IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 85 



cause we feel them to be alike altogether, though in different degrees. 

 When, therefore, I say, The color I saw yesterday was a white color, or. 

 The sensation I feel is one of tightness, in both cases the attribute I affirm 

 of the color or of the other sensation is mere resemblance — simple likeness 

 to sensations which I have had before, and which have had those names be- 

 stowed Tipon them. The names of feelings, like other concrete general 

 names, are connotative; but they connote a mei'e resemblance. When 

 predicated of any individual feeling, the information they convey is that of 

 its likeness to the other feelings which we have been accustomed to call by 

 the same name. Thus much may suffice in illustration of the kind of prop- 

 ositions in which the matter-of-fact asserted (or denied) is simple Resem- 

 blance. 



Existence, Co-existence, Sequence, Causation, Resemblance : one or other 

 of these is asserted (or denied) in every proposition which is not merely 

 verbal. This five-fold division is an exhaustive classification of matters-of- 

 fact ; of all things that can be believed, or tendered for belief ; of all ques- 

 tions that can be propounded, and all answers that can be returned to them. 



Professor Bain* distinguishes two kinds of Propositions of Co-existence. 

 " In the one kind, account is taken of Place ; they may be described as 

 propositions of Order in Place." In the other kind, the co-existence which 

 is predicated is termed by Mr. Bain Co-inherence of Attributes. " This is a 

 distinct variety of Propositions of Co-existence. Instead of an arrangement 

 in place with numerical intervals, we have the concurrence of two or more 

 attributes or powers in the same part or locality. A mass of gold contains, 

 in every atom, the concurring attributes that mark the substance — weight, 

 hardness, color, lustre, incorrosibility, etc. An animal, besides having parts 

 situated in place, has co-inhering functions in the same parts, exerted by 

 the very same masses and molecules of its substance. . . . The Mind, 

 which affords no Propositions of Order in Place, has co-inhering functions. 

 We affirm mind to contain Feeling, Will, and Thought, not in local separa- 

 tion, but in commingling exercise. The concurring properties of minerals, 

 of plants, and of the bodily and the mental structure of animals, are united 

 in affirmations of co-inherence." 



The distinction is real and important. But, as has been seen, an Attri- 

 bute, when it is any thing but a simple unanalyzable Resemblance between 

 the subject and some other things, consists in causing impressions of some 

 sort on consciousness. Consequently, the co-inherence of two attributes 

 is but the co-existence of the two states of consciousness implied in their 

 meaning : with the difference, however, that this co-existence is sometimes 

 potential only, the attribute being considered as in existence, though the 

 fact on which it is grounded may not be actually, but only potentially pres- 

 ent. Snow, for instance, is, with great convenience, said to be white even 

 in a state of total darkness, because, though we are not now conscious of 

 the color, we shall be conscious of it as soon as morning breaks. Co-in- 

 herence of attributes is therefore still a case, though a complex one, of 

 co-existence of states of consciousness ; a totally different thing, however, 

 from Order in Place. Being a part of simultaneity, it belongs not to Place 

 but to Time. 



We may therefore (and we shall sometimes find it a convenience) instead 

 of Co-existence and Sequence, say, for greater particularity. Order in Place 

 and Order in Time : Order in Place being a specific mode of co-existence, 



* Zo^ric, i., 103-105. 



