Deductive Logic | Page 9

existence upon others. The colour, smoothness or solidity of a
table cannot be conceived apart from the extension, whereas the whole
cluster of attributes which constitutes the table can be conceived to
exist altogether independently of other 'such clusters. We can imagine a
table to exist, if the whole material universe were annihilated, and but
one mind left to perceive it. Apart from mind, however, we cannot
imagine it: since what we call the attributes of a material substance are
no more than the various modes in which we find our minds affected.
§ 85. The above division of things belongs rather to the domain of
metaphysics than of logic: but it is the indispensable basis of the
division of terms, to which we now proceed.
CHAPTER III.
Of the Division of Terms.
§ 86. The following scheme presents to the eye the chief divisions of
terms.
Term Division of terms according to their place in thought.
Subject-Term Attributive
according to the kind of thing signified. Abstract Concrete

according to Quantity in Extension. Singular Common
according to Quality. Positive Privative Negative
according to number of meanings. Univocal Equivocal
according to number of things involved in the name. Absolute Relative
according to number of quantities. Connotative Non-connotative

Subject-term and Attributive.
§ 87. By a Subject-term is meant any term which is capable of standing
by itself as a subject, e.g. 'ribbon,' 'horse.'
§ 88. Attributives can only be used as predicates, not as subjects, e.g.
'cherry-coloured,' 'galloping.' These can only be used in conjunction
with other words (syncategorematically) to make up a subject. Thus we
can say 'A cherry-coloured ribbon is becoming,' or 'A galloping horse
is dangerous.'
§ 89. Attributives are contrivances of language whereby we indicate
that a subject has a certain attribute. Thus, when we say 'This paper is
white,' we indicate that the subject 'paper' possesses the attribute
whiteness. Logic, however, also recognises as attributives terms which
signify the non-possession of attributes. 'Not-white' is an attributive
equally with 'white.'
§ 90. An Attributive then may be defined as a term which signifies the
possession, or non-possession, of an attribute by a subject.
§ 91. It must be carefully noticed that attributives are not names of
attributes, but names of the things which possess the attributes, in
virtue of our knowledge that they possess them. Thus 'white' is the name
of all the things which possess the attribute whiteness, and 'virtuous' is
a name; not of the abstract quality, virtue, itself, but of the men and
actions which possess it. It is clear that a term can only properly be

said to be a name of those things whereof it can be predicated. Now, we
cannot intelligibly predicate an attributive of the abstract quality, or
qualities, the possession of which it implies. We cannot, for instance,
predicate the term 'learned' of the abstract quality of learning: but we
may predicate it of the individuals, Varro and Vergil. Attributives, then,
are to be regarded as names, not of the attributes which they imply, but
of the things in which those attributes are found.
§ 92. Attributives, however, are names of things in a less direct way
than that in which subject-terms may be the names of the same things.
Attributives are names of things only in predication, whereas
subject-terms are names of things in or out of predication. The terms
'horse' and 'Bucephalus' are names of certain things, in this case
animals, whether we make any statement about them or not: but the
terms 'swift' and 'fiery' only become names of the same things in virtue
of being predicable of them. When we say 'Horses are swift' or
'Bucephalus was fiery,' the terms 'swift' and 'fiery' become names
respectively of the same things as 'horse' and 'Bucephalus.' This
function of attributives as names in a secondary sense is exactly
expressed by the grammatical term 'noun adjective.' An attributive is
not directly the name of anything. It is a name added on in virtue of the
possession by a given thing of a certain attribute, or, in some cases, the
non-possession.
§ 93. Although attributives cannot be used as subjects, there is nothing
to prevent a subject-term from being used as a predicate, and so
assuming for the time being the functions of an attributive. When we
say 'Socrates was a man,' we convey to the mind the idea of the same
attributes which are implied by the attributive 'human.' But those terms
only are called attributives which can never be used except as
predicates.
§ 94. This division into Subject-terms and Attributives may be regarded
as a division of terms according to their place in thought. Attributives,
as we have seen, are essentially predicates, and can only be thought of
in relation to the subject, whereas the subject is thought