CHAP. XI.] OF SECONDARY PROPOSITIONS. 161 



character. If" the sun shine," and " leisure permit," then either 

 " the enterprise shall be commenced," or " some preliminary 

 step shall be taken." In this example a number of propositions 

 are connected together, not arbitrarily and unmeaningly, but in 

 such a manner as to express a definite connexion between them, a 

 connexion having reference to their respective truth or falsehood. 

 This combination, therefore, according to our definition, forms 

 a Secondary Proposition. 



The theory of Secondary Propositions is deserving of at- 

 tentive study, as well on account of its varied applications, as 

 for that close and harmonious analogy, already referred to, which 

 it sustains with the theory of Primary Propositions. Upon each 

 of these points I desire to offer a few further observations. 



3. I would in the first place remark, that it is in the form of 

 secondary propositions, at least as often as in that of primary pro- 

 positions, that the reasonings of ordinary life are exhibited. The 

 discourses, too, of the moralist and the metaphysician are perhaps 

 less often concerning things and their qualities, than concerning 

 principles and hypotheses, concerning truths and the mutual con- 

 nexion and relation of truths. The conclusions which our narrow 

 experience suggests in relation to the great questions of morals and 

 society yet unsolved, manifest, in more ways than one, the limi- 

 tations of their human origin ; and though the existence of uni- 

 versal principles is not to be questioned, the partial formulas 

 which comprise our knowledge of their application are subject 

 to conditions, and exceptions, and failure. Thus, in those de- 

 partments of inquiry which, from the nature of their subject- 

 matter, should be the most interesting of all, much of our actual 

 knowledge is hypothetical. That there has been a strong ten- 

 dency to the adoption of the same forms of thought in writers 

 on speculative philosophy, will hereafter appear. Hence the in- 

 troduction of a general method for the discussion of hypothetical 

 and the other varieties of secondary propositions, will open to us 

 a more interesting field of applications than we have before met 

 with. 



4. The discussion of the theory of Secondary Propositions is 

 in the next place interesting, from the close and remarkable ana- 

 logy which it bears with the theory of Primary Propositions. It 



M 



