IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS. 



65 



mena which they exhibit, — namely, 

 that the series of facts by which 

 Socrates manifested himself to man- 

 kind, and the series of mental states 

 which constituted his sentient ex- 

 istence, went on simultaneously with 

 the series of facts known by the 

 name of the Peloponnesian war. 

 Still, the proposition as commonly 

 understood does not assert that alone ; 

 it asserts that the Thing in itself, 

 the nouvienon Socrates, was existing, 

 and doing or experiencing those 

 various facts during the same time. 

 Co- existence and sequence, therefore, 

 may be affirmed or denied not only 

 between phenomena, but between 

 noumena, or between a noumenon 

 and phenomena. And both of nou- 

 mena and of phenomena we may 

 affirm simple existence. But what 

 is a noumenon ? An unknown cause. 

 In affirming, therefore, the existence 

 of a noumenon, we affirm causation. 

 Here, therefore, are two additional 

 kinds of fact, capable of being 

 asserted in a proposition. Besides 

 the propositions which assert Sequence 

 or Co-existence, there are some which 

 assert simple Existence ; * and others 

 assert Causation, which, subject to 



* Professor Bain, in his logic (i. 256), 

 excludes Existence from the list, consider- 

 ing it as a mere name. All propositions, 

 he says, which predicate mere existence 

 "are more or less abbreviated or elliptical : 

 •when fully expressed they fall under either 

 co-existence or succession. When we say 

 there exists a conspiracy for *a particular 

 purpose, we mean that at the present time 

 a body of men have formed themselves 

 into a society for a particular object ; which 

 is a complex affirmation, resolvable into 

 propositions of co-existence and succession 

 (as causation). The assertion that the dodo 

 does not exist, points to the fact that this 

 animal, once known in a certain place, has 

 disappeared or become extinct ; is no longer 

 associated with the locality : all which 

 m;iy be better stated without the use of 

 the verb ' exist.' There is a debated ques- 

 tion — Does an ether exist ? but the con- 

 crete form would be this — ' Are heat and 

 light and other radiant influences propa- 

 gated by an ethereal medium diffused in 

 space ? ' which is a proposition of causation. 

 In like manner the question of the Exis- 

 tence of a Deity cannot be discussed in 

 that form. It is properly a question as to 

 the First Cause of the Universe, and as to 



the explanations which will follow in 

 the Third Book, must be considered 

 provisionally as a distinct and peculiar 

 kind of assertion. 



§ 6. To these four kinds of matter- 

 of-fact or assertion must be added 



the continued exertion of that Cause in 

 providential superintendence " (i. 407). 



Mr. Bain thinks it ' ' fictitious and un- 

 meaning language " to carry up the classi- 

 fication of Nature to one surnmum genus, 

 Being, or that which Exists ; since nothing 

 can be perceived or apprehended but by 

 way of contrast with something else, (of 

 which important truth, under the name of 

 Law of Relativity, he has been in our time 

 the pKincipal expounder and champion,) 

 and we have no other class to oppose to 

 Being, or fact to contrast with Existence. 



I accept fully Mr. Bain's Law of Rela- 

 tivity, but I do not understand by it that 

 to enable us to apprehend or be conscious 

 of any fact, it is necessary that we should 

 contrast it with some other ixjsitive fact. 

 The antithesis necessary to consciousness 

 need not, I conceive, be an antithesis be- 

 tween two positives ; it may be between 

 one positive and its negative. Hobbes 

 was undoubtedly right when he said that 

 a single sensation indefinitely prolonged 

 would cease to be felt at all; but simple 

 mtermission, without other change, would 

 restore it to consciousness. In order to be 

 conscious of heat, it is not necessary that 

 we should pass to it from cold ; it suffices 

 that we should pass to it from a state of no 

 sensation, or from a sensation of some 

 other kind. The relative opposite of Being, 

 considered as a surnmum genus, is Non- 

 entity, or Nothing ; and we have, now and 

 then, occasion to consider and discuss 

 things merely in contrast with Non-entity. 



I grant that the decision of questions of 

 Existence usually if not always depends 

 on a previous question of either Causation 

 or Co-existence. But Existence is never- 

 theless a different thing from Causation or 

 Co-existence, and can be predicated apart 

 from them. The meaning of the abstract 

 name Existence, and the connotation ot 

 the concrete name Being, consist, like the 

 meaning of all other names, in sensations 

 or states of consciousness : their peculiarity 

 is that to exist, is to excite, or be capable 

 of exciting, any sensations or states of con- 

 sciousness : no matter what, but it is in- 

 dispensable that there should be some. It 

 was from overlooking thi.s that Hegel, find- 

 ing that Being is an abstraction reached by 

 thinking away all particular attributes, ar 

 rived at the self -contradictory proposition 

 on which he founded all his philosophy, 

 that Being is the same as nothing. It is 

 really the name of Something, taken in the 

 most comprehensive sense of the word. 



