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The right succession of the principal and subordinate propositions in a sentence manifestly depends on the same law. Regard for economy of the recipient's attention, which, as we find, determines the best order for the subject, copula, predicate and their complements, dictates that the subordinate proposition shall precede the principal one when the sentence includes two.
This is one step: there must, it seems, be two things concerned in every act of belief. But what are these Things? They can be no other than those signified by the two names, which being joined together by a copula constitute the Proposition.
Therefore the circumstance of time is properly considered as attaching to the copula, which is the sign of predication, and not to the predicate.
The barrier which in Christendom has opposed itself to the natural recognition of this fact, so injuring alike the child and the State, has clearly been the rigidity of the marriage system, more especially as moulded by the Canon law. The Canonists attributed a truly immense importance to the copula carnalis, as they technically termed it.
The quantity of futile speculation which had been caused by a misapprehension of the nature of the copula, was hinted at by Hobbes; but Mr. Mill was, I believe, the first who distinctly characterized the ambiguity, and pointed out how many errors in the received systems of philosophy it has had to answer for.
It is apt to be supposed that the copula is something more than a mere sign of predication; that it also signifies existence. In the proposition, Socrates is just, it may seem to be implied not only that the quality just can be affirmed of Socrates, but moreover that Socrates is, that is to say, exists.
Still more characteristic is his application of what he calls the 'substantive-preferring principle. He would rather say, 'I give extension to an object, than 'I extend an object. Where a substantive is employed, the idea is 'stationed upon a rock'; if only a verb, the idea is 'like a leaf floating on a stream. A verb, he said, 'slips through your fingers like an eel. The principle corresponds to his 'metaphysics. The universe of thought is made up of a number of separate 'entities' corresponding to nouns-substantive, and when these bundles are distinctly isolated by appropriate nouns, the process of arranging and codifying according to the simple relations indicated by the copula is greatly facilitated.
Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement.
for otherwise there is no identity of meaning in the word "hard" as applied to the two nouns it qualifies, and accordingly the proper logical copula is wanting. Of the same kind is the conceit which belongs, I believe, to our countryman General Morris: Her heart and morning broke together In tears, which is so preposterous that had it been intended for fun we might almost have laughed at it.
For each of these departments of nature an original force in universal nature is assumed gravity, light, and their copula, universal life.
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