With this object he, first of all, divides all the propositions,
which we can even so much as conceive, into two classes. They are
all, he says, either propositions about "relations of ideas" or else
about "matters of fact." By propositions about "relations of ideas"
he means such propositions as that twice two are four, or that black
differs from white; and it is, I think, easy enough to see, though
by no means easy to define, what kind of propositions it is that
he means to include in this division. They are, he says, the only
kind of propositions with regard to which we can have "intuitive" or
"demonstrative" certainty. But the vast majority of the propositions
in which we believe and which interest us most, belong to the other
division: they are propositions about "matters of fact." And these
again he divides into two classes. So far as his words go, this latter
division is between "matters of fact, beyond the present testimony of
our senses, or the records of our memory," on the one hand, and matters
of fact for which we _have_ the evidence of our memory or senses, on
the other. But it is, I think, quite plain that these words do not
represent quite accurately the division which he really means to make.
He plainly intends to reckon along with facts for which we have the
evidence of our _senses_ all facts for which we have the evidence
of _direct observation_--such facts, for instance, as those which I
observe when I observe that I am angry or afraid, and which cannot be
strictly said to be apprehended by my _senses._ The division, then,
which he really intends to make is (to put it quite strictly) into the
two classes--(1) propositions which assert some matter of fact which I
am (in the strictest sense) _observing_ at the moment, or which I have
so observed in the past and now remember; and (2) propositions which
assert any matter of fact which I am not now observing and never have
observed, or, if I have, have quite forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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