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The basis of the analysis is the use of general names in predication. To say that in predication a subject is referred to a class, is only another way of saying that in every categorical sentence the predicate is a general name express or implied: that it is by means of general names that we convey our thoughts about things to others.

"Milton is a great poet." "Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat." Great poet is a general name: it means certain qualities, and applies to anybody possessing them. Quoth implies a general name, a name for persons speaking, connoting or meaning a certain act and applicable to anybody in the performance of it. Quoth expresses also past time: thus it implies another general name, a name for persons in past time, connoting a quality which differentiates a species in the genus persons speaking, and making the predicate term "persons speaking in past time". Thus the proposition Quoth Hudibras, analysed into the syllogistic form S is in P, becomes S (Hudibras) is in P (persons speaking in past time). The Predicate term P is a class constituted on those properties. Smell a rat also implies a general name, meaning an act or state predicable of many individuals.

Even if we add the grammatical object of Quoth to the analysis, the Predicate term is still a general name. Hudibras is only one of the persons speaking in past time who have spoken of themselves as being in a certain mood of suspicion.¹

The learner may well ask what is the use of twisting plain speech into these uncouth forms. The use is certainly not obvious. The analysis may be directly useful, as Aristotle claimed for it, when we wish to ascertain exactly whether one proposition contradicts another, or forms with another or others a valid link in an argument. This is to admit that it is only in perplexing cases that the analysis is of direct use. The indirect use is to familiarise us with what the forms of common speech imply, and thus strengthen the intellect for interpreting the condensed and elliptical expression in which common speech abounds.

There are certain technical names applied to the components of many-worded general names, Categorematic and Syncategorematic, Subject and Attributive. The distinctions are really grammatical rather than logical, and of little practical value.

A word that can stand by itself as a term is said to be Categorematic. Man, poet, or any other common noun.

A word that can only form part of a term is Syncategorematic. Under this definition come all adjectives and adverbs.

The student's ingenuity may be exercised in applying the distinction to the various parts of speech. A verb may be said to be Hypercategorematic, implying, as it does, not only a term, but also a copula.

A nice point is whether the Adjective is categorematic or syncategorematic. The question depends on the definition of "term" in Logic. In common speech an adjective may stand by itself as a predicate, and so might be said to be Categorematic. "This heart is merry." But if a term is a class, or the name of a class, it is not Categorematic in the above definition. It can only help to specify a class when attached to the name of a higher genus.

Mr. Fowler's words Subject and Attributive express practically the same distinction, except that Attributive is of narrower extent than syncategorematic. An Attributive is a word that connotes an attribute or property, as hot, valorous, and is always grammatically an adjective.

The expression of Quantity, that is, of Universality or non-universality, is all-important in syllogistic formulæ. In them universality is expressed by All or None. In ordinary speech universality is expressed in various forms, concrete and abstract, plain and figurative, without the use of "all" or "none".

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

What cat's averse to fish?

Can the leopard change his spots?

The longest road has an end.

Suspicion ever haunts the guilty mind.

Irresolution is always a sign of weakness.

Treason never prospers.

A proposition in which the quantity is not expressed is called by Aristotle Indefinite (ἀδιόριστος). For "indefinite"² Hamilton suggests Preindesignate, undesignated, that is, before being received from common speech for the syllogistic mill. A proposition is Predesignate when the quantity is definitely indicated. All the above propositions are "Predesignate" universals, and reducible to the form All S is P, or No S is P.

The following propositions are no less definitely particular, reducible to the form I or O. In them as in the preceding quantity is formally expressed, though the forms used are not the artificial syllogistic forms:—

Afflictions are often salutary.

Not every advice is a safe one.

All that glitters is not gold.

Rivers generally³ run into the sea.

Often, however, it is really uncertain from the form of common speech whether it is intended to express a universal or a particular. The quantity is not formally expressed. This is especially the case with proverbs and loose floating sayings of a general tendency. For example:—

Haste makes waste.

Knowledge is power.

Light come, light go.

Left-handed men are awkward antagonists.

Veteran soldiers are the steadiest in fight.

Such sayings are in actual speech for the most part delivered as universals.⁴ It is a useful exercise of the Socratic kind to decide whether they are really so. This can only be determined by a survey of facts. The best method of conducting such a survey is probably (1) to pick out the concrete subject, "hasty actions," "men possessed of knowledge," "things lightly acquired"; (2) to fix the attribute or attributes predicated; (3) to run over the individuals of the subject class and settle whether the attribute is as a matter of fact meant to be predicated of each and every one.

This is the operation of Induction. If one individual can be found of whom the attribute is not meant to be predicated, the proposition is not intended as Universal.

Mark the difference between settling what is intended and settling what is true. The conditions of truth and the errors incident to the attempt to determine it, are the business of the Logic of Rational Belief, commonly entitled Inductive Logic. The kind of "induction" here contemplated has for its aim merely to determine the quantity of a proposition in common acceptation, which can be done by considering in what cases the proposition would generally be alleged. This corresponds nearly as we shall see to Aristotelian Induction, the acceptance of a universal statement when no instance to the contrary is alleged.

It is to be observed that for this operation we do not practically use the syllogistic form All S is P. We do not raise the question Is All S, P? That is, we do not constitute in thought a class P: the class in our minds is S, and what we ask is whether an attribute predicated of this class is truly predicated of every individual of it.

Suppose we indicate by p the attribute, knot of attributes, or concept on which the class P is constituted, then All S is P is equivalent to "All S has p": and Has All S p? is the form of a question that we have in our minds when we make an inductive survey on the above method. I point this out to emphasise the fact that there is no prerogative in the form All S is P except for syllogistic purposes.

This inductive survey may be made a useful Collateral Discipline. The bare forms of Syllogistic are a useless item of knowledge unless they are applied to concrete thought. And determining the quantity of a common aphorism or saw, the limits within which it is meant to hold good, is a valuable discipline in exactness of understanding. In trying to penetrate to the inner intention of a loose general maxim, we discover that what it is really intended to assert is a general connexion of attributes, and a survey of concrete cases leads to a more exact apprehension of those attributes. Thus in considering whether Knowledge is power is meant to be asserted of all knowledge, we encounter along with such examples as the sailor's knowledge that wetting a rope shortens it, which enabled some masons to raise a stone to its desired position, or the knowledge of French roads possessed by the German invaders—along with such examples as these we encounter cases where a knowledge of difficulties without a knowledge of the means of overcoming them is paralysing to action. Samuel Daniel says:—