VERBAL AND REAL, PROPOSITIONS. 121 



respecting it, than any other proposition could do. All pro- 

 perties, not of the essence of the thing, were called its accidents ; 

 were supposed to have nothing at all, or nothing comparatively, 

 to do with its inmost nature ; and the propositions in which 

 any of these were predicated of it were called Accidental Pro- 

 positions. A connexion may be traced between this distinc- 

 tion, which originated with the schoolmen, and the well-known 

 dogmas of substantive secundce or general substances, and sub- 

 stantial forms, doctrines which under varieties of language per- 

 vaded alike the Aristotelian and the Platonic schools, and of 

 which more of the spirit has come down to modern times than 

 might be conjectured from the disuse of the phraseology. 

 The false views of the nature of classification and generaliza- 

 tion which prevailed among the schoolmen, and of which these 

 dogmas were the technical expression, afford the only explana- 

 tion which can be given of their having misunderstood the real 

 nature of those Essences which held so conspicuous a place in 

 their philosophy. They said, truly, that man cannot be con- 

 ceived without rationality. But though man cannot, a being 

 may be conceived exactly like a man in all points except that 

 one quality, and those others which are the conditions or con- 

 sequences of it. All therefore which is really true in the asser- 

 tion that man cannot be conceived without rationality, is only, 

 that if he had not rationality, he would not be reputed a man. 

 There is no impossibility in conceiving the thing, nor, for 

 aught we know, in its existing : the impossibility is in the con- 

 ventions of language, which will not allow the thing, even if 

 it exist, to be called by the name which is reserved for rational 

 beings. Rationality, in short, is involved in the meaning of the 

 word man : is one of the attributes connoted by the name. The 

 essence of man, simply means the whole of the attributes con- 

 noted by the word ; and any one of those attributes taken 

 singly, is an essential property of man. 



But these reflections, so easy to us, would have been difficult 

 to persons who thought, as most of the later Aristotelians did> 

 that objects were made what they were called, that gold (for 

 instance) was made gold, not by the possession of certain pro- 

 perties to which mankind have chosen to attach that name, but 



