SECTION IV.
PREDICATION.
The purposes of language are two. We have occasion to mark sensations or ideas singly; and we have occasion to mark them in trains; in other words, we have need of contrivances to mark not only sensations and ideas; but also the order of them. The contrivances which are necessary to mark this order are the main cause of the complexity of language.
If all names were names of one sort, there would be no difficulty in marking a train of the feelings which they serve to denote. Thus, if all names were names of individuals, as John, James, Peter, we should have no difficulty in marking a train of the ideas of these individuals; all that would be necessary would be to set down the marks, one after another, in the same order in which, one after another, the ideas occurred.
If all names were names of Species, as man, horse, eagle, the facility of marking the order of the ideas which they represent would be the same. If the idea man occurred first, the idea horse second, the idea eagle third; all that would be necessary would be to put down the name or mark man the first, the name or mark horse the second, and the order of marks would represent the order of ideas.
But we have already seen, that the facility of communication requires names of different degrees of 160 comprehensiveness; names of individuals, names of classes, and names both of the larger and the smaller classes. For the younger and less instructed part of my readers, it may be necessary to mention, that the names of the smaller classes, are called names of Species, or specific names; the names of the larger classes, names of Genera, or generic names. Thus, the term animal, denotes a large class; a class which contains the smaller classes, man, horse, dog, &c. The name animal, therefore, is called a Genus, or a generic name; the name man, a Species, or a specific name.
In using names of these different kinds; names of individuals when the idea is restricted to one individual; and, for brevity, the names of classes; the names of the less when necessary, of the large when practicable; there is perpetual need of the substitution of one name for another. When I have used the names, James and John, Thomas and William, and many more, having to speak of such peculiarities of each, as distinguish him from every other, I may proceed to speak of them in general, as included in a class. When this happens, I have occasion for the name of the class, and to substitute the name of the class, for the names of the individuals. By what contrivance is this performed? I have the name of the individual, John; and the name of the class man; and I can set down my two names; John, man; in juxta-position. But this is not sufficient to effect the communication I desire; namely, that the word man is a mark of the same idea of which John is a mark, and a mark of other ideas along with it, those to wit, of which James, Thomas, &c. are marks. To complete my contrivance, I invent a mark, which, placed between my marks, 161 John and man, fixes the idea I mean to convey, that man, is another mark to that idea of which John is a mark, while it is a mark of the other ideas, of which James, Thomas, &c., are marks. For this purpose, we use in English, the mark “is.” By help of this, my object is immediately attained. I say, John “is” a man. I, then, use the word man, instead of the word John, with many advantages; because every thing which I can affirm of the word man, is true not only of John, but of James, and Peter, and every other individual of the class.
The joining of two names by this peculiar mark is the act which has been denominated, PREDICATION; and it is the grand contrivance by which the marks of sensations and ideas are so ordered in discourse, as to mark the order of the trains, which it is our purpose to communicate, or to record.
The form of expression, “John is a man,” is called a Proposition. It consists of three marks. Of these, “John,” is denominated the SUBJECT; “man,” the PREDICATE; and “is,” the COPULA. To speak generally, and in the language of the grammarians, the nominative of the verb is the subject of the proposition; the substantive, or adjective, which agrees with the nominative, is the predicate, and the verb is the copula.
By a few simple examples, the reader may render familiar to himself the use of PREDICATION, as the grand expedient, by which language is enabled to mark not only sensations and ideas, but also the order of them.48
48 The theory of Predication here set forth, stands in need of further elucidation, and perhaps of some correction and addition.
The account which the author gives of a Predication, or Proposition, is, first, that it is a mode of so putting together the marks of sensations and ideas, as to mark the order of them. Secondly, that it consists in substituting one name for another, so as to signify that a certain name (called the predicate), is a mark of the same idea which another name (called the subject) is a mark of.
It must be allowed that a predication, or proposition, is intended to mark some portion of the order either of our sensations or of our ideas, i.e., some part of the coexistences or sequences which take place either in our minds, or in what we term the external world. But what sort of order is it that a predication marks? An order supposed to be believed in. When John, or man, are said to be marks of an individual object, all there is in the matter is that these words, being associated with the idea of the object, are intended to raise that idea in the mind of the person who hears or reads them. But when we say, John is a man, or, John is an old man, we intend to do more than call up in the hearer’s mind the images of John, of a man, and of an old man. We intend to do more than inform him that we have thought of, or even seen, John and a man, or John and an old man, together. We inform him of a fact respecting John, namely, that he is an old man, or at all events, of our belief that this is a fact. The characteristic difference between a predication and any other form of speech, is, that it does not merely bring to mind a certain object (which is the only function of a mark, merely as such); it asserts something respecting it. Now it may be true, and I think it is true, that every assertion, every object of Belief,—everything that can be true or false—that can be an object of assent or dissent—is some order of sensations or of ideas: some coexistence or succession of sensations or ideas actually experienced, or supposed capable of being experienced. And thus it may appear in the end that in expressing a belief, we are after all only declaring the order of a group or series of sensations or ideas. But the order which we declare is not an imaginary order; it is an order believed to be real. Whatever view we adopt of the psychological nature of Belief, it is necessary to distinguish between the mere suggestion, to the mind of a certain order among sensations or ideas such as takes place when we think of the alphabet, or the numeration table and the indication that this order is an actual fact, which is occurring, or which has occurred once or oftener, or which, in certain definite circumstances, always occurs; which are the things indicated as true by an affirmative predication, and as false by a negative one.
That a predication differs from a name in doing more than merely calling up an idea, is admitted in what I have noted as the second half of the author’s theory of Predication. That second half points out that every predication is a communication, intended to act, not on the mere ideas of the listener, but on his persuasion or belief: and what he is intended to believe, according to the author, is, that of the two names which are conjoined in the predication, one is a mark of the same idea (or let me add, of the same sensation or cluster of sensations) of which the other is a mark. This is a doctrine of Hobbes, the one which caused him to be termed by Leibnitz, in words which have been often quoted, “plus quam nominalis.” It is quite true that when we predicate B of A—when we assert of A that it is a B—B must, if the assertion is true, be a name of A, i.e., a name applicable to A; one of the innumerable names which, in virtue of their signification, can be used as descriptive of A: but is this the information which we want to convey to the hearer? It is so when we are speaking only of names and their meaning, as when we enunciate a definition. In every other case, what we want to convey is a matter of fact, of which this relation between the names is but an incidental consequence. When we say, John walked out this morning, it is not a correct expression of the communication we desire to make, that “having walked out this morning” or “a person who has walked out this morning” are two of the innumerable names of John. They are only accidentally and momentarily names of John by reason of a certain event, and the information we mean to give is, that this event has happened. The event is not resolvable into an identity of meaning between names, but into an actual series of sensations that occurred to John, and a belief that any one who had been present and using his eyes would have had another series of sensations, which we call seeing John in the act of walking out. Again, when we say, Negroes are woolly-haired, we mean to make known to the hearer, not that woolly-haired is a name of every negro, but that wherever the cluster of sensations signified by the word negro, are experienced, the sensations signified by the word woolly-haired will be found either among them or conjoined with them. This is an order of sensations: and it is only in consequence of it that the name woolly-haired comes to be applicable to every individual of whom the term negro is a name.
There is nothing positively opposed to all this in the author’s text: indeed he must be considered to have meant this, when he said, that by means of substituting one name for another, a predication marks the order of our sensations and ideas. The omission consists in not remarking that what is distinctively signified by a predication, as such, is Belief in a certain order of sensations or ideas. And when this has been said, the Hobbian addition, that it does so by declaring the predicate to be a name of everything of which the subject is a name, may be omitted as surplusage, and as diverting the mind from the essential features of the case. Predication may thus be defined, a form of speech which expresses a belief that a certain coexistence or sequence of sensations or ideas, did, does, or, under certain conditions, would take place: and the reverse of this when the predication is negative.—Ed.
162 For the more complete elucidation of this important part of the business of Naming, it is necessary to 163 remark, that Logicians have classed Predications, under five heads; 1st, when the Genus is predicated, 164 of any subject; 2dly, when the Species is predicated; 3dly, when the Specific Difference is predicated; 4thly, 165 when a Property is predicated; 5thly, when an Accident is predicated. These five classes of names, the things capable of being predicated, are named PREDICABLES. The five Predicables, in Latin, the language in which they are commonly expressed, are named Genus, Species, Differentia, Proprium, Accidens.
We have already seen, perhaps at sufficient length, the manner in which, and the end for which, the Genus, and the Species are predicated of any subject. It is, that the more comprehensive name, may be substituted for the less comprehensive; so that each of our marks may answer the purpose of marking, to as great an extent as possible. In this manner we substitute the word man, for example, for the word Thomas, when we predicate the Species of the individual, in the proposition, “Thomas is a man;” the word animal, for the word man, when we predicate the Genus of the Species, in the proposition, “man, is an animal.“49
49 If what has been said in the preceding note is correct, it is a very inadequate view of the purpose for which a generic or specific name is predicated of any subject, to say that it is in order that “the more comprehensive name may be substituted for the less comprehensive, so that each of our marks may answer the purpose of marking to as great an extent as possible.” The more comprehensive and the less comprehensive name have each their uses, and the function of each not only could not be discharged with equal convenience by the other, but could not be discharged by it at all. The purpose, in predicating of anything the name of a class to which it belongs, is not to obtain a better or more commodious name for it, but to make known the fact of its possessing the attributes which constitute the class, and which are therefore signified by the class-name. It is evident that the name of one class cannot possibly perform this office vicariously for the name of another.—Ed.
166 We have already, also, taken notice of the artifice, by which smaller classes are formed out of larger, by the help of secondary marks. Of these secondary marks, the principal classes are designated by the terms Differentia, Proprium, Accidens. No very distinct boundaries, are, indeed, marked by these terms; nor do they effect a scientific division; but, for the present purpose, the elucidation of the end to which Predication is subservient, they are sufficient.
Differentia is always an Attributive, applicable to a Genus, and which, when combined with it, marks out a Species; as the word rational, which is applicable to the Genus animal, and when applied to it, in the phrase “rational animal,” marks out a Species, and is synonymous with the word man. In a similar manner the word sensitive is applicable to body, and marks out the subordinate Genus, animal.
Proprium is also an Attributive, and the Attributives classed under this title differ from those classed under the title differentia, chiefly in this; That those classed under differentia, are regarded as more expressly involved in the definition of the Species which they seem to cut out from the Genus. Thus, both rational, and risible, when applied to animal, cut out of it the class Man; but rational is called DIFFERENTIA, risible PROPRIUM, because rational, is strictly involved in the definition of man; risible is not. Some Attributives are classed under the title proprium, which, when applied to the genus, do not constitute the same Species, constituted by the differentia, but a different Species; as bipes, two-footed animal, is the name of a class including at least the two classes of men, and birds; hot-blooded animal, is the name of a class so 167 large as to include man, horse, lion, dog, and the greater part of the more perfectly organized Species. There are some Attributives, classed under the title proprium, which cut out of the Genus a class even less than that which is cut by the differentia; as, for example, the word grammatical. This word grammatical, applied to the word animal, in the term “grammatical animal,” separates a class so small, as to include only part of the Species man, those who are called Grammarians. Such Attributives, for an obvious reason, are applicable, as well to the name of the Species, as to that of the Genus. Thus, we say, “a grammatical man,” as well as “a grammatical animal,” and that with greater propriety, as cutting out the sub-species from the Species more immediately.
The Attributives, classed under the title accidens, are regarded, like those classed under differentia, and proprium, as applicable to the class cut out by the differentia, but applicable to it rather fortuitously than by any fixed connection. The term lame is an example of such Attributives. The term lame, however, applied to the name of the Species, does not the less take out of it a sub-species, as “lame man,” “lame horse.”
With respect to these classes of Attributives (Differentia, Proprium, Accidens) this is necessary to be observed, and remembered; that they differ from one another only by the accident of their application. Thus, when rational, applied to the Genus animal, constitutes the Species man, all other Attributives applied to that Species are either accidens, or proprium; but these Attributives themselves may be the differentia in the case of other classes. Thus, warm-blooded, applied to man, stands under the class proprium; but 168 when applied to the animals which stand distinguished from the cold-blooded, as constituting a class, it becomes the differentia, and rational, with respect to this comprehensive class, is only an accidens.50
50 The author says, that no very distinct boundaries are marked by the three terms, Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens, nor do they effect a scientific division. As used, however, by the more accurate of the school logicians, they do mark out distinct boundaries, and do effect a scientific division.
Of the attributes common to a class, some have been taken into consideration in forming the class, and are included in the signification of its name. Such, in the case of man, are rationality, and the outward form which we call the human. These attributes are its Differentiæ; the fundamental differences which distinguish that class from the others most nearly allied to it. The school logicians were contented with one Differentia, whenever one was sufficient completely to circumscribe the class. But this was an error, because one attribute may be sufficient for distinction, and yet may not exhaust the signification of the class-name. All attributes, then, which are part of that signification, are set apart as Differentiæ. Other attributes, though not included among those which constitute the class, and which are directly signified by its name, are consequences of some of those which constitute the class, and always found along with them. These attributes of the class are its Propria. Thus, to be bounded by three straight lines is the Differentia of a triangle: to have the sum of its three angles equal to two right angles, being a consequence of its Differentia, is a Proprium of it. Rationality is a Differentia of the class Man: to be able to build cities is a Proprium, being a consequence of rationality, but not, as that is, included in the meaning of the word Man. All other attributes of the class, which are neither included in the meaning of the name, nor are consequences of any which are included, are Accidents, however universally and constantly they may be true of the class; as blackness, of crows.
The author’s remark, that these three classes of Attributives differ from one another only in the accident of their application, is most just. There are not some attributes which are always Differentiæ, and others which are always Propria, or always Accidents. The same attribute which is a Differentia of one genus or species, may be, and often is, a Proprium or an Accidens of others, and so on.—Ed.
169 We now arrive at a very important conclusion; for it thus appears, that all Predication, is Predication of Genus or Species, since the Attributives classed under the titles of Differentia, Proprium, Accidens, cannot be used but as part of the name of a Species. But we have seen, above, that Predication by Genus and Species is merely the substitution of one name for another, the more general for the less general; the fact of the substitution being marked by the Copula. It follows, if all Predication is by Genus and Species, that all Predication is the substitution of one name for another, the more for the less general.
It will be easy for the learner to make this material fact familiar to himself, by attending to a few instances. Thus, when it is said that man is rational, the term rational is evidently elliptical, and the word animal is understood. The word rational, according to grammatical language, is an adjective, and is significant only in conjunction with a substantive. According to logical language, it is a connotative term, and is without a meaning when disjoined from the object, the property or properties of which it connotes.51
51 I am unable to feel the force of this remark. Every predication ascribes an attribute to a subject. Differentiae, Propria, and Accidents, agree with generic and specific names in expressing attributes, and the attributes they express are the whole of their meaning. I therefore cannot see why there should not be Predication of any of these, as well as of Genus and Species. These three Predicables, the author says, cannot be used but as part of the name of a genus or species: they are adjectives, and cannot be employed without a substantive understood. Allowing this to be logically, as it is grammatically, true, still the comprehensive and almost insignificant substantive, “thing” or “being,” fully answers the purpose; and the entire meaning of the predication is contained in the adjective. These adjectives, as the author remarks, are connotative terms; but so, on his own shewing elsewhere, are all concrete substantives, except proper names. Why, when it is said that man is rational, must “the word animal” be “understood?” Nothing is understood but that the being, Man, has the attribute of reason. If we say, God is rational, is animal understood? It was only the Greeks who classed their gods as ζῶα ἀθάνατα.
The exclusion of the three latter Predicables from predication probably recommended itself to the author as a support to his doctrine that all Predication is the substitution of one name for another, which he considered himself to have already demonstrated so far as regards Genus and Species. But proofs have just been given that in the predication of Genus and Species no more than in that of Differentia, Proprium, or Accidens, is anything which turns upon names the main consideration. Except in the case of definitions, and other merely verbal propositions, every proposition is intended to communicate a matter of fact: This subject has that attribute—This cluster of sensations is always accompanied by that sensation.
Let me remark by the way, that the word connote is here used by the author in what I consider its legitimate sense—that in which a name is said to connote a property or properties belonging to the object it is predicated of. He afterwards casts off this use of the term, and introduces one the exact reverse: but of this hereafter.—Ed.
170 With respect, however, to such examples as this last, namely, all those in which the predicate consists 171 of the genus and differentia, the proposition is a mere definition; and the predicate, and the subject, are precisely equivalent. Thus, “rational animal” is precisely the same class as “man;” and they are only two names for the same thing; the one a simple, or single-worded name; the other a complex, or double-worded, name. Such propositions therefore are, properly speaking, not Predications at all. When they are used for any other purpose than to make known, or to fix, the meaning of a term, they are useless, and are denominated identical propositions.52
52 In this passage the author virtually gives up the part of his theory of Predication which is borrowed from Hobbes. According to his doctrine in this place, whenever the predicate and the subject are exactly equivalent, and “are only two names for the same thing,” the predication serves only “to make known, or to fix, the meaning of a term,” and “such propositions are, properly speaking, not Predications at all.”—Ed.
The preceding expositions have shown the peculiar use of the Copula. The Predication consists, essentially, of two marks, whereof the first is called the Subject, the latter the Predicate; the Predicate being set down as a name to be used for every thing of which the Subject is a name; and the Copula is merely a mark necessary to shew that the Predicate is to be taken and used as a substitute for the Subject.
There is a great convenience in giving to the Copula the same powers of connotation, in respect of Time, 172 Manner, Person, and Number, as we have seen to be usefully annexed to the Verb.
It is necessary to explain a little this convenience; and the explanation will have another advantage, that it will still farther illustrate the manner in which Predication serves the great purpose of marking the Order of ideas in a Train.
If the sensations or ideas in a train were to be marked as merely so many independent items, the mode of marking the order of them would be simple; the order of the marks itself might suffice. If this, for example, were the train; smell of a rose, sight of a rat, sound of a trumpet, touch of velvet, prick of a pin, these names placed in order might denote the order of the sensations.
In the greater number of instances, however, it is necessary to mark the train as the train of somebody; and for this purpose additional machinery is required. Suppose that the train I have to mark is the train of John, a train of the sensations of John; what are the marks for which I shall have occasion? It is first of all evident that I must have a mark for John, and a mark for each of the sensations. Suppose it is my purpose to represent John as having a sensation by each of his senses, sight, smell, &c., how must I proceed? I have first the word John, for the mark of the person; and I have the word seeing, for the mark of the sensation. But beside the marks, “John,” “seeing,” I have occasion for a mark to show that I mean the mark “seeing” to be applied to the mark “John,” and not to any other. For that purpose I use the word “is.” I say “John is seeing,” and the first sensation of John’s train is now sufficiently 173 denoted. In the same manner I proceed with the rest; John is smelling, John is tasting, John is hearing, John is touching.
But I have often occasion to speak not only of John’s present sensations, but of his past or his future sensations; not of John as merely now seeing, hearing, &c., but as having been, or as going to be, the subject of these sensations. The Copula may be so contrived as most commodiously to connote the main distinctions of Time: not merely to mark the connection between the two marks which form the subject and the predicate of the proposition, but to mark, along with this, either past, or present, or future, Time. Thus, if I say John is seeing, the copula marks present time along with the peculiar connection between the predicate and the subject; if I say John was seeing, it connotes past time; if I say John will be seeing, it connotes future time.
As, in explaining the functions of verbs, there appeared a convenience in the contrivance by which they were made to connote three Manners; first, when no reference is made to any thing which is previously spoken of; secondly, when a reference is made to something which is previously spoken of; thirdly, when a reference is made to the will of one of the PERSONS; it will now be seen that there is the same convenience in making the Copula connote these references by a similar contrivance. Thus, when we speak of a man having sensations, we may speak of him as having them or as not having them, in consequence of something previously spoken of; or we may speak of him as having them in consequence of our will. It is, therefore, useful, that the Copula should 174 have moods as well as tenses. The same thing may be said of persons and numbers; of which no illustration seems to be required.
We come next to an observation respecting the Copula, to which the greatest attention is due. In all Languages, the Verb which denotes EXISTENCE has been employed to answer the additional purpose of the Copula in Predication. The consequences of this have been most lamentable. There is thus a double meaning in the Copula, which has produced a most unfortunate mixture and confusion of ideas. It has involved in mystery the whole business of Predication; the grand contrivance by which language is rendered competent to its end. By darkening Predication, it has spread such a veil over the phenomena of mind, as concealed them from ordinary eyes, and allowed them to be but imperfectly seen by those which were the most discerning.
In our own language, the verb, TO BE, is the important word which is employed to connote, along with its Subject, whatever it be, the grand idea of EXISTENCE. Thus, if I use the first person singular of its indicative mood, and say, “I am,” I affirm EXISTENCE of myself. “I am,” is the equivalent of “I am EXISTING.” In the first of these expressions, “I am,” the mark “am” involves in it the force of two marks; it involves the meaning of the word “existing,” and the marking power or meaning of the Copula. In the second expression “I am existing,” the word “am” ought to serve the purpose of the Copula only. But in reality its connotation of EXISTENCE still adheres to it; and whereas the expression ought to consist of the three established parts of a Predication; 1, the subject 175 “I;” 2, the predicate EXISTING; and 3, the copula; it in reality consists of, 1, the subject “I;” 2, the predicate EXISTING; 3, the Copula; which signifies, 4, EXISTING, over again.
Let us take, as another case, that in which the subject and predicate of my intended proposition are, the word “I” and “reading.” I want for the purpose of predication only a Copula to signify nakedly that the mark “reading” is applied to the mark “I;” but instead of this I am obliged to use a word which connotes EXISTENCE, along with the force of the Copula; and when I say “I am reading,” not only reading is predicated of me, but EXISTING also. Suppose, again, my subject is “John,” my predicate “dead,” I am obliged to use for my Copula the word “is,” which connotes EXISTENCE, and I thus predicate of John both existence and death.
It may be easily collected, from this one example, what heterogeneous and inconsistent ideas may be forced into connection by the use of the Substantive Verb as the Copula in Predication; and what confusion in the mental processes it tends to produce. It is in the case, however, of the higher abstractions, and the various combinations of ideas which the mind, in the processes of enquiring and marking, forms for its own convenience, to obtain a greater command over its stores and greater facility in communicating them, that the use of the verb which conjoins the Predication of EXISTENCE with every other Predication, has produced the wildest confusion, and been the most deeply injurious. Is it any wonder, for example, that Chance, and Fate, and Nature, have been personified, and have had an EXISTENCE ascribed 176 to them, as objects, when we have no means of predicating anything whatsoever of them, without predicating such EXISTENCE at the same time. If we say that “chance is nothing;” we predicate of it, by the word “is,” both existence and nothingness.
When this is the case, it is by no means to be wondered at, that philosophers should so long have inquired what those EXISTENCES are which abstract terms were employed to express; and should have lost themselves in fruitless speculations about the nature of entity, and quiddity, substance, and quality, space, time, necessity, eternity, and so on.
It is necessary here to take notice of a part of the marking power of Verbs, which could not be explained till the nature of the copula was understood.
Every Verb involves in it the force of the copula. It combines the marking powers of an adjective, and of the copula; and all Verbs may be resolved into those elements. Thus, “John walks,” is the same with “John is walking.” Verbs, therefore, are attributives, of the same nature as adjectives, only with additional connotative powers; and they cut smaller classes out of larger, in the manner of adjectives. Thus “John walks,” is an expression, the same in import as the Predication “John is a walking man;” and, walking men, standing men, running men, lying men, are all sub-species of the Species Man.
The same unhappy duplicity of meaning, which is incurred by using the Substantive Verb as the copula in Predication, is inflicted on other Verbs, in that part of their marking power by which they exhibit the connection between the two terms of a Predication.
The copula, included in Verbs, is not the PURE copula, 177 but the ACTUAL copula; the copula familiar and in constant use; namely, the Substantive Verb. From this it results, that whatever the peculiar attribute, which is predicated by means of any verb, EXISTENCE is always predicated along with it. Thus, when I say “John walks,” which is equivalent to “John is walking,” I predicate both existence, and walking, of John. When I say, “Caliban existed not,” which is the same as “Caliban was not existing,” I predicate both existence, and non-existence, of the imaginary being Caliban. By the two first words of the Predication, “Caliban was,” existence is predicated of him; by the addition of the compound term “not existing,” the opposite is predicated of him.
The instances, in which the more complicated formations of the mind are the subjects of this double Predication, are those which, from the importance of their consequences, deserve the greatest degree of attention. Thus, when we say “virtue exalts,” both existing, and exalting, are predicated of virtue. When we say that “passion impels,” both existence, and impulsion, are predicated of passion. When we say that “Time generates,” and “Space contains all things,” we affirm existence of space and time, by the same expression by which we affirm of the one, that it generates; of the other, that it contains. This constancy of Predication, forcing the same constancy in the junction of the ideas, furnishes a remarkable instance of that important case of association, of which we took notice above, where, by frequency of association, two ideas become so joined, that the one constantly rises, and cannot be prevented from rising, in combination with the other. Thus it is, 178 that Time forces itself upon us as an object. So it is with Space. We cannot think of Space, we cannot think of Time, without thinking of them as existent. With the ideas of space and time, the idea of EXISTENCE, as it is predicated of objects, is so associated, by the use of the Substantive Verb as the copula in predication, that we cannot disjoin them. The same would have been the case with Chance, and Fate, and Nature; if our religious education did not counteract the association. It was precisely the same, among the Greeks and Romans, whose religious education had not that effect.53 54
53 The account of predication above given is in conformity with the phenomena of the family of languages known as the Indo-European. Logicians, in fact, in treating of this subject have had almost exclusive regard to Greek and Latin and the literary languages of modern Europe, which are all of one type. It might therefore be presumed that the theory thus formed would be found not to fit in all its parts when applied to languages of an altogether different structure. The mental process must doubtless be the same in all; but the words that express the several parts may be used in new and unprecedented ways. Were naturalists to construct a scheme of the animal organism without ever having seen any other animals than those of the vertebrate type, the theory would certainly fail in generality; certain organs or functions would be set down as essential to animal existence which acquaintance with other classes of creatures shows can be quite well dispensed with. Similarly, the current theory of predication, when viewed in the light of a wider and deeper knowledge of the organism of speech, seems to attach an exaggerated importance to the peculiar predicative power presumed to be inherent in verbs, and especially in the verb of existence. It is now a well known fact that in the monosyllabic class of languages, in which a third part of the human race express their thoughts, there is no distinction among the parts of speech. In Chinese, for example, the word ta expresses indifferently great, greatness, to be great, to make great or magnify, greatly. It is only position that determines in each case how the word is to be understood; thus traditional convention assigns to ta fu the meaning of “a great man,” and to fu ta that of “the man is great.” Being habituated to the constant use of the verb is in such a case as the latter, we are apt to suppose that the expression derives its predicative force from its suggesting the verb of existence, which the mind instinctively and necessarily supplies for itself. How little ground there is for this presumed necessity, has been conclusively shown by the late Mr. Garnett, in his profound and exhaustive essay on the Nature and Analysis of the Verb. Speaking of the theory that makes the essential difference between the verb and other parts of speech to reside in the verb substantive, which is to be supplied by the mind in all cases where the functions of the verb proper are to be called into requisition, he observes: “This theory presupposes the existence of a verb substantive in the languages in question, and consciousness of that existence and of the force and capabilities of the element in those who speak them. Unfortunately the Spanish grammarians, to whom we are indebted for what knowledge we possess of the Philippine dialects, unanimously concur in stating that there is no verb substantive either in Tagalá, Pampanga, or Bisaya, nor any means of supplying the place of one, except the employment of pronouns and particles. Mariner makes a similar remark respecting the Tonga language; and we may venture to affirm that there is not such a thing as a true verb substantive in any one member of the great Polynesian family.
“It is true that the Malayan, Javanese and Malagassy grammarians talk of words signifying to be; but an attentive comparison of the elements which they profess to give as such, shows clearly that they are no verbs at all, but simply pronouns or indeclinable particles, commonly indicating the time, place or manner of the specified action or relation. It is not therefore easy to conceive how the mind of a Philippine islander, or of any other person, can supply a word totally unknown to it, and which there is not a particle of evidence to show that it ever thought of.”
Of the substitutes put in place of the substantive verb, by far the most common are pronouns, and particles indicating position. Thus in Coptic, the descendant of the ancient Egyptian, the demonstrative pe, “this,” after a noun singular masculine, or te when the noun is feminine, is equivalent to is; and ne, “these,” after a plural, to are. In the ancient hieroglyphic monuments the function of the substantive verb is performed by the same means. Even in the Semitic languages, which have substantive verbs, pronouns are habitually used instead of them; so that I I, or I he, stands for I am, and we we or we they, for we are. “Thou art my King” (Ps. 44, 5) is in the Hebrew “Thou he my King;” “We are the servants of the God of heaven” (Ezra 5, 11) is in Chaldee “We they servants of the God of heaven;” “I am the light of the world,” is in Arabic “I he the light of the world.”
Although such modes of expression are foreign to the Indo-European languages, even they furnish abundant evidence of the predicative power of pronouns and particles. If any word required to have inherent in it the peculiar affirmative power attributed to verbs, it is the word yes. Accordingly Tooke derives it from the French imperative a-yez: forgetting, or not knowing, that the Anglo-Saxon gese or yea (cognate with the Sanscrit pronoun ya) was in existence long before the French ayez. The fact is that Eng. yes, Ger. ja, and the corresponding words in the other European languages are oblique cases of demonstrative pronouns, and mean simply “in this (manner),” or “thus.” The Italian si (yes) is from Lat. sic, (thus); the Provençal oc is from Lat. hoc; and the modern Fr. oui was originally a combination of hoc illo, and passed through the stages of ocil and oil into its present form.
The consideration of these and a multitude of similar phenomena suggests, that the Sanscrit as-mi, Gr. ei-mi, Lat. s-um (for es-um), Eng. a-m, may have had for its root the demonstrative pronoun sa, and meant primarily “that (or there) as to me.” Be that as it may, all philologists are agreed that the verbs now used to express being in the abstract, expressed originally something physical and palpable. Thus Ital. stato, Fr. été, been, are from the Lat. statum, the participle of sto, “to stand;” and exist itself meant “to stand out or be prominent.” Eng. be, Lat. fu- is identical with Gr. phy- “to grow;” and, according to Max Müller, as the root of as-mi meant “breath” or “breathing.” It may then be safely affirmed that no word had for its primary function to express mere existence; it seems enough for the purpose of predication that existence be implied.
With regard to ordinary verbs, the analytic processes of comparative grammar show no traces of a substantive verb entering into their structure. It is now an accepted doctrine of philology that, as a rule, the root of a verb is of the nature of an abstract noun; and that it became a verb simply by the addition of a pronominal affix—as in the Greek δί-δω-μι, δί-δω-ς, δί-δω-σι, in which the terminations were originally -μι, -σι, -τι. The habits of thought arising out of the present analytic state of the Indo-European languages naturally lead us to conceive these pronominal affixes as nominatives. But gift I does not seem a very natural way of getting at the meaning “I give;” and therefore Mr. Garnett maintains that the affixes were originally in an oblique case—the genitive or the instrumental—so that the literal meaning was “gift of me,” or “giving by me.” That this is the nature of the verb in the agglutinate languages—by far the most numerous class—it seems hardly possible to dispute; for in these the affixes remain rigidly distinct and little disguised. Thus, according to Garnett, the Wotiak, in order to express “my son,” “thy son,” &c., joins oblique cases of the personal pronouns to the noun pi in the following way:—
| pi-ĭ | son of me | |
| pi-ed | son of thee | |
| pi-ez | son of him | |
| pi-mi | son of us | |
| pi-dy | son of you | |
| pi-zy | son of them |
In an exactly similar way the preterite of the verb to speak stands thus—
| bera-i | speech of me == I spoke | |
| bera-d | speech of thee | |
| bera-z | speech of him | |
| bera-my | speech of us | |
| bera-dy | speech of you | |
| bera-zy | speech of them |
In the Fiji language loma means “heart” or “will;” and loma-qu (heart of me) may, according to the connection, signify either “my heart or will,” or “I will.”
In the inflected languages the affixes are so amalgamated with the root and otherwise obliterated that there is no such direct evidence of their nature; but a great many facts tend to show that the structure of the verb was originally the same as in the agglutinate family.
If this analysis of the verb is correct, the affirmation of existence found no expression in the early stages of language; the real copula connecting the subject with the predicate was the proposition contained in the oblique case of the pronominal affix.—F.
54 The interesting and important philological facts adduced by Mr. Findlater, confirm and illustrate in a very striking manner the doctrine in the text, of the radical distinction between the functions of the copula in predication, and those of the substantive verb; by shewing that many languages have no substantive verb, no verb expressive of mere existence, and yet signify their predications by other means; and that probably all languages began without a substantive verb, though they must always have had predications.
The confusion between these two different functions in the European languages, and the ambiguity of the verb To Be, which fulfils them both, are among the most important of the minor philosophical truths to which attention has been called by the author of the Analysis. As in the case of many other luminous thoughts, an approach is found to have been made to it by previous thinkers. Hobbes, though he did not reach it, came very close to it, and it was still more distinctly anticipated by Laromiguière, though without any sufficient perception of its value. It occurs in a criticism on a passage of Pascal, and in the following words. “Quand on dit, l’être est, etc. le mot est, ou le verbe, n’exprime pas la même chose que le mot être, sujet de la définition. Si j’énonce la proposition suivante: Dieu est existant, je ne voudrais pas dire assurément, Dieu existe existant: cela ne ferait pas un sens; de même, si je dis que Virgile est poëte, je ne veux pas donner à entendre que Virgile existe. Le verbe est, dans la proposition, n’exprime donc pas l’existence réelle; il n’exprime qu’un rapport spécial entre le sujet et l’attribut, le rapport du contenant au contenu,” &c. (Leçons de Philosophie, 7me ed. vol. i. p. 307.) Having thus hit upon an unobvious truth in the course of an argument directed to another purpose, he passes on and takes no further notice of it.
It may seem strange that the verb which signifies existence should have been employed in so many different languages as the sign of predication, if there is no real connection between the two meanings. But languages have been built up by the extension of an originally small number of words, with or without alterations of form, to express new meanings, the choice of the word being often determined by very distant analogies. In the present case, the analogy is not distant. All our predications are intended to declare the manner in which something affects, or would affect, ourselves or others. Our idea of existence is simply the idea of something which affects or would affect us somehow, without distinction of mode. Everything, therefore, which we can have occasion to assert of an existing thing, may be looked upon as a particular mode of its existence. Since snow is white, and since snow exists, it may be said to exist white; and if a sign was wanted by which to predicate white of snow, the word exists would be very likely to present itself. But most of our predications do relate to existing things: and this being so, it is in the ordinary course of the human mind that the same sign should be adhered to when we are predicating something of a merely imaginary thing (an abstraction, for instance) and that, being so used, it should create an association between the abstraction and the notion of real existence.—Ed.
179 We have now observed, wherein Predication consists, and the instruments by which it is performed. 180 We have also, in part, contemplated the End which it is destined to fulfil; that is, to mark the order in which sensations and ideas follow one another in a 181 train. On this last part of the subject, however, the following observations are still required.
The trains, the order of which we have occasion to 182 mark, may for the elucidation of the present subject, be divided into two classes. We have occasion to 183 mark, either, first, The series of the objects we have seen, heard, or otherwise perceived by our senses; or, 184 secondly, A train of thoughts which may have passed in our minds.
1. When we come to record a train of the objects we have perceived, that is, a train of sensations, the sensations have become ideas; for the objects are not now acting on our senses, and the sensations are at an end.
The order of the objects of our senses, is either the order of time, or the order of place. The first is the order of SUCCESSION; when one object comes first, another next, and so on. The second is the order of POSITION; when the objects are considered as simultaneous, but different in distance and direction from a particular point.
Let us observe in what manner the artifice of 185 Predication is adapted to the marking of a train in either of those orders: and first, with respect to a train in the order of Time.
Of this the following may be taken as a simple example. “The sun rises; clouds form; clouds cover the sky; lightning flashes; thunder roars.” It is easy in these expressions to observe, what were the sensations, and in what order they succeeded one another. It is also observable, that the order is denoted by so many Predications; and that Predication is our only expedient for denoting their order. First sensation, “sight of the sun;” second sensation, “rising of the sun;” these two denoted shortly and in their order by the Predication, “the sun rises.” Third sensation, “sight of clouds;” fourth sensation, “forming of clouds;” these two again shortly denoted in their order by the Predication, “clouds form.” The next, “clouds cover the sky,” needs no further explanation; but there is a peculiar artifice of language in the two following Predications; “lightning flashes,” “thunder roars,” which deserves to be well understood. “Lightning flashes;” here there is but one sensation, the sensation of sight, which we call a flash. But there are various kinds of flashes; this is a peculiar one, and I want to mark peculiarly what it is. It is not a flash on the earth, but a flash in the sky; it will not, however, sufficiently distinguish the flash in question, to say, the sky flashes, because other flashes come from the sky. What then is my contrivance? I form the fancy of a cause of this particular flash, though I know nothing concerning it, and for this unknown cause I invent a name, and call it lightning. I have then an expression which always accurately 186 marks the sensation I mean to denote: I say, “the lightning flashes,” “a flash of lightning,” and so on. “Thunder roars,” is another case of the same artifice. The noise here is the only sensation; but in order to distinguish it from all other noises, I invent a name for its unknown cause, and by its means can mark the sensation with perfect precision.
The Fictions, after this manner resorted to, for the purpose of marking; though important among the artifices of naming; have contributed largely to the misdirection of thought.
By the unfortunate ambiguity of the Copula, EXISTENCE is affirmed of them in every Predication into which they enter. The idea of EXISTENCE becomes, by this means, inseparable from them; and their true nature, as Creatures of the mind, and nothing more, is rarely, and not without difficulty, perceived.
The mode in which a train, in the order of place, is marked by the artifice of Predication, may be thus exemplified: “The house is on a hill; a lawn is in front; a stable is on the left hand; a garden is on the right; a wood is behind.” It is not necessary, after the exposition of the preceding example, to exhibit the detail of the marking performed by these Predications. The reader can trace the sensations, the order of them, and the mode of the marking, according to the specimen which has just been exhibited.
2. The trains of thought which pass in our minds, are sequences, the items of which are connected in three principal ways: 1st, as cause and effect; 2dly, as resembling; 3dly, as included under the same name. A short illustration of each of these cases will 187 complete the account of predication, as a contrivance for marking the order of ideas.
To illustrate a sequence, connected as Cause and Effect, let me suppose that I have a flint and steel in my hand, which I am about to strike, one against the other, but at that instant perceive a barrel of gunpowder open, close before me. I withhold the stroke in consequence of the train of thought which suggests to me the ultimate effect. If I have occasion to mark the train, I can only do it by a series of Predications, each of which marks a sequence in the train of causes and effects. “I strike the flint on the steel,” first sequence. “The stroke produces a spark,” second sequence. “The spark falls on gunpowder,” third sequence. “The spark ignites the gunpowder,” fourth sequence. “The gunpowder ignited makes an explosion,” fifth sequence. The ideas contained in these propositions must all have passed through my mind, and this is the only mode in which language enables me to mark them in their order.55
55 It is necessary again to notice the consistent omission, throughout the author’s theory of Predication, of the element Belief. In the case supposed, the ideas contained in all the propositions might have passed through the mind, without our being led to assert the propositions. I might have thought of every step in the series of phenomena mentioned, might have pictured all of them in my imagination, and have come to the conclusion that they would not happen. I therefore should not have made, either in words or in thought, the predication, This gunpowder will explode if I strike the flint against the steel. Yet the same ideas would have passed through my mind in the same order, in which they stand in the text. The only deficient link would have been the final one, the Belief.—Ed.
188 The sequences of which the items are connected by Resemblance will not require much illustration. I see A, who suggests B to me by his stature. B suggests C by the length of his nose. C suggests D by the similarity of their profession, and so on. The series of my thoughts is sufficiently obvious. How do I proceed when I have occasion to mark it? I use a series of predications. “I see A;” this predication marks the first item, my sight of A. “A is tall,” the second. “A man of like tallness is B,” the third; and so on.
The mode in which thoughts are united in a Syllogism, is the leading example of the third case. Let us consider the following very familiar instance. “Every tree is a vegetable: every oak is a tree: therefore, every oak is a vegetable.” This is evidently a process of naming. The primary idea is that of the object called an oak; from the name oak, I proceed to the name tree, finding that the name oak, is included in the name tree; and from the name tree, I proceed to the name vegetable, finding that the name tree is included in the name vegetable, and by consequence the name oak. This is the series of thoughts, which is marked in order, by the three propositions or predications of the syllogism.56
56 For the present I shall only remark on this theory of the syllogism, that it must stand or fall with the theory of Predication of which it is the sequel. If, as I have maintained, the propositions which are the premises of the syllogism are not correctly described as mere processes of naming, neither is the formula by which a third proposition is elicited from these two a process of mere naming. What it is, will be considered hereafter.—Ed.
189 The Predications of Arithmetic are another instance of the same thing. “One and one are two.” This again is a mere process of naming. What I call one and one, in numbering things, are objects, sensations, or clusters of sensations; suppose, the striking of the clock. The same sounds which I call one and one, I call also two; I have for these sensations, therefore, two names which are exactly equivalent: so when I say, one and one and one are three: or when I say, two and two are four: ten and ten are twenty: and the same when I put together any two numbers whatsoever. The series of thoughts in these instances is merely a series of names applicable to the same thing, and meaning the same thing.
Beside the two purposes of language, of which I took notice at the beginning of this inquiry; the recording of a man’s thoughts for his own use, and the communication of them to others; there is a use, to which language is subservient, of which some account is yet to be given. There are complex sensations, and complex ideas, made up of so many items, that one is not distinguishable from another. Thus, a figure of one hundred sides, is not distinguishable from one of ninety-nine sides. A thousand men in a crowd are not distinguishable from nine hundred and ninety-nine. But in all cases, in which the complexity of the idea arises from the repetition of the same idea, names can be invented upon a plan, which shall render them distinct, up to the very highest degree of complication. Numbers are a set of names contrived upon this plan, and for this very purpose. Ten and the numbers below ten, are the repetition of so many ones: twenty, thirty, forty, &c., up to a hundred, are 190 the repetition of so many tens: two hundred, three hundred, &c., the repetition of so many hundreds; and so on. These are names, which afford an immediate reference to the ones or units, of which they are composed; and the highest numbers are as easily distinguished by the difference of a unit as the lowest. All the processes of Arithmetic are only so many contrivances to substitute a distinct name for an indistinct one. What, for example, is the purpose of addition? Suppose I have six numbers, of which I desire to take the sum, 18, 14, 9, 25, 19, 15; these names, eighteen, and fourteen, and nine, &c., form a compound name; but a name which is not distinct. By summing them up, I get another name, exactly equivalent, one hundred, which is in the highest degree distinct, and gives me an immediate reference to the units or items of which it is composed; and this is of the highest utility.
That the Predications of Geometry are of the same nature with those of Arithmetic, is a truth of the greatest importance, and capable of being established by very obvious reasoning. It is well known, that all reasoning about quantity can be expressed in the form of algebraic equations. But the two sides of an algebraic equation are of necessity two marks or two names for the same thing; of which the one on the right-hand side is more distinct, at least to the present purpose of the inquirer, than the one on the left-hand side; and the whole purpose of an algebraic investigation, which is a mere series of changes of names, is to obtain, at last, a distinct name, a name the marking power of which is perfectly known to us, on the right-hand side of the equation. The language of geometry 191 itself, in the more simple cases, makes manifest the same observation. The amount of the three angles of a triangle, is twice a right angle. I arrive at this conclusion, as it is called, by a process of reasoning: that is to say, I find out a name “twice a right angle,” which much more distinctly points out to me a certain quantity, than my first name, “amount of the three angles of a triangle;” and the process by which I arrive at this name is a successive change of names, and nothing more; as any one may prove to himself by merely observing the steps of the demonstration.57
57 I cannot see any propriety in the expression that when we infer the sum of the three angles of a triangle to be twice a right angle, the operation consists in finding a second name which more distinctly points out the quantity than the first name. When we assent to the proof of this theorem, we do much more than obtain a new and more expressive name for a known fact; we learn a fact previously unknown. It is true that one result of our knowledge of this theorem is to give us a name for the sum of the three angles, “the marking power of which is perfectly known to us:” but it was not for want of knowing the marking power of the phrase “sum of the three angles of a triangle” that we did not know what that sum amounted to. We knew perfectly what the expression “sum of the three angles” was appointed to mark. What we have obtained, that we did not previously possess, is not a better mark for the same thing, but an additional fact to mark the fact which is marked by predicating of that sum, the phrase “twice a right angle.”—Ed.
There is one important class of words, the NAMES of NAMES; of which we shall have occasion to take account more particularly hereafter, and of which it is necessary here to speak only as they form a variety of Predication. A few examples will make the case 192 intelligible. WORD is a generical name for all Names. It is not the name of a Thing, as chair is the name of a thing, or watch, or picture. But word is a name for these several names; chair is a word, watch is a word, picture is a word, and so of all other names. Thus grammatical and logical terms are names of names. The word noun, is the name of one class of words, verb of another, preposition of another, and so on. The word sentence, is the name of a series of words put together for a certain purpose; the word paragraph the same; and so oration, discourse, essay, treatise, &c. The words genus and species, are not names of things, but of names. Genus is not the name of any thing called animal or any thing called body; it is a name of the names animal, body, and so on; the name animal is a genus, the name body is a genus; and in like manner is the name man a species, the name horse, the name crow, and so on. The name proposition, the name syllogism, are names of a series of words put together for a particular purpose; and so is the term definition; and the term argument. It will be easily seen that these words enter into Predication precisely on the same principles as other words. Either the more distinct is predicated of the less distinct, its equivalent; or the more comprehensive of the less comprehensive. Thus we say, that nouns and verbs are declinables; preposition and adverb indeclinables; where the more comprehensive terms are predicated of the less. Thus we say, that adjectives and verbs are attributes; where the more distinct is predicated of the less.58
58 This exposition of the class of words which are properly names of names, belongs originally to Hobbes, and is highly 193 important. They are a kind of names, the signification of which is very often misunderstood, and has given occasion to much hazy speculation. It should however be remarked that the words genus and species are not solely names of names; they are ambiguous. A genus never indeed means (as many of the schoolmen supposed) an abstract entity, distinct from all the individuals composing the class; but it often means the sum of those individuals taken collectively; the class as a whole, distinguished on the one hand from the single objects comprising it, and on the other hand from the class name.—Ed.
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