IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 83 



which will follow in the Third Book, must be considered provisionally as a 

 distinct and peculiar kind of assertion. 



§ 6. To these four kinds of matter-of-fact or assertion, must be added 

 a tiflli. Resemblance. This was a species of attribute which we found it 

 impossible to analyze ; for which no fundamentum, distinct from the ob- 

 jects themselves, could be assigned. Besides propositions which assert a 

 sequence or co-existence between two phenomena, there are therefore also 

 propositions which assert resemblance between them ; as. This color is like 

 that color; The heat of to-day is equal tQ the heat of yesterday. It is 

 true that such an assertion might with some plausibility be brought within 

 the description of an affirmation of sequence, by considering it as an asser- 

 tion that the simultaneous contemplation of the two colors is followed by 

 a specific feeling termed the feeling of resemblance. But there would be 

 nothing gained by incumbering ourselves, especially in this place, Avith a 

 generalization which may be looked upon as strained. Logic does not un- 

 dertake to analyze mental facts into their ultimate elements. Resemblance 

 between two phenomena is more intelligible in itself than any explanation 

 could make it, and under any classification must remain specifically distinct 

 from the ordinary cases of sequence and co-existence. 



It is sometimes said, that all propositions whatever, of which the pred- 

 icate is a general name, do, in point of fact, affirm or deny resemblance. All 

 snch propositions affirm that a thing belongs to a class ; but things being 

 classed together according to their resemblance, every thing is of course 

 classed with the things which it is supposed to resemble most ; and thence, 

 it may be said, when we affirm that Gold is a metal, or that Socrates is a 

 man, the affirmation intended is, that gold resembles other metals, and Soc- 



other radiant influences propagated by an ethereal medium diffused in space ;' which is a prop- 

 osition of causation. In like manner the question of the Existence of a Deity can not be dis- 

 cussed in that form. It is properly a question as to the First Cause of the Universe, and as to 

 the continued exertion of that Cause in providential superintendence." (i., 407.) 



Mr. Bain thinks it "fictitious and unmeaning language" to carry up the classification of 

 Nature to one summum genus, Being, or that which Exists ; since nothing can be perceived or 

 apprehended but by way of contrast with something else (of which important truth, under the 

 name of Law of Relativity, he has been in our time the principal expounder and champion), 

 and we have no other class to oppose to Being, or foct to contrast with Existence. 



I accept fully Mr. Bain's Law of Relativity, but I do not understand by it that to enable us 

 to apprehend or be conscious of any fact, it is necessary that we should contrast it with some 

 other positive fact. The antithesis necessary to consciousness need not, I conceive, be an an- 

 tithesis between two positives ; it may be between one positive and its negative. Ilobbes was 

 undoubtedly right when he said that a single sensation indefinitely prolonged would cease to be 

 felt at all ; but simple intermission, without other change, would restore it to consciousness. 

 In order to be conscious of heat, it is not necessary tiiat we sliouid pass to it from cold ; it 

 suffices that we should pass to it from a state of no sensation, or from a sensation of some other 

 kind. The relative opposite of Being, considered as a summum genus, is Nonentity, or 

 Nothing ; and we have, now and then, occasion to consider and discuss things merely' in con- 

 trast with Nonentity. 



I grant that the decision of questions of Existence usually if not always depends on a pre- 

 vious question of either Causation or Co-existence. But Existence is nevertheless a different 

 thing from Causation or Co-existence, and can be predicated apart from them. Tiie meaning 

 of the abstract name Existence, and the connotation of the concrete name Being, consist, like 

 the meaning of all other names, in sensations or states of consciousness : their peculiarity is 

 that to exist, is to excite, or be capable of exciting, any sensations or states of consciousness : 

 no matter what, but it is indispensable that there should be some. It was from overlooking 

 this that Hegel, finding that Being is an abstraction reached by thinking away all particular 

 attributes, arrived at the self-contradictory proposition on which he founded all his philosophy, 

 :hat Being is the same as Nothing. It is really the name of Something, taken in the most 

 ;omprehensive sense of the word. 



