CHAP. IV.] DIVISION OF PROPOSITIONS. 53 



cerning those events have a certain relation to each other as 

 respects their mutual truth or falsehood. The former class of 

 propositions, relating to things, I call " Primary ;" the latter class, 

 relating to propositions, I call " Secondary." The distinction is 

 in practice nearly but not quite co-extensive with the common 

 logical distinction of propositions as categorical or hypothetical. 



For instance, the propositions, "The sun shines," "The earth 

 is warmed," are primary; the proposition, " If the sun shines 

 the earth is warmed," is secondary. To say, " The sun shines," 

 is to say, " The sun is that which shines," and it expresses a re- 

 lation between two classes of things, viz., "the sun" and "things 

 which shine." The secondary proposition, however, given above, 

 expresses a relation of dependence between the two primary propo- 

 sitions, " The sun shines," and " The earth is warmed." I do not 

 hereby affirm that the relation between these propositions is, like 

 that which exists between the facts which they express, a rela- 

 tion of causality, but only that the relation among the propo- 

 sitions so implies, and is so implied by, the relation among the 

 facts, that it may for the ends of logic be used as a fit repre- 

 sentative of that relation. 



2. If instead of the proposition, " The sun shines," we say, 

 " It is true that the sun shines," we then speak not directly of 

 things, but of a proposition concerning things, viz., of the pro- 

 position, " The sun shines." And, therefore, the proposition in 

 which we thus speak is a secondary one. Every primary pro- 

 position may thus give rise to a secondary proposition, viz., to 

 that secondary proposition which asserts its truth, or declares its 

 falsehood. 



It will usually happen, that the particles if, either, or, will 

 indicate that a proposition is secondary ; but they do not neces- 

 sarily imply that such is the case. The proposition, " Animals 

 are either rational or irrational," is primary. It cannot be re- 

 solved into " Either animals are rational or animals are irra- 

 tional," and it does not therefore express a relation of dependence 

 between the two propositions connected together in the latter 

 disjunctive sentence. The particles, either, or, are in fact no 

 criterion of the nature of propositions, although it happens that 

 they are more frequently found in secondary propositions. Even 



