PROPOSITIONS. VI 



form, we should be at a loss to account for the conspicuous position which 

 they have been selected to fill in treatises on logic, if we did not remem- 

 ber that what they predicate of a proposition, namely, its being an inference 

 from something else, is precisely that one of its attributes with which most 

 of all a logician is concerned. 



§ 4. The next of the common divisions of Propositions is into Universal, 

 Particular, Indefinite, and Singular : a distinction founded on the degree 

 of generality in which the name, which is the subject of the proposition, 

 is to be understood. The following are examples : 



All men are mortal — Universal. 



Some men are mortal — Particular. 



Man is mortal — Indefinite. 



tfulhis Ccesar is mortal — Singular. 



The proposition is Singular, when the subject is an individual name. 

 The individual name needs not be a proper name. " The Founder of 

 Christianity was crucified," is as much a singular proposition as " Christ 

 was crucified." 



When the name which is the subject of the proposition is a general 

 name, we may intend to afiirm or deny the predicate, either of all the 

 things that the subject denotes, or only of some. When the predicate is 

 affirmed or denied of all and each of the things denoted by the subject, 

 the proposition is universal; when of some undefined portion of them only, 

 it is particular. Thus, All men are mortal ; Every man is mortal ; are uni- 

 versal propositions. No man is immortal, is also a universal proposition, 

 since the predicate, immortal, is denied of each and every individual de- 

 noted by the term man ; the negative proposition being exactly equivalent 

 to the following. Every man is not-immortal. But "some men are wise," 

 " some men are not wise," are particular propositions ; the predicate loise 

 being in the one case aflfirmed and in the other denied not of each and ev- 

 ery individual denoted by the term man, but only of each and every one 

 of some portion of those individuals, without specifying what portion ; for 

 if this were specified, the proposition would be changed either into a singu- 

 lar proposition, or into a universal proposition with a different subject ; 

 as, for instance, " all properly instructed men are wise." There are other 

 forms of particular propositions ; as, "Most men are imperfectly educated:" 

 it being immaterial how large a portion of the subject the predicate is as- 

 serted of, as long as it is left uncertain how that portion is to be distin- 

 guished from the rest.* 



When the form of the expression does not clearly show whether the 

 general name which is the subject of the pi'oposition is meant to stand for 

 ill the individuals denoted by it, or only for some of them, the proposition 

 s, by some logicians, called Indefinite ; but this, as Ai'chbishop Whately ob- 



* Instead of Universal and Particular as applied to propositions, Professor Bain proposes 

 Logic, i., 81) the terms Total and Partial; reserving the former pair of terms for their in- 

 luctive meaning, "the contrast between a general proposition and the particulars or individ- 

 lals tliat we derive it from." This change in nomenclature would be attended with the further 

 dvantage, that Singular propositions, which in the Syllogism follow the same rules as Univer- 

 al, would be included along with them in the same class, that of Total predications. It is not 

 he Subject's denoting many things or only one, that is of importance in reasoning, it is that 

 !ie assertion is made of the whole or a part only of what the Subject denotes. The words 

 Iniversal and Particular, however, are so familiar and so well understood in both the senses 

 ) lentioned by Mr. Bain, that the double meaning does not produce any material inconvenience. 



