82 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



we affirm co-existence between the two complicated phenomena connoted 

 by the two terras respectively. We affirm, that wherever and whenever 

 the inward feelings and outward facts implied in the word generosity 

 have place, then and there the existence and manifestation of an inward 

 feeling, honor, would be followed in our minds by another inward feeling, 

 approval. 



After the analysis, in a former chapter, of the import of names, many 

 examples are not needed to illustrate the import of propositions. When 

 thex'e is any obscurity, or difficulty, it does not lie in the meaning of the 

 proposition, but in the meaning of the names which compose it ; in the 

 extremely complicated connotation of many words; the immense multitude 

 and prolonged series of facts which often constitute the phenomenon con- 

 noted by a name. But where it is seen what the phenomenon is, there is 

 seldom any difficulty in seeing that the assertion conveyed by the proposi- 

 tion is, the co-existence of one such phenomenon with another ; or the suc- 

 cession of one such phenomenon to another: so that where the one is found, 

 we may calculate on finding the other, though perhaps not conversely. 



This, however, though the most common, is not the only meaning which 

 propositions are ever intended to convey. In the first place, sequences and 

 co-existences are not only asserted respecting Phenomena ; we make propo- 

 sitions also respecting those hidden causes of phenomena, which are named 

 substances and attributes. A substance, however, being to us nothing but 

 either that which causes, or that which is conscious of, phenomena ; and the 

 same being true, muto^/s mutandis, of attributes; no assertion can be made, 

 at least with a meaning, concerning these unknown and unknowable en- 

 tities, except in virtue of the Phenomena by which alone they manifest 

 themselves to our faculties. When we say Socrates was contemporary with 

 the Peloponnesian war, the foundation of this assertion, as of all assertions 

 concerning substances, is an assertion concerning the phenomena which 

 they exhibit — namely, that the series of facts by Avhich Socrates manifested 

 himself to mankind, and the series of mental states which constituted his 

 sentient existence, went on simultaneously with the series of facts known 

 by the name of the Peloponnesian war. Still, the proposition as commonly 

 understood does not assert that alone ; it asserts that the Thing in itself, 

 the tioumenon Socrates, was existing, and doing or experiencing those vari- 

 ous facts during the same time. Co-existence and sequence, therefore, may 

 be affirmed or denied not only between phenomena, but between noumena, 

 or between a noumenon and phenomena. And both of noumena and of 

 phenomena we may affirm simple existence. But what is a noumenon? 

 An unknown cause. In affirming, therefore, the existence of a noumenon, 

 we affirm causation. Hero, therefore, are two additional kinds of fact, 

 capable of being asserted in a proposition. Besides the propositions which 

 assert Sequence or Co-existence, there are some which assert simple Exist- 

 ence;* and others assert Causation, which, subject to the explanations 



* Professor Bain, in his Logic (i., 25G), excludes Existence from the list, considering it as a 

 mere name. All propositions, he says, which predicate mere existence "are more or less ab- 

 breviated, or elliptical : when fully expressed they fall under either co-existence or succession. 

 When we say there exists a conspiracy for a particular purpose, we mean tliat at the present 

 time a body of men have formed themselves into a society for a particular object ; wliich is a 

 complex affirmation, resolvable into propositions of co-existence and succession (as causation). 

 The assertion that the dodo does not exist, points to the fact that this animal, once known in 

 a certain place, has disappeared or become extinct; is no longer associated with the locality: 

 all which may be better stated without the use of the verb 'exist.' There is a debated ques- 

 tion — Does an ether exist? but the concrete form would be this — 'Are heat and light and 



