NECESSITY OF AN ANALYSIS OF NAMES. 23 



ideas. They would say, that the subject and predicate 

 are both of them names of ideas ; the idea of gold, 

 for instance, and the idea of yellow ; and that what 

 takes place (or a part of what takes place) in the act 

 of belief, consists in bringing (as it is often expressed) 

 one of these ideas under the other. But this we are 

 not yet in a condition to say : whether such be the 

 correct mode of describing the phenomenon, is an 

 after consideration. The result with which for the 

 present we must be contented, is, that in every act of 

 belief two objects are in some manner taken cogni- 

 zance of; that there can be no belief claimed, or 

 question propounded, which does not embrace two 

 distinct (either material or intellectual) subjects of 

 thought : each of them capable or not of being con- 

 ceived by itself, but incapable of being believed by 

 itself. 



I may say, for instance, " the sun." The word 

 has a meaning, and suggests that meaning to the 

 mind of any one who is listening to me. But suppose 

 I ask him, Whether it is true: whether he believes it? 

 He can give no answer. There is as yet nothing to 

 believe, or to disbelieve. Now, however, let me 

 make, of all possible assertions respecting the sun, 

 the one which involves the least of reference to any 

 object besides itself; let me say, "the sun exists." 

 Here, at once, is something which a person can say he 

 believes. But here, instead of only one, we find two 

 distinct objects of conception : the sun, is one object; 

 existence, is another. Let it not be said, that this 

 second conception, existence, is involved in the first ; 

 for the sun may be conceived as no longer existing. 

 "The sun" does not convey all the meaning that is 

 conveyed by u the sun exists :" " my father" does not 

 include all the meaning of "my father exists," for 



