NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



state this distinctioD differently ; they recognise only one form 

 of copula, is, and attach the negative sign to the predicate. 

 " Caesar is dead," and " Ceesar is not dead," according to these 

 writers, are propositions agreeing not in the subject and pre- 

 dicate, but in the subject only. They do not consider " dead," 

 but " not dead," to be the predicate of the second proposi- 

 tion, and they accordingly define a negative proposition to 

 be one in which the predicate is a negative name. The point, 

 though not of much practical moment, deserves notice as 

 an example (not unfrequent in logic) where by means of 

 an apparent simplification, but which is merely verbal, 

 matters are made more complex than before. The notion 

 of these writers was, that they could get rid of the distinc- 

 tion between affirming and denying, by treating every case 

 of denying as the affirming of a negative name. But what 

 is meant by a negative name ? A name expressive of the 

 absence of an attribute. So that when we affirm a negative 

 name, what we are really predicating is absence and not 

 presence; we are asserting not that anything is, but that 

 something is not ; to express which operation no word seems 

 so proper as the word denying. The fundamental distinc- 

 tion is between a fact and the non-existence of that fact ; 

 between seeing something and not seeing it, between Caesar's 

 being dead and his not being dead ; and if this were a merely 

 verbal distinction, the generalization which brings both 

 within the same form of assertion would be a real simplifi- 

 cation : the distinction, however, being real, and in the facts, 

 it is the generalization confounding the distinction that is 

 merely verbal ; and tends to obscure the subject, by treating 

 the difference between two kinds of truths as if it were only 

 a difference between two kinds of words. To put things 

 together, and to put them or keep them asunder, will 

 remain different operations, whatever tricks we may play with 

 language. 



A remark of a similar nature may be applied to most of 

 those distinctions among propositions which are said to have 

 reference to their modality ; as, difference of tense or time ; 

 the sun did rise, the sun is rising, the sun will rise. These 



