146 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



matter of fact, in the proper sense of the term, at all, 

 but to the meaning of names. Since names and their 

 signification are entirely arbitrary, such propositions 

 are not, strictly speaking, susceptible of truth or 

 falsity, but only of conformity or disconformity to 

 usage or convention ; and all the proof they are 

 capable of, is proof of usage ; proof that the words 

 have been employed by others in the acceptation in 

 which the speaker or writer desires to use them. 

 These propositions occupy, however, a conspicuous 

 place in philosophy; and their nature and charac- 

 teristics are of as much importance in logic, as those 

 of any of the other classes of propositions previously 

 adverted to. 



If all propositions respecting the signification of 

 words, were as simple and unimportant as those which 

 served us for examples when examining Hobbes' 

 theory of predication, viz., those of which the subject 

 and predicate are proper names, and which assert only 

 that those names have, or that they have not, been 

 conventionally assigned to the same individual ; there 

 would be little to attract to such propositions the atten- 

 tion of philosophers. But the class of merely verbal 

 propositions embraces not only much more than these, 

 but much more than any propositions which at first 

 sight present themselves as verbal ; comprehending 

 a kind of assertions which have been regarded not 

 only as relating to things, but as having actually a 

 more intimate relation with them than any other pro- 

 positions whatever. The student in philosophy will 

 perceive that I allude to the distinction on which so 

 much stress was laid by the schoolmen, and which has 

 been retained either under the same or under other 

 names by most metaphysicians to the present day, 

 viz., between what were called essential, and what 



