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BOOK II. OF REASONING. /.?.oj lapof nf 6 ovAAoyjo/joj ii oil; AniST. Analyt. Prior., 1. i. cap 4 CHAPTER I. OF INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL. § 1. In the preceding Book, we have been occupied not with the nature of Proof, but with the nature of Assertion: the import conveyed by a Proposition, whether that Proposition be true or false; not the means by which to discriminate true from false Propositions. The proper subject, however, of Logic is Proof. Before we could understand what Proof is, it was necessary to understand what that is to which proof is applicable; what that is which can be a subject of belief or disbelief, of affirmation or denial; what, in short, the different kinds of Propositions assert. This preliminary inquiry we have prosecuted to a definite result. Assertion, in the first place, relates either to the meaning of words, or to some property of the things which words signify. Assertions respecting the meaning of words, among which definitions are the most important, hold a place, and an indispensable one, in philosophy ; but aa the meaning of words is essentially arbitrary, this class of assertions is not susceptible of truth or falsity, nor therefore of proof or disproof. Assertions respecting Things, or what may be called Real Propositions in contradistinction to verbal ones, are of various sorts. We have analyzed the import of each sort, and have ascertained the nature of the things they relate to, and the nature of what they severally assert respecting those things. We found that whatever be the form of the proposition, and whatever its nominal subject or predicate, the real subject of every proposition is some one or more facts or phenomena ofconsciousness, or some one or more of the hidden causes or powers to which we ascribe th...
