108 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



word white connotes an attribute which is possessed by the 

 individual object designated by the words " summit of Chim- 

 borazo ;" which attribute consists in the physical fact, of its 

 exciting in human beings the sensation which we call a sensa- 

 tion of white. It will be admitted that, by asserting the pro- 

 position, we wish to communicate information of that physical 

 fact, and are not thinking of the names, except as the neces- 

 sary means of making that communication. The meaning of 

 the proposition, therefore, is, that the individual thing denoted 

 by the subject, has the attributes connoted by the predicate. 



If we now suppose the subject also to be a connotative 

 name, the meaning expressed by the proposition has advanced 

 a step farther in complication. Let us first suppose the pro- 

 position to be universal, as well as affirmative : " All men are 

 mortal." In this case, as in the last, what the proposition 

 asserts (or expresses a belief of) is, of course, that the objects 

 denoted by the subject (man) possess the attributes connoted 

 by the predicate (mortal). But the characteristic of this case 

 is, that the objects are no longer individually designated. They 

 are pointed out only by some of their attributes : they are the 

 objects called men, that is, possessing the attributes connoted 

 by the name man ; and the only thing known of them may be 

 those attributes : indeed, as the proposition is general, and the 

 objects denoted by the subject are therefore indefinite in 

 number, most of them are not known individually at all. The 

 assertion, therefore, is not, as before, that the attributes which 

 the predicate connotes are possessed by any given individual, 

 or by any number of individuals previously known as John, 

 Thomas, &c., but that those attributes are possessed by each 

 and every individual possessing certain other attributes ; that 

 whatever has the attributes connoted by the subject, has also 

 those connoted by the predicate ; that the latter set of attri- 

 butes constantly accompany the former set. Whatever has the 

 attributes of man has the attribute of mortality ; mortality 

 constantly accompanies the attributes of man.* 



* To the preceding statement it has been objected, that " we naturally 

 construe the subject of a proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which 

 therefore may be an adjective) in its intension, (connotation) : and that conse- 



