24 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



he may be dead ; "a round square" does not include 

 the meaning of " a round square exists," for it does 

 not, and cannot exist. When I say, " the sun/' " my 

 father," or a " round square," I call upon the hearer 

 for no belief or disbelief, nor can either the one or 

 the other be afforded me ; but if I say, " the sun 

 exists," "my father exists," or "a round square 

 exists," I call for belief; and should, in the first of 

 the three instances meet with it ; in the second, with 

 belief or disbelief, as the case might be ; in the third, 

 with disbelief. 



3. This first step in the analysis of the object of 

 belief, which, though so obvious, will be found to be 

 not unimportant, is the only one which we shall find 

 it practicable to make without a preliminary survey of 

 language. If we attempt to proceed further in the 

 same path, that is, to analyze any further the import 

 of Propositions ; we find forced upon us, as a subject 

 of previous consideration, the import of Names. For 

 every proposition consists of two names ; and every 

 proposition affirms or denies one of these names, of 

 the other. Now what we do, what passes in our mind, 

 when we affirm or deny two names of one another, 

 must depend upon what they are names of; since it is 

 with reference to that, and not to the mere names 

 themselves, that we make the affirmation or denial. 

 Here, therefore, we find a new reason why the signifi- 

 cation of names, and the relation, generally, between 

 names and the things signified by them, must occupy 

 the preliminary stage of the inquiry we are engaged in. 



It may be objected, that the meaning of names can 

 guide us at most only to the opinions, possibly the 

 foolish and groundless opinions, which mankind have 

 formed concerning things, and that as the object of 



