VERBAL AND REAL PROPOSITIONS. 147 



were called accidental, propositions, and between 

 essential and accidental properties or attributes. 



2. Almost all metaphysicians prior to Locke, 

 as well as many since his time, have made a great 

 mystery of Essential Predication, and of predicates 

 which were said to be of the essence of the subject. 

 The essence of a thing, they said, was that without 

 which the thing could neither be, nor be conceived to 

 be. Thus, rationality was of the essence of man, 

 because without rationality, man could not be con- 

 ceived to exist. The different attributes which made 

 up the essence of the thing, were called its essential 

 properties ; and a proposition in which any of these 

 were predicated of it, was called an Essential Propo- 

 sition, and was considered to go deeper into the 

 nature of the thing, and. to convey more important 

 information respecting it, than any other proposition 

 could do. All properties, not of the essence of the 

 thing, were called its accidents; were supposed to 

 have nothing at all, or nothing comparatively, to do 

 with its inmost nature ; and the propositions in which 

 any of these were predicated of it were called Acci- 

 dental Propositions. A connexion may be traced 

 between this distinction, which originated with the 

 schoolmen, and the well known dogmas of substantia 

 secundcB, or general substances, and substantial forms, 

 doctrines which under varieties of language pervaded 

 alike the Aristotelian and the Platonic schools, and of 

 which more of the spirit has come down to modern 

 times than might be conjectured from the disuse of 

 the phraseology. The false views of the nature of 

 classification and generalization which prevailed 

 among the schoolmen, and of which these dogmas 

 were the technical expression, afford the only expla- 



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