200. Kant observes that the equivocation proceeds from commencing by separating the predicate of a thing from the conception of this thing, and afterwards joining to this same predicate its opposite, which never makes a contradiction to the subject, but to the predicate, which is synthetically united with it; a contradiction which happens only when the first and second predicates are supposed at the same time. This observation of Kant is at bottom very true, but it has its defects: first, it pretends to be original, when it only says things already well known; and secondly, it is used to combat an equivocation existing only in the mind of the philosopher who wants to free others from it. The two propositions analyzed in the last paragraph confirm what we have just said. An angle cannot be both right and not right. Here the condition of time is necessary, because the opposition is not between the predicate and the subject, but between the two predicates. The angle may be right or not right, only at different times. A right angle cannot be obtuse; here the condition of time must not be expressed, because the idea _right_ entering into the conception of the subject, entirely excludes the idea obtuse. 201. If the principle of contradiction were to serve only for analytic judgments, that is, for those in which the predicate is contained in the idea of the subject, the condition of time should never be expressed; but as this principle is to guide us in all other judgments, it follows that, in the general formula, we cannot abstract a condition absolutely indispensable in most cases. In the present state of our understanding, while we are in this life, non-abstraction of time is the rule, abstraction the exception; and would you have a general formula conform to the exception and neglect the rule? 202. We cannot conceive what reason Kant had to illustrate this subject with the examples above cited. Nothing can be more common and inopportune than what he adds in illustration of this matter by examples. "If I say a man who is unlearned is not learned, the condition _at the same time_ must be understood; for he who is unlearned at one time, may very well be learned at another." This is not only very common and inopportune, but it is exceedingly inexact. If the proposition were: a man cannot be ignorant and instructed; then the condition _at the same time_ should be added, because not giving preference to either predicate over the other indicates the manner of the opposition, which is of predicate to predicate, and not of predicate to subject. But in the example adduced by Kant, "the man that is ignorant is not instructed." The subject is not man alone, but an ignorant man; the predicate _instructed_ devolves on man modified by the predicate _ignorant_, and, consequently, the expression of time is not necessary, nor is it used in ordinary language.