IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. CI 



but who have generally committed tlie eiTor of supposing lliat notliin'T 

 whatever was known of the art of philosopliizing by the old logicians, 

 because their modem interpreters have written to so little purpose 

 respecting it. 



We have to inquire, then, on the present occasion, not into Judg- 

 ment, but judgments ; not into the act of belic\'ing, but into the thing 

 believed. What is the immediate object of belief in a Proposition J 

 "Wliat is the matter of fact signified by it I AVliat is it to whi'ch, when 

 I assert the proposition, I give my assent, and call u])()n others to give 

 theirs I Wliat is that which is expressed by the fonn of discourse 

 called a Proposition, and the conformity of which to fact constitutes 

 the truth of the jjroposition ? 



§ 2. One of the clearest and most consecutive thinkers whom this 

 country or the world has produced, I mean Hobbes, has given the fol- 

 lowing answer to this question. In every proposition (says he), what 

 is signified Ls, the belief of the speaker that the predicate is a name of 

 the same thing of which the subject is a name ; and if it really is so, 

 the proposition is true. Thus the proposition. All men are living be- 

 ings (he would say), is true, because living being is a name of every- 

 thing of wliich man is a name. All men are six feet high is not true, 

 because six feet high is not a name of everything (though it is of some 

 things) of which man is a name. 



What is stated by Hobbes as the definition of a true proposition, 

 must be allowed to be a property which all tiaie propositions possess. 

 The subject and predicate being both of them names of things, if they 

 were names of quite different things the one name could not, consist- 

 ently with its signification, be predicated of the other. If it be true 

 that some men are copper-colored, it must be true — and the proposi- 

 tion does really assert — that among the individuals denoted by the 

 name man, there are some who are also among those denoted by the 

 name copper-colored. If it be true that all oxen ruminate, it must 

 be true that all the individuals denoted by the name ox are also among 

 those denoted by the name ruminating ; and whoever asserts that all 

 oxen ruminate, undoubtedly does assert that this relation subsists be- 

 tween the two names. 



The assertion, therefore, which, according to Hobbes, is the only 

 one made in any proposition, really is made in every proposition : and 

 his analysis has consequently one of the requisites for being the true 

 one. We may go a step further ; it is the only analysis that is rigor- 

 ously true of all propositions without exception. Wliat he gives as 

 the meaning of projjositions, is part of the meaning of all propositions, 

 and the whole meaning of some. This, however, only shows what an 

 extremely minute fragment of meaning it is quite possible to include 

 wthin the logical fonnula of a proposition. It does not show that no 

 proposition means more. To warrant us in putting together two words 

 with a copula between them, it is really enough that the thing or things 

 denoted by one of the names should be capable, without violation of 

 usage, of being called by the other name also. If then this be all the 

 meaning necessarily implied in the foi-m of discourse called a Proposi- 

 tion, why do I object to it as the scientific definition of what a propo- 

 sition means ? Because, though the mere collocation which makes the 

 proposition a proposition, conveys no more meaning than Hobbes con- 



