68 NAMES AND PKOPOSITIONS. 



affirmative and negative. An affirmative proposition is that in which the 

 predicate is affirmed oi the subject; as, Caesar is dead. A negative prop- 

 osition is that in which the predicate is denied of the subject; as, Caesar 

 is not dead. The copula, in this last species of proposition, consists of 

 the words is not, which are the sign of negation ; is being the sign of 

 affirmation. 



Some logicians, among whom may be mentioned Hobbes, state this dis- 

 tinction differently ; they recognize only one form of copula, is, and attach 

 the negative sign to the predicate. " Caesar is dead," and " Caesar is not 

 dead," according to these writers, are propositions agreeing not in the sub- 

 ject and predicate, but in the subject only. They do not consider " dead," 

 but " not dead," to be the predicate of the second proposition, and they ac- 

 cordingly define a negative proposition to be one in which the predicate is 

 a negative name. The point, though not of much practical moment, de- 

 serves notice as an example (not unfrequent in logic) where by means of 

 an apparent simplification, but which is merely verbal, matters are made 

 more complex than before. The notion of these writers was, that they 

 could get rid of the distinction between affirming and denying, by treating 

 every case of denying as the affirming of a negative name. But what is 

 meant by a negative name ? A name expressive of the absence of an attri- 

 bute. So that when we affirm a negative name, what we are really predi- 

 cating is absence and not presence ; we are asserting not that any thing is, 

 but that something is not; to expi-ess which operation no word seems so 

 proper as the word denying. The fundamental distinction is between a 

 fact and the non-existence of that fact; between seeing something and 

 not seeing it, between Caesar's being dead and his not being dead ; and if 

 this were a merely verbal distinction, the generalization which brings both 

 within the same form of assertion would be a real simplification : the dis- 

 tinction, however, being real, and in the facts, it is the generalization con- 

 founding the distinction that is merely verbal ; and tends to obscure the 

 subject, by treating the difference between two kinds of truths as if it were 

 only a difference between two kinds of words. To put things together, 

 and to put them or keep them asunder, will remain different operations, 

 whatever tricks we may play with language. 



A remark of a similar nature may be applied to most of those distinc- 

 tions among propositions which are said to have reference to their modali- 

 ty ; as, difference of tense or time; the sun did rise, the sun is rising, the 

 sun will rise. These differences, like that between affirmation and nega- 

 tion, might be glossed over by considering the incident of time as a mere 

 modification of the predicate : thus. The sun is an object having risen, The 

 sun is an object now rising. The sun is an object to rise hereafter. But the 

 simplification would be merely verbal. Past, present, and future, do not 

 constitute so many different kinds of rising ; they are designations belong- 

 ing to the event asserted, to the swi's rising to-day. They affect, not the 

 predicate, but the applicability of the predicate to the particular subject. 

 That which we affirm to be past, present, or future, is not what the subject 

 signifies, nor what the predicate signifies, but specifically and expressly 

 what the predication signifies ; what is expressed only by the proposition 

 as such, and not by either or both of the terms. Therefore the circum- 

 stance of time is properly considered as attaching to the copula, which is 

 the sign of predication, and not to the predicate. If the same can not be 

 said of such modifications as these, Caesar may be dead ; Caesar is perhaps 

 dead ; it is possible that Caesar is dead ; it is only because these fall alto- 



