54 DIVISION OF PROPOSITIONS. [CHAP. IV. 



the conjunction zfmay be found in primary propositions. " Men 

 are, if wise, then temperate," is an example of the kind. It 

 cannot be resolved into " If all men are wise, then all men are 

 temperate." 



3. As it is not my design to discuss the merits or defects of 

 the ordinary division of propositions, I shall simply remark here, 

 that the principle upon which the present classification is founded 

 is clear and definite in its application, that it involves a real 

 and fundamental distinction in propositions, and that it is of 

 essential importance to the development of a general method of 

 reasoning. Nor does the fact that a primary proposition may 

 be put into a form in which it becomes secondary at all conflict 

 with the views here maintained. For in the case thus supposed, 

 it is not of the things connected together in the primary propo- 

 sition that any direct account is taken, but only of the propo- 

 sition itself considered as true or as false. 



4. In the expression both of primary and of secondary propo- 

 sitions, the same symbols, subject, as it will appear, to the same 

 laws, will be employed in this work. The difference between 

 the two cases is a difference not of form but of interpretation. 

 In both cases the actual relation which it is the object of the 

 proposition to express will be denoted by the sign = . In the 

 expression of primary propositions, the members thus connected 

 will usually represent the " terms" of a proposition, or, as they 

 are more particularly designated, its subject and predicate. 



PROPOSITION II. 



5. To deduce a general method, founded upon the enumeration of 

 possible varieties, for the expression of any class or collection ofthings, 

 which may constitute a " t&rm? of a Primary Proposition. 



First, If the class or collection of things to be expressed is 

 defined only by names or qualities common to all the individuals 

 of which it consists, its expression will consist of a single term, 

 in which the symbols expressive of those names or qualities will 

 be combined without any connecting sign, as if by the alge- 

 braic process of multiplication. Thus, if x represent opaque 

 substances, y polished substances, z stones, we shall have, 



