1 



JOYCE, Logic, chap. viii. JOSEPH, Logic, chap. iv. CLARKE, Logic, 

 Pt. I., chap. ix. WELTON, Logic, I., iii. VENN, Empirical Logic, pp. 269 

 sqq. 



1 C/. JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 62 sqq. 



