160 OF SECONDARY PROPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 



seem to us to convey. The necessity of a final appeal to fact is 

 not thus set aside; nor is the use of analogy extended beyond its 

 proper sphere, the suggestion of relations which independent 

 inquiry must either verify or cause to be rejected. 



2. Secondary Propositions are those which concern or relate to 

 Propositions considered as true or false. The relations of things 

 we express by primary propositions. But we are able to make 

 Propositions themselves also the subject of thought, and to ex- 

 press our judgments concerning them. The expression of any 

 such judgment constitutes a secondary proposition. There exists 

 no proposition whatever of which a competent degree of know- 

 ledge would not enable us to make one or the other of these two 

 assertions, viz., either that the proposition is true, or that it is 

 false ; and each of these assertions is a secondary proposition. " It 

 is true that the sun shines ;" t; It is not true that the planets 

 shine by their own light ;" are examples of this kind. In the 

 former example the Proposition " The sun shines," is asserted to 

 be true. In the latter, the Proposition, " The planets shine by 

 their own light," is asserted to be false. Secondary propositions 

 also include all judgments by which we express a relation or de- 

 pendence among propositions. To this class or division we may 

 refer conditional propositions, as, " If the sun shine the day will 

 be fair." Also most disjunctive propositions, as, " Either the sun 

 will shine, or the enterprise will be postponed." In the former 

 example we express the dependence of the truth of the Propo- 

 sition, " The day will be fair," upon the truth of the Proposition, 

 " The sun will shine." In the latter we express a relation between 

 the two Propositions, " The sun will shine," " The enterprise will 

 be postponed," implying that the truth of the one excludes the 

 truth of the other. To the same class of secondary propositions we 

 must also refer all those propositions which assert the simultaneous 

 truth or falsehood of propositions, as, " It is not true both that 

 ' the sun will shine' and that ' the journey will be postponed.' " 

 The elements of distinction which we have noticed may even be 

 blended together in the same secondary proposition. It may in- 

 volve both the disjunctive element expressed by either, or, and 

 the conditional element expressed by if; in addition to which, 

 the connected propositions may themselves be of a compound 



