IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 131 



exciting in human beings the sensation which we call 

 a sensation of white. It will be admitted that, by 

 asserting the proposition, we wish to communicate 

 information of that physical fact, and are not thinking 

 of the names, except as the necessary means of 

 making that communication. The meaning of the 

 proposition, therefore, is, that the individual thing 

 denoted by the subject, has the attributes connoted 

 by the predicate. 



If we now suppose the subject also to be a con- 

 notative name, the meaning expressed by the propo- 

 sition has advanced. a step farther in complication. 

 Let us first suppose the proposition to be universal, 

 as well as affirmative : " All men are mortal." In 

 this case, as in the last, what the proposition asserts 

 (or expresses a belief in), is, of course, that the objects 

 denoted by the subject (man) possess the attributes 

 connoted by the predicate (mortal). But the charac- 

 teristic of this case is, that the objects are no longer 

 individually designated. They are pointed out only 

 by some of their attributes : they are the objects called 

 men, that is, the beings possessing the attributes con- 

 noted by the name man ; and the only thing known 

 of them may be those attributes: indeed, as the 

 proposition is general, and the objects denoted by the 

 subject are therefore indefinite in number, most of 

 them are not known individually at all. The asser- 

 tion, therefore, is not, as before, that the attributes 

 which the predicate connotes are possessed by any 

 given individual, or by any number of individuals 

 previously known as John, Thomas, Richard, &c., but 

 that those attributes are possessed by each and every 

 individual possessing certain other attributes ; that 

 whatever has the attributes connoted by the subject, 

 has also those connoted by the predicate ; that the 



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