NATURE OF THE JUDGMENT AND PROPOSITION. 155 



three (or more) distinct words, as, &quot; Man is mortal Homo est 

 mortalis&quot;. Such a proposition was called by the older logicians 

 & propositio tertii adjacentis. Sometimes copula and predicate are 

 expressed by a single word, and the subject by another, as, e.g. 

 &quot;Men die Homines moriuntur&quot; . This was called a propositio 

 secundi adjacentis. Sometimes the whole proposition is expressed 

 in a single word, e.g. &quot;Pluit&quot;. This was called a propositio 

 primi adjacentis. Perhaps the only example of this in English 

 is the exclamatory proposition, such as &quot;Fire!&quot; For logical 

 treatment, the two latter forms may be, and ought to be, reduced 

 to the form of the propositio tertii adjacentis. Statements in 

 ordinary discourse are not always, or even usually, in the latter 

 form. But they should always be reduced to this form by the 

 student before he can safely deal with their logical implications. 

 In thus reducing them, considerable liberties may and often 

 must be taken with their grammatical structure. But we must 

 not exceed the limits of mere grammatical change by altering 

 the import of the proposition (86). 



Again, the student must learn to distinguish between Subject 

 and Predicate in a proposition. As a rule this is not difficult. 

 In many cases, however, there is room for doubt, inasmuch as the 

 two terms or concepts, compared or related in the judgment, 

 appear to be equally prominent in the mind, and equally impor 

 tant. 1 Needless to say, although the subject usually comes first, 

 this is by no means necessary. 2 Inversion is common, especially 

 in poetry. It is to meaning we must look, not to order of expres 

 sion. That which is spoken about, explained, interpreted ; that 

 which is the first and more fundamental and central in the 

 speaker s mind ; that which he fixes or determines or qualifies 

 mentally in some way is the Subject. That which he says 

 about the subject ; the better known notion by which he explains, 

 interprets, determines, qualifies the subject ; the term that gives 

 information about the latter is the Predicate. In all cases of 

 doubt the final appeal must be to the context, for the meaning. 



That which presents itself to us through our sense experience for rational 

 interpretation is concrete and individual. And we interpret it in judgment 

 by means of abstract notions used as predicates. Hence, in the natural 



1 Cf. VENN, Empitical Logic, pp. 200-14. 



2 It has been already observed (22) that the grammatical subject of the sentence 

 is not at all necessarily identical with the logical subject of the judgment formulated 

 in the sentence. Cf. JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 150, 152. 



