PROPOSITIONS. 



49 



As the result, therefore, of our 

 analysis, we obtain the following as 

 an enumeration and classification of 

 all Nameable Things : — 



1st. Feelings, or States of Con- 

 sciousness. 



2nd. The Minds which experience 

 those feelings. 



3rd. The Bodies, or external objects 

 which excite certain of those feelings, 

 together with the powers or properties 

 whereby they excite them ; these 

 latter (at least) being included rather 

 in compliance with common opinion, 

 and because their existence is taken 

 for granted in the common language 

 from which I cannot prudently deviate, 

 than because the recognition of such 

 powers or properties as real existences 

 appears to be warranted by a sound 

 philosoph}'. 



4th, and last. The Successions and 

 Co-existences, the Likenesses and Un- 

 likenesses, between feelings or states 

 of consciousness. Those relations, 

 when considered as subsisting be- 

 tween other things, exist in reality only 

 between the states of consciousness 

 which those things, if bodies, excite, 

 if minds, either excite or experience. 



This, until a better can be sug- 

 gested, may serve as a substitute for 

 the Categories of Aristotle considered 

 as a Classification of Existences. 

 The practical application of it will 

 appear when we commence the in- 

 quiry into the Import of Proposi- 

 tions ; in other words, when we in- 

 quire what it is which the mind 

 actually believes when it gives what 

 is called its assent to a proposition. 



These four classes comprising, if 

 the classification be correct, all 

 Nameable Things, these or some of 

 them must of course compose the 

 signification of all names ; and of 

 these, or some of them, is made up 

 whatever we call a fact. 



For distinction's sake, every fact 

 which is solely composed of feelings 



admit of, and require, further analysis; 

 and Mr. Bain does analyse them into re- 

 semblance in the sensations, or other states 

 of consciousness excited by the object. 



or states of consciousness considered 

 as such, is often called a Psychological 

 or Subjective fact ; while every fact 

 which is composed, either wholly or 

 in part, of something dififerent from 

 these, that is, of substances and 

 attributes, is called an Objective fact. 

 We may say, then, that every ob- 

 jective fact is grounded on a corre- 

 sponding siibjective one ; and has no 

 meaning to us, (apart from the sub- 

 jective fact which corresponds to it,) 

 except as a name for the unknown 

 and inscrutable process by which 

 that subjective or psychological fact 

 is brought to pass. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OP PROPOSITIONS. 



§ I. In treating of Propositions, as 

 already in treating of Names, some 

 considerations of a comparatively 

 elementary nature respecting their 

 form and varieties must be premised, 

 before entering upon that analysis of 

 the import conveyed by them, which 

 is the real subject and purpose of this 

 preliminary book. 



A proposition, we have before said, 

 is a portion of discourse in which a 

 predicate is aflBrmed or denied of a sub- 

 ject. A predicate and a subject are all 

 that is necessarily required to make up 

 a proposition : but as we cannot con- 

 clude from merely seeing two names 

 put together, that they are a pre- 

 dicate and a subject, that is, that one 

 of them is intended to be affirmed or 

 denied of the other, it is necessary 

 that there should be some mode or 

 form of indicating that such is the 

 intention ; some sign to distinguish 

 a predication from any other kind of 

 discourse. This is sometimes done 

 by a slight alteration of one of the 

 words, called an ivflection; as when 

 we say. Fire burns ; the change of 

 the second word from hum to hums 

 showing that we mean to affirm the 

 predicate burn of the subject fire. 

 But this function is more commonly 



