74 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



have, or that they have not, been conventionally assigned to the same 

 individual ; there would be little to attract to such propositions the 

 attention of philosophers. But the class of merely verbal propositions 

 embraces not only much more than these, but much more than any 

 propositions which at first sight present themselves as verbal ; compre- 

 hending a kind of assertions which have been regarded not only as 

 relating- to things, but as having actually a more intimate relation with 

 them than any other propositions whatever. The student in philosophy 

 will perceive that I allude to the distinction on which so much stress 

 was laid by the schoolmen, and which has been retained either under 

 the same or under other names by most metaphysicians to the present 

 day, viz., between what were called essential, and what were called 

 accidental propositions, and between essential and accidental properties 

 or attributes. 



§ 2. Almost all metaphysicians prior to Locke, as well as many since 

 his time, have made a great mystery of Essential Predication, and of 

 predicates which were said to be of the essence of the subject. The 

 essence of a thing, they said, was that without which the thing could 

 neither be, nor be conceived to be. Thus, rationality was of the es- 

 sence of man, becalise without rationality, man could not be conceived 

 to exist. The different attributes which made up the essence of the 

 thing, were called its essential properties ; and a proposition in which 

 any of these were predicated of it, was called an Essential Proposi- 

 tion, and was considered to go deeper into the nature of the thing, and 

 to convey more important information respecting it, than any other 

 proposition could do. All properties, not of the essence of the thing, 

 were called its accidents ; were supposed to have nothing at all, or 

 nothing comparatively, to do with its inmost nature ; and the proposi- 

 tions in which any of these were predicated of it were called Acciden- 

 tal Propositions. A connexion may be traced between this distinction, 

 which originated with the schoolmen, and the well knoA\-n dogmas of 

 substanticE secundce, or general substances, and substantial forms, doc- 

 trines which under varieties of language pervaded alike the Aristote- 

 lian and the Platonic schools, and of which more of the spirit has come 

 down to modern times than might be conjectured from the disuse of 

 the phraseology. The false ^-iews of the nature of classification and 

 generalization which prevailed among the schoolmen, and of which 

 these dogmas were the technical expression, afford the only explanation 

 which can be given of their ha\"ing misunderstood the real nature of 

 those Essences which held so conspicuous a place in their philosophy. 

 They said, truly, that man cannot be conceived without rationality. 

 But though man cannot, a being may be conceived exactly like a man 

 in all points except that one quality, and those others which are the 

 conditions or consequences of it. All therefore winch is really true in 

 the assertion that man cannot be conceived without rationality, is only, 

 that if he had not rationality, he would not be reputed a man. There 

 is no impossibility in conceiving the thing, nor, for aught we know, in 

 its existing : the impossibility is in the conventions of language, which 

 will not allow the thing, even if it exist, to be called by the name which 

 is reserved for rational beings. Rationality, in short, is involved in the 

 meaning of the word man ; it is one of the attributes connoted by the 

 name. The essence of man, simply means the whole of the attributes 



