NECESSITY OF AN ANALYSIS OF NAMES. 21 



the things contained in it, is the purpose of logic. 

 But before inquiring into the mode of resolving 

 questions, it is necessary to inquire, what are the 

 questions which present themselves ? what questions 

 are conceivable ? what inquiries are there, to which 

 men have either obtained, or been able to imagine it 

 possible that they should obtain, an answer ? This 

 point is best ascertained by a survey and analysis of 

 Propositions. 



2. The answer to every question which it is 

 possible to frame, is contained in a Proposition, or 

 Assertion. Whatever can be an object of belief, or 

 even of disbelief, must, when put into words, assume 

 the form of a proposition. All truth and all error lie 

 in propositions. What, by a convenient misapplica- 

 tion of an abstract term, we call a Truth, is simply a 

 True Proposition ; and errors are false propositions. 

 To know the import of all possible propositions, would 

 be to know all questions which can be raised, all 

 matters which are susceptible of being either believed 

 or disbelieved. How many kinds of inquiries can be 

 propounded ; how many kinds of judgments can be 

 made; and how many kinds of propositions it is 

 possible to frame with a meaning ; are but different 

 forms of one and the same question. Since, then, the 

 objects of all Belief and of all Inquiry express them- 

 selves in propositions ; a sufficient scrutiny of Propo- 

 sitions and of their varieties will apprize us what 

 questions mankind have actually asked themselves, 

 and what, in the nature of answers to those questions, 

 they have actually thought they had grounds to 

 believe. 



Now the first glance at a proposition shows that 

 it is formed by putting together two names. A pro- 



