KINDS OF JUDGMENTS AND PROPOSITIONS. 171 



once state it to be the distinction between judgments or proposi 

 tions in which the connexion between the subject and predicate 

 is regarded as an absolutely necessary and immutable connexion 

 (propositions &quot;in necessary matter&quot;) and those in which it is 

 regarded as a contingent or changeable connexion (propositions &quot; in 

 contingent matter&quot;). If the predicate gives (i) the whole or part 

 of the connotation of the subject, or (2) anything following neces 

 sarily from the connotation, as a property in the strict sense (47), 

 then the judgment belongs to the former of the two classes ; while 

 if it gives an accidens, whether separable or inseparable, the 

 judgment belongs to the second of the two classes. 1 



The distinction, as here understood, is best expressed by some one or 

 other of the Scholastic couples, such as &quot;necessary&quot; and &quot;contingent&quot;. 

 The use of the terms &quot;analytic&quot; and &quot;synthetic&quot; is somewhat misleading, 

 inasmuch as every judgment is in a sense both analytic and synthetic (75). 

 Mr. Joseph suggests 2 that we should call those judgments -verbal which are 

 true &quot; by convention as to the meaning of words,&quot; and those real&quot; whose 

 truth does not rest upon the meaning given to words, but which state some 

 thing about the nature of things &quot;. Of the latter, then, some would state 

 what &quot;is seen to be necessary,&quot; others what &quot;rests upon mere experience ot 

 fact&quot;. For these we would suggest the terms necessary and contingent 

 respectively. He suggests, further, that when the judgment gives us part (or 

 the whole) of the real definition of the subject, we should call it essential; 

 otherwise, accidental. Essential would then include all verbal and some 

 real judgments. Accidental, understood in the sense of Aristotle s &quot; &amp;lt;a& 

 avro crupiftcpTjKos, to include what is demonstrable of a kind, will cover all 

 Kant s synthetic judgments, whether they be grounded on an experience 

 which, so far as we can see, might have been otherwise, or on an insight into 

 a necessary relation of concepts ; i.e. in Kantian language, whether they are 

 synthetic a posteriori or a priori&quot; (cf. 86). In other words, &quot;accidental&quot; 

 judgments would then include the predication not only of separable and in 

 separable accidents but of properties in the strict sense. We prefer to call 

 the latter sort of predication &quot;essential,&quot; taking this term as synonymous 

 with &quot;necessary&quot; (cf. 87). 



86. &quot; PROPOSITIONES PER SE NOTAE,&quot; AND &quot;Mooi DICENDI 

 PER SE &quot;. A proposition of the first class is said to be per se nota, 

 i.e. knowable by itself &amp;gt; because from an examination of the terms 

 themselves, from an analysis of the comprehension of the notions 

 compared, and without appealing to any independent source of 

 information, we can know that there is a necessary connexion 

 between the concepts, that the one involves (or excludes} the 



1 The same distinction may, of course, be applied to negative judgments, accord 

 ing as the separation or exclusion of predicate from subject is conceived as necessary, 

 or as contingent. 



* Logic, pp. 189, 190. 



