196 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



&quot;most&quot; or &quot;few&quot;. Each of these signs is open to two inter 

 pretations. 



&quot;Most&quot; Strictly speaking, &quot; most &quot; should mean a majority, at 

 least one more than half, but not all. However, it may be inter 

 preted, like &quot;some,&quot; as consistent with &quot;all, &quot;and is so interpreted in 

 logic. For example, &quot;Most of the people present wore badges,&quot; 

 need not necessarily be held to imply that some did not wear 

 badges. &quot; Most,&quot; therefore, in logic, will be taken to mean 

 &quot; more than half, possibly all &quot;. It therefore introduces a parti 

 cular proposition, and may in most logical processes be replaced 

 by &quot; some&quot;. Not always, however: we shall see later that from 

 two particular propositions, &quot;Some M s are P ; Some S s are 

 M&quot; no conclusion can be drawn ; while from the two plurative 

 propositions, u Most M s are P ; Most S s are M&quot; we may draw 

 the conclusion that &quot; Some S s are P &quot;. 



&quot;Few.&quot; 1 &quot; Few S s are P&quot; is really a negative proposition : 

 its force is obviously negative : what it means, and equivalently 

 asserts, is that &quot; Most S s are not P &quot;. And this latter proposi 

 tion, according to the usual logical interpretation of &quot; most,&quot; is 

 equivalent to &quot; More than half of the S s are not P, and possibly 

 none of them are P &quot;. It is, therefore, a particular negative (or O) 

 proposition, represented though inadequately in the traditional 

 fourfold scheme by the form &quot; Some S s are not P&quot;. And this 

 is in keeping with the meaning often attached in ordinary 

 language to the form &quot;Few S s are P&quot;: the meaning &quot;Less 

 than half of the S s if any, and possibly none of them at all, 

 are/ 3 &quot;. 



Of course, the form &quot; Few S s are /&quot; can be interpreted strictly 

 (after the analogy of &quot;Most S s are /&quot; ) to mean that &quot;The 

 majority of the S s are not /*, but some are P at least some 

 one &quot;. Interpreted in this stricter way, each of these plurative 

 propositions (&quot; Most S s are P,&quot; and &quot; Few S s are P &quot;) would 

 be resolvable into two simple propositions, one affirmative and 

 one negative. Propositions resolvable in this way are called ex- 

 ponible propositions (95). 



&quot; ^4 few.&quot; Care should be taken to distinguish between the force of 

 &quot; few,&quot; and &quot;a few &quot;. The latter has not the negative signification of the 

 former. &quot;A few&quot; is for the most part logically equivalent to &quot;some,&quot; and 

 introduces a particular proposition. Sometimes it has a collective force, 

 meaning a small number or collection, as in the proposition, &quot;A few Greeks 



1 &quot; Hardly any,&quot; &quot; Scarcely any,&quot; are synonymous with &quot; Few &quot;. 



