NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



When the form of the expression does not clearly show 

 whether the general name which is the subject of the proposi- 

 tion is meant to stand for all the individuals denoted by it, or 

 only for some of them, the proposition is, by some logicians, 

 called Indefinite ; but this, as Archbishop Whately observes, 

 is a solecism, of the same nature as that committed by some 

 grammarians when in their list of genders they enumerate the 

 doubtful gender. The speaker must mean to assert the propo- 

 sition either as an universal or as a particular proposition, 

 though he has failed to declare which : and it often happens 

 that though the words do not show which of the two he 

 intends, the context, or the custom of speech, supplies the 

 deficiency. Thus, when it is affirmed that " Man is mortal," 

 nobody doubts that the assertion is intended of all human 

 beings; and the word indicative of universality is commonly 

 omitted, only because the meaning is evident without it. In 

 the proposition, " Wine is good," it is understood with equal 

 readiness, though for somewhat different reasons, that the 

 assertion is not intended to be universal, but particular.* 



When a general name stands for each and every individual 

 which it is a name of, or in other words, which it denotes, it 

 is said by logicians to be distributed, or taken distributively. 

 Thus, in the proposition, All men are mortal, the subject, Man, 

 is distributed, because mortality is affirmed of each and every 

 man. The predicate, Mortal, is not distributed, because the 

 only mortals who are spoken of in the proposition are those 

 who happen to be men ; while the word may, for aught that 

 appears, and in fact does, comprehend within it an indefinite 

 number of objects besides men. In the proposition, Some men 

 are mortal, both the predicate and the subject are undistributed. 

 In the following, No men have wings, both the predicate and 

 the subject are distributed. Not only is the attribute of having 

 wings denied of the entire class Man, but that class is severed 

 and cast out from the whole of the class Winged, and not merely 

 from some part of that class. 



* It may, however, be considered as equivalent to an universal proposition 

 with a different predicate, viz. ''All wine is good qud wine," or "is good in 

 respect of the qualities which constitute it wine." 



