IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 



57 



very ridiculous description of digging 

 the ground to say that it is putting 

 one idea into another. Digging is an 

 operation which is performed upon the 

 things themselves, though it cannot 

 be performed unless I have in my mind 

 the ideas of them. And in like man- 

 ner, believing is an act which has for 

 its subject thefacts themselves, though 

 a previous mental conception of the 

 facts is an indispensable condition. 

 When I say that fire causes heat, do 

 I mean that my idea of fire causes my 

 idea of heat ? No : I mean that the 

 natural phenomenon, fire, causes the 

 natural phenomenon, heat. When I 

 mean to assert anything respecting 

 the ideas, I give them their proper 

 name ; I call them ideas ; as when I 

 say that a child's idea of a battle is 

 unlike the reality, or that the ideas 

 entertained of the Deity have a great 

 effect on the characters of mankind. 



The notion that what is of primary 

 importance to the logician in a pro- 

 position, is the relation between the 

 two ideas corresponding to the subject 

 and predicate, (instead of the relation 

 between the two phenomena which 

 they respectively express,) seems to 

 me one of the most fatal errors ever 

 introduced into the philosophy of 

 Logic ; and the principal cause why 

 the theory of the science has made 

 Buch inconsiderable progress during 

 the last two centuries. The treatises 

 on Logic, and on the branches of 

 Mental Philosophy connected with 

 Logic, which have been produced 

 since the intrusion of this cardinal 

 error, though sometimes written by 

 men of extraordinary abilities and 

 attainments, almost always tacitly 

 imply a theory that the investigation 

 of truth consists in contemplating and 

 handling our ideas, or conceptions of 

 things, instead of the things them- 

 selves : a doctrine tantamount to the 

 assertion, that the only mode of ac- 

 quiring knowledge of nature is to 



a human being does not use a spade by 

 instinct ; and he certainly could not use it 

 unless he had knowledge of a spade, and 

 of the earth which he uses it upon. 



I study it at second-hand, as represented 

 in our own minds. Meanwhile, in- 

 quiries into every kind of natural 

 phenomena were incessantly establish- 

 ing great and fruitful truths on most 

 important subjects, by processes upon 

 I which these views of the nature of 

 Judgment and Reasoning threw no 

 \ light, and in which they afforded no 

 i assistance whatever. No wonder that 

 those who knew by practical experi- 

 ence how truths are arrived at, should 

 deem a science futile, which consisted 

 chiefly of such speculations. What 

 has been done for the advancement 

 of Logic since these doctrines came 

 into vogue, has been done not by pro- 

 fessed logicians, but by discoverers in 

 the other sciences ; in whose methods 

 of investigation many principles of 

 logic, not previously thought of, have 

 successively come forth into light, but 

 who have generally committed the 

 error of supposing that nothing what- 

 ever was known of the art of philoso- 

 phizing by the old logicians, because 

 theirmodern interpreters have written 

 to so little purpose respecting it. 



We have to inquire, then, on the 

 present occasion, not into Judgment, 

 but judgments ; not into the act of 

 believing, but into the thing believed. 

 What is the immediate object of belief 

 in a Proposition ? What is the matter 

 of fact signified by it ? What is it to 

 which, when I assert the proposition, 

 I give my assent, and call upon others 

 to give theirs ? What is that which 

 is expressed by the form of discourse 

 called a Proposition, and the confor- 

 mity of which to fact constitutes the 

 truth of the proposition ? 



§ 2. One of the clearest and most 

 consecutive thinkers whom this coun- 

 try or the world has produced, I 

 mean Hobbes, has given the following 

 answer to this question. In every 

 proposition (says he) what is signified 

 is, 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 



