REA80NINO. 337 



So mucli for what is implied, wlieu the reasouer con- 

 ceives of the fact S before him as a case of which the essence 

 is to be M. One word now as to what is involved in M's 

 having properties, consequences, or implications, and we 

 can go back to the study of the reasoning process again, 



WHAT IS INVOLVED IN GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 



M is not a concrete, or ' self-sufficient,' as Mr. Clay 

 would say. It is an abstract character which may exist, 

 embedded with other characters, in many concretes. Whe- 

 ther it be the character of being a writing surface, of being 

 made in America or China, of being eight inches square, or 

 of being in a certain part of space, this is always true of it. 

 Now we might conceive of this being a world in which all 

 such general characters were independent of each other, so 

 that if any one of them were found in a subject S, we never 

 could be sure what others would be found alongside of it. 

 On one occasion there might be P with M, on another Q, 

 and so on. In such a Avorld there would be no general 

 sequences or coexistences, and no universal laws. Each 

 grouping would be sui generis ; from the experience of tlie 

 past no future could be predicted ; and reasoning, as we 

 shall presently see, would be an impossibility. 



But the world we live in is not one of this sort. Though 

 many general characters seem indifferent to each other, 

 there remain a number of them which affect constant habits 

 of mutual concomitance or reiDugance. They involve or 

 imply each other. One of them is a sign to us that the 

 other will be found. They hunt in couples, as it were ; and 

 such a proposition as that M is P, or includes P, or precedes 

 or accompanies P, if it prove to be true in one instance, 

 may very likely be true in every other instance which we 

 meet. This is, in fact, a world in which general laws obtain, 

 in which universal propositions are true, and in which rea- 

 soning is therefore possible. Fortunately for us : for since 

 we cannot handle things as wholes, but only by conceiving 

 them through some general character which for the time 

 we call their essence, it would be a great pity if the matter 

 ended there, and if the general character, once picked out 

 an/A in our possession, helped us to no farther advance. In 



