156 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



order of thought the subject of the logical proposition is nearer to the in 

 dividual, narrower in extension than the predicate. We naturally predicate 

 an attribute or quality about the thing in which it inheres, not -vice versa ; 

 and a generic or wider notion about a specific, or narrower notion, not vice 

 versa. We say &quot; Men are mortal,&quot; rather than &quot; Some mortal beings are 

 human &quot;. The former was called by the Scholastics a propositio naturalis or 

 ordinata, the latter a propositio innaturalis or inordinata. So, too, for 

 example, the propositions &quot; The soul is immortal,&quot; &quot; Something immortal 

 is the soul &quot; ; &quot; Justice is a virtue,&quot; &quot; Some virtue is justice &quot; ; &quot; Blue is a 

 colour,&quot; &quot;Some colour is blue&quot;. We may say naturally, of course, &quot;A 

 virtue may be justice,&quot; or &quot;A colour may be blue,&quot; or &quot;A stone may be a 

 diamond &quot; ; for here we are not predicating the narrower notion of the wider, 

 but of some individual instance or instances (of a stone, colour, or virtue) 

 which we have in mind. 



When, however, our judgment does not compare notions one of which 

 is naturally subordinate in extent to the other, or one of which indicates a 

 thing of which the other implies an attribute ; but notions which imply equally 

 important, or conceptually independent, attributes that may happen to coincide 

 in the same thing ; then there is no real distinction between logical subject 

 and logical predicate. We may say with equal appropriateness &quot; No lawyers 

 are clergymen &quot; or &quot; No clergymen are lawyers &quot; ; &quot; Some politicians are 

 not poets &quot; or &quot; Some poets are not politicians &quot; ; &quot; The Prime Minister is 

 the First Lord of the Treasury &quot; or &quot; The First Lord of the Treasury is the 

 Prime Minister &quot;. 



The judgment in which the natural order of predication is inverted was 

 described by Aristotle as predication &amp;lt;ara o-u/i/3f ftquos &quot;per accidens &quot; . 

 &quot; The proper subject of which to predicate attributes was in his view sub 

 stance, and of which to predicate any genus, its species or the several ex 

 amples of these. Where this order was inverted, the judgment did not state 

 what its subject was in its own nature, but to what it was incident. Dc^ibt- 

 less this is often what we want to state, as in such a judgment as * The com 

 poser was Handel .&quot; * 



The following few general directions for discriminating be 

 tween subject and predicate may be found helpful : 



(a) If both terms be exact synonyms, or both proper names, 

 we may regard the first in order as subject and the second as 

 predicate : that is, if we consider their conjunction as real predi 

 cation, as forming a logical proposition at all. 2 



(b) If one term is a substantive and the other an adjective, 

 the former is logical subject, the latter predicate : the function of 

 the adjective is to qualify, explain, interpret. 



(c) The predicate being usually thought of as an attribute, 

 its intension is uppermost in the mind (100), whereas the extension 



1 JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 239 n. 



2 C/. 85, infra. WELTON, Logic, i., p. 160 ; JOSEPH, op. cit. p. 150 n. ; VENN, 

 Empirical Logic, pp. 211-13. 



