VERBAL AND REAL PROTOSITIONS. 73" 



And as these five 9,re the bnly things which can be affirmed, so arc 

 they the only things which can be denied. '.' No horses are web- 

 footed," denies that the attributes of a horse ever coexist \vith web-feet. 

 It is scarcely necessary to apply the same analysis to Particular affirm- 

 ations and negations. " Some birds are web-footed," affirms that, \vith 

 the atti-ibutes connoted by bird, the phenomenon web-fcet is sometimes 

 coexistent : " Some birds are not web-footed," asserts that there are 

 other instances in which this coexistence does not have place. Any 

 farther explanation of a thing which, if the previous exposition has 

 been assented to, is so obvious, may well be spared. 



CHAPTER VI. 



OF PROPOSITIONS BIERELY VERBAL. 



§ 1. As a preparation for the inquiiy which is the proper object of 

 Logic, namely, in what manner propositions are to be proved, we have 

 found it necessary to inquire what they contain which requires, or is 

 susceptible of, proof; or (which is the same thing) what they assert. 

 In the course of this preliminary investigation into the import of Prop- 

 ositions, we examined the opinion of the Conceptualists, that a propo- 

 sition is the expression of a relation between two ideas ; and the doc- 

 tiine of the Nominalists, that it is the expression of an agreement or 

 disagi-eement between the meanings of two names. We decided that, 

 as general theories, both of these are erroneous ; and that, although 

 propositions may be made both respecting names and respecting ideas, 

 neither the one nor the other are the subject-matter of Propositions 

 considered generally. AVe then examined the different kinds of prop- 

 ositions, and we found that, w\x\\ the exception of those which are 

 merely verbal, they assert five different kinds of matters of fact, name- 

 ly. Existence, Order in Place, Order in Time, Causation, and Resem- 

 blance ; that in every proposition one of these five is either affirmed, or 

 denied, of some fact or phenomenon, or of some object the unknown 

 source of a fact or phenomenon. 



In distinguishing, however, the different kinds of matters of fact as- 

 serted in propositions, we reserved one class of propositions, which do 

 not relate to any matter of fact, in the proper sense of the term, at all, 

 but to the meaning of names. Since names and their signification are 

 entirely arbitrary, such propositions are not, strictly speaking, suscep- 

 tible of tnith or falsity, but only of conformity or disconformity to usage 

 or convention ; and all the proof they are capable of, is proof of usage ; 

 proof that the words have been employed by others in the acceptation 

 in which the speaker or writer desires to use them. These propositions 

 occupy, however, a conspicuous place in philosophy ; and their nature 

 and characteristics are of as much importance in logic, as those of any 

 of the other classes of propositions previously adverted to. 



If all propositions respecting the signification of words, were as sim- 

 ple and unimportant a.s those which served as for examples when ex- 

 amining Hobbes' theory of predication, viz., those of which the subject 

 and predicate are proper names, and which assert only that those names 

 K 



