IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 109 



If it be remembered that every attribute is grounded on 

 some fact or phenomenon, either of outward sense or of inward 

 consciousness, and that to possess an attribute is another 

 phrase for being the cause of, or forming part of, the fact or 

 phenomenon upon which the attribute is grounded ; we may 

 add one more step to complete the analysis. The proposition 

 which asserts that one attribute always accompanies another 

 attribute, really asserts thereby no other thing than this, that 

 one phenomenon always accompanies another phenomenon ; 

 insomuch that where we find the one, we have assurance of 

 the existence of the other. Thus, in the proposition, All men 

 are mortal, the word man connotes the attributes which we 

 ascribe to a certain kind of living creatures, on the ground of 

 certain phenomena which they exhibit, and which are partly 

 physical phenomena, namely the impressions made on our 

 senses by their bodily form and structure, and partly mental 

 phenomena, namely the sentient and intellectual life which 

 they have of their own. All this is understood when we utter 

 the word man, by any one to whom the meaning of the word 

 is known. Now, when we say, Man is mortal, we mean that 

 wherever these various physical and mental phenomena are all 

 found, there we have assurance that the other physical and 

 mental phenomenon, called death, will not fail to take place. 

 The proposition does not affirm when ; for the connotation of 

 the word mortal goes no farther than to the occurrence of the 

 phenomenon at some time or other, leaving the precise time 

 undecided. 



quently coexistence of attributes does not, any more than the opposite theory 

 of equation of groups, correspond with the living processes of thought and 

 language." I acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had 

 myself laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 104). But though it is 

 true that we naturally "construe the subject of a proposition in its extension," 

 this extension, or in other words, the extent of the class denoted by the name, 

 is not apprehended or indicated directly. It is both apprehended and indi- 

 cated solely through the attributes. In the " living processes of thought and 

 language " the extension, though in this case really thought of (which in the 

 case of the predicate it is not), is thought of only through the medium of what 

 my acute and courteous critic terms the "intension." 



For further illustrations of this subject, see Examination of Sir William 

 Hamilton's Philosophy, ch. xxii. 



