54 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



the two philosophers just mentioned), on vain attempts to discover in 

 what this common nature consists. But, the habit once formed, intel- 

 lects much inferior are capable of detecting even ambiguities which 

 are common to many languages : and it is sui'prising that the one now 

 under consideration, though it exists in the modern languages as well 

 as in the ancient, should have been overlooked by almost all authors. 

 The quantity of futile speculation which had been caused by a mis- 

 apprehension of the nature of the copula, was hinted at by Hobbes ; 

 but Mr. Mill* was, I believe, the first who distinctly characterized the 

 ambiguity, and pointed out how many errors in the received systems of 

 philosophy it has had to answer for. It has indeed misled the modems 

 scarcely less than the ancients, though their mistakes, because our un- 

 derstandings are not yet so completely emancipated from their influ- 

 ence, do not appear equally ridiculous. 



We shall now briefly review the principal distinctions which exist 

 among propositions, and the technical terms most commonly in use to 

 express those distinctions 



§ 2. A proposition being a portion of discourse in which something 

 is affirmed or denied of something, the first division of propositions is 

 into affirmative and negative. An affirmative proposition is that in 

 which the predicate is affirmed of the subject ; as Caesar is dead. A 

 negative proposition is that in which the predicate is denied of the 

 subject; as, Caesar is not dead. The copula in this last species of 

 proposition, consists of the words is not, which are the sign of negation ; 

 is being the sign of affirmation. 



Some logicians, among whom may be mentioned Hobbes, state this 

 distinction differently ; they recognize only one form of copula, is, and 

 attach the negative sign to the predicate. " Caesar is dead," and 

 " Caesar is not dead," according to these writers, are propositions 

 agreeing not in the subject and predicate, but in the subject only. 

 They do not consider " dead," but " not dead," to be the predicate of 

 the second proposition, and they accordingly define a negative proposi- 

 tion to be one in which the predicate is a negative name. The point, 

 though not of much practical moment, deserves notice as an example 

 (not unfi-equent in logic) where by means of an apparent simplification, 

 but which is merely verbal, matters are made more complex than before. 

 The idea of these writers was, that they could get rid of the distinction 

 between affirming and denying, by treating every case of denying as 

 the affirming of a negative name. But what is meant by a negative 

 name % A name expressive of the absence of an attribute. So that 

 when we affirm a negative name, what we are really predicating is 

 absence and not presence : we are asserting not that anything is, but 

 that something is nM ; to express which operation no word seems so 

 proper as the word denying. The fundamental distinction is between 

 a fact and the non-existence of that fact ; between seeing something and 

 not seeing it, between Caesar's being dead and his not being dead ; 

 and if this were a merely verbal distinction, the generalization which 

 brings both within the same form of assertion would be a real simpli- 

 fication : the distinction, however, being real, and in the facts, it is 

 the generalization confounding the distinction that is merely verbal; 



'^Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind^i. 126 et seqq. 



