NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



are living beings (he would say) is 

 true, because living being is a name of 

 everything of which man is a name. 

 All men are six feet high, is not true, 

 because six feet high is riot a name of 

 everything (though it is of some 

 things) of which man is a name. 



What is stated in this theory as the 

 definition of a true proposition, must 

 be allowed to be a property which all 

 true 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, consistently with its signi- 

 fication, be predicated of the other. 

 If it be true that some men are copper- 

 coloured, it must be true — and the 

 proposition 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-coloured. 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 between 

 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 farther ; it is the only 

 analysis that is rigorously true of all 

 propositions without exception. What 

 he gives as the meaning of proposi- 

 tions, 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 in- 

 clude within the logical formula of a 

 proposition. It does not show that 

 no proposition means more. To war- 

 rant 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 form of 

 discourse called a Proposition, why 

 do I object to it as the scientific defi- 

 nition of what a proposition means? 

 Because, though the mere collocation 

 which makes the proposition a propo- 

 sition, conveys no more than this 

 scanty amount of meaning, that same 

 collocation combined with other cir- 

 cumstances, that form combined with 

 other mutter, does convey more, and 

 the proposition in those other circum- 

 stances does assert more, than merely 

 that relation between the two names. 



The only propositions of which 

 Hobbes' principle is a sufficient 

 account, are that limited and unim- 

 portant class in which both the pre- 

 dicate and the subject are proper 

 names. For, as has already been 

 remarked, proper names have strictly 

 no meaning ; they are mere marks for 

 individual objects : and when a pro- 

 per name is predicated of another 

 proper name, all the signification con- 

 veyed is, that both the names are 

 marks for the same object. But this 

 is precisely what Hobbes produces as 

 a theory of predication in general. 

 His doctrine is a full explanation of 

 such predications as these : Hyde 

 was Clarendon, or, TuUy is Cicero. 

 It exhausts the meaning of those pro- 

 positions. But it is a sadly inadequate 

 theory of any others. That it should 

 ever have been thought of as such, 

 can be accounted for only by the fact, 

 that Hobbes, in common with the 

 other Nominalists, bestowed little or 

 no attention upon the connotation of 

 words ; and sought for their meaning 

 exclusively in what they denote : as if 

 all names had been (what none but 

 proper names really are) marks put 

 upon individuals ; and as if there 

 were no difference between a proper 

 and a general name, except that the 

 first denotes only one individual, and 

 the last a greater number. 



It has been seen, however, that the 

 meaning of all names, except proper 

 names and that portion of the cUss 



