190 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



race &quot;. &quot; Any &quot; also seems to have the force of &quot; some &quot; and so to introduce 

 a. particular, not a universal, &quot; (d) in the principal clause of an interrogative 

 sentence, e.g. * Are any subscribers dissatisfied because some non-subscribers 

 were admitted ? (b} in the subordinate clause of a negative sentence, e.%. 

 Some people do not think that any men are perfect, (c) in the antecedent 

 of a pure hypothetical, e.g. If any men are perfect some men are mistaken .&quot; 1 



Although all general propositions are expressed by the aid of 

 the same signs of quantity, yet they admit of division into two 

 classes of vastly different degrees of importance. 



(i) There are, firstly, those general propositions which make 

 predications about (all the members of) concrete, definite, limited 

 classes or collections of things ; classes that have been formed by 

 enumeration, or by actual experience, or by some tentative enlarge 

 ment or generalization from actual experience. Their character 

 istic feature is that, the knowledge of them having been reached by 

 actual experience merely, they claim to have no further force than 

 that of asserting what actually is : they are simply assertoric : from 

 the point of view Qimodality they would be problematic, that is, they 

 would merely deny, or at least fall short of asserting, the existence 

 of any necessary relation affirmative or negative between subject 

 and predicate (89). A few examples will suffice to illustrate this : 

 &quot; All the books on this shelf are histories &quot; ; &quot; All the Apostles 

 were present at the Last Supper &quot; ; &quot; All the days of the week 

 are named after pagan deities &quot; ; &quot; All the planets move around 

 the sun in elliptical orbits &quot; ; &quot; All ruminants are cloven-footed &quot; ; 

 &quot; No scarlet flowers are sweet-scented&quot; ; &quot;All lions are tawny &quot;. 

 Even where the &quot; all &quot; of such propositions carries us somewhat 

 beyond the range of actual experience, and expresses what, in 

 inductive logic, is called an empirical generalization (247), as in the 

 latter few of the examples just given even then the proposition 

 contains no certain expression of anything like a necessity, a law , 

 a &quot; must! but simply states what is, de facto. They are no less 

 concrete than such singular judgments of fact as that &quot; The 

 Romans conquered Gaul,&quot; or that &quot;Dublin is the capital of Ire 

 land &quot;. They are universal, inasmuch as the predication is true of 

 all the members of the class or collection ; but it holds good only 

 within the limits of time and space to which the identity of the 

 class or collection is obviously subject. 



(ii) Quite distinct from all such concrete, collective, enumerative, 



1 KEYNES, Formal Logic, 3rd edit., p. 68, note. 



