114 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



portion of the subject the predicate is asserted of, as 

 long as it is left uncertain how that portion is to be 

 distinguished from the rest. 



When the form of the expression does not clearly 

 show whether the general name which is the subject 

 of the proposition is meant to stand for all the indi- 

 viduals denoted by it, or only for some of them, the 

 proposition is commonly called Indefinite ; but this, 

 as Archbishop Whately observes, is a solecism, of the 

 same nature as that committed by some grammarians 

 when in their list of genders they enumerate the 

 doubtful gender. The speaker must mean to assert 

 the proposition either as an universal or as a particular 

 proposition, though he has failed to declare which : 

 and it often happens that though the words do not 

 show which of the two he intends, the context, or the 

 custom of speech, supplies the deficiency. Thus, 

 when it is affirmed that " Man is mortal," nobody 

 doubts that the assertion is intended of all human 

 beings, and the word indicative of universality is com- 

 monly omitted only because the meaning is evident 

 without it. 



When a general name stands for each and every 

 individual which it is a name of, or in other words, 

 which it denotes, it is said by logicians to be distri- 

 buted, or taken distributively. Thus, in the propo- 

 sition, All men are mortal, the subject, Man, is 

 distributed, because mortality is affirmed of each and 

 every man. The predicate, Mortal, is not distributed, 

 because the only mortals who are spoken of in the 

 proposition are those who happen to be men ; while 

 the word may, for aught that appears (and in fact 

 does), comprehend under it an indefinite number of 

 objects besides men. In the proposition, Some men 

 are mortal, both the predicate and the subject are 



