90 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



assertions ; and we might as well call a street a complex 

 house, as these two propositions a complex proposition. It 

 is true that the syncategorematic words and and but have a 

 meaning ; hut that meaning is so far from making the two 

 propositions one, that it adds a third proposition to them. 

 All particles are abbreviations, and generally abbreviations of 

 propositions ; a kind of short-hand, whereby something which, 

 to be expressed fully, would have required a proposition or 

 a series of propositions, is suggested to the mind at once. 

 Thus the words, Caesar is dead and Brutus is alive, are 

 equivalent to these : Caesar is dead ; Brutus is alive ; it is 

 desired that the two preceding propositions should be thought 

 of together. If the words were, Caesar is dead but Brutus is 

 alive, the sense would be equivalent to the same three pro- 

 positions together with a fourth ; " between the two preceding 

 propositions there exists a contrast :" viz, either between the 

 two facts themselves, or between the feelings with which it is 

 desired that they should be regarded. 



In the instances cited the two propositions are kept visibly 

 distinct, each subject having its separate predicate, and each 

 predicate its separate subject. For brevity, however, and to 

 avoid repetition, the propositions are often blended together : 

 as in this, " Peter and James preached at Jerusalem and in 

 Galilee," which contains four propositions : Peter preached 

 at Jerusalem, Peter preached in Galilee, James preached at 

 Jerusalem, James preached in Galilee. 



We have seen that when the two or more propositions 

 comprised in what is called a complex proposition are stated 

 absolutely, and not under any condition or proviso, it is not 

 a proposition at all, but a plurality of propositions ; since 

 what it expresses is not a single assertion, but several asser- 

 tions, which, if true when joined, are true also when separated. 

 But there is a kind of proposition which, though it contains 

 a plurality of subjects and of predicates, and may be said in 

 one sense of the word to consist of several propositions, con- 

 tains but one assertion; and its truth does not at all imply 

 that of the simple propositions which compose it. An 

 example of this is, when the simple propositions are con- 



