REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 255 



there is no subject whatever, the it and the terminal s 

 being merely formal signs of predication." This is a 

 great mistake : not only in " it rains," but also in the mere 

 concept " rain," subject, predicate, and copula may truly 

 and implicitly exist. What is meant by the word " rain," 

 and still more by "it rains," uttered in the sense meant, 

 is really this : (i) The conception of the falling of rain ; 

 (2) the conception of time present ; and (3) the concep- 

 tion of the existence of the falling action during present 

 time. " Falling rain is present now " is the full explicit 

 statement of the implicit predication contained in the 

 words "rain" and "it rains." He goes on, "'It rains : 

 therefore I will take my umbrella,' is a perfectly 

 legitimate train of reasoning, but it would puzzle the 

 cleverest logician to reduce it to any of his figures." 

 But this is not true. It is most easily so reduced as 

 follows : — 



A time of falling rain is the time to take an umbrella. 

 The present time is a time of falling rain ; therefore the 

 present time is the time to take an umbrella. 



But of course we do not, for we have no need to, 

 consciously go through any such explicit process, on 

 account of the lightning-like rapidity of thought. 



He continues,* "Again, the mental proposition is 

 not formed by thinking first of the subject, then of the 

 copula, and then of the predicate; it is formed by think- 

 ing of the three simultaneously." Of course it is : they 

 are evolved simultaneously into explicit recognition from 

 their implicit coexistence in a concept. Again, he says, 

 "When we formulate in our minds the proposition, *AU 



* p. 316. 



