PROPOSITIONS. 91 



nected by the particle or ; as, Either A is B or C is D ; or by 

 the particle if; as, A is B if C is D. In the former case, the 

 proposition is called disjunctive, in the latter, conditional : the 

 name hypothetical was originally common to both. As has 

 been well remarked by Archbishop Whately and others, the 

 disjunctive form is resolvable into the conditional; every dis- 

 junctive proposition being equivalent to two or more con- 

 ditional ones. "Either A is B or C is D," means, "if A is 

 not B, C is D ; and if C is not D, A is B." All hypothetical 

 propositions, therefore, though disjunctive in form, are con- 

 ditional in meaning; and the words hypothetical and condi- 

 tional may be, as indeed they generally are, used synony- 

 mously. Propositions in which the assertion is not dependent 

 on a condition, are said, in the language of logicians, to be 

 categorical. 



An hypothetical proposition is not, like the pretended com- 

 plex propositions which we previously considered, a mere 

 aggregation of simple propositions. The simple propositions 

 which form part of the words in which it is couched, form no 

 part of the assertion which it conveys. When we say, If the 

 Koran comes from God, Mahomet is the prophet of God, we 

 do not intend to affirm either that the Koran does come from 

 God, or that Mahomet is really his prophet. Neither of these 

 simple propositions may be true, and yet the truth of the 

 hypothetical proposition may be indisputable. What is 

 asserted is not the truth of either of the propositions, but the 

 inferribility of the one from the other. What, then, is the 

 subject, and what the predicate of the hypothetical proposi- 

 tion ? "The Koran" is not the subject of it, nor is "Maho- 

 met:" for nothing is affirmed or denied either of the Koran 

 or of Mahomet. The real subject of the predication is the 

 entire proposition, "Mahomet is the prophet of God;" and 

 the affirmation is, that this is a legitimate inference from the 

 proposition, "The Koran comes from God." The subject and 

 predicate, therefore, of an hypothetical proposition are names 

 of propositions. The subject is some one proposition. The 

 predicate is a general relative name applicable to propositions ; 

 of this form " an inference from so and so." A fresh instance 



