CATEGORICAL JUDGMENTS AND PROPOSITIONS. 209 



reason of the predication brings the connotation of the subject so 

 prominently before the mind that this may fairly be claimed to 

 be equally prominent with, and more important than, the deno 

 tation even when the subject is expressed denotatively or quanti 

 tatively. Propositions in materia necessaria may, therefore, be 

 taken to express, as their meaning, the necessary accompaniment or 

 non-accompaniment of the connotation of their respective terms. For 

 example, the proposition &quot; Man is mortal&quot; would mean &quot; The 

 attributes connoted by man are necessarily accompanied by the 

 attributes connoted by mortal&quot;. 



In the case of contingent judgments, whether universal [92, (a) (i)] or 

 particular (93), it is possible similarly to regard the connexion asserted or 

 denied as one of actual accompaniment or non-accompaniment of the con 

 notations of the respective terms. Thus, &quot; Some men are learned &quot; would 

 mean that &quot; the attributes which constitute the connotation of man are some 

 times actually found to be accompanied by the attribute of learning&quot; ; &quot;All 

 ruminants are cloven-footed &quot; would mean that &quot; the attributes which con 

 stitute a ruminant are always de facto accompanied by the attribute cloven- 

 footed &quot;. 



We have already called attention to the fact (97) that in a negative pro 

 position the whole connotation of the predicate is taken collectively, and 

 denied, as a whole, of the subject. In the present, or connotative, interpreta 

 tion of the judgment, the same is true of the subject in regard to the predi 

 cate. A term read in connotation is not quantified ; its quantity is not ex 

 plicitly thought of ; J but, as in the examples given above, the element of 

 denotation is restored to the proposition, by the words &quot; always &quot; and &quot; some 

 times &quot;. Mill, who advocated this mode of interpretation, was right in 

 emphasizing the greater and more fundamental importance of connotation in 

 the subject of the judgment. It is the more important side of the meaning of 

 terms ; and in necessary judgments, where the predication is based not on 

 enumeration of instances, but on analysis of intension (92), the connotative 

 interpretation approaches nearer to what is actually in the mind than the 

 predicative interpretation. Not so, however, in the case of contingent 

 judgments. Mill was wrong in claiming that the connotative is the more ap 

 propriate interpretation for these. And he was also wrong in endeavouring to 

 separate the connotative side, altogether from the denotative side, of the pro 

 position, and to substitute, accordingly, the Nota notae for the Dictum de 

 omni, in his doctrine on the basis of syllogistic reasoning (153). 



103. COMPREHENSIVE INTERPRETATION Subject and Predi 

 cate in Comprehension. Comprehension is the sum-total of the 

 attributes (known and unknown) actually common to all the 

 members of a class. Can we interpret the categorical judgment 



1 It is in this sense &quot; undistributed &quot;. Cf. supra, (91). A term is sometimes 

 described as &quot;undistributed&quot; in a proposition when its extension is not explicitly 

 thought of at all in the judgment. Cf. JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 195-6. 

 VOL. I. 14 



