Fourthly, I would not have any man think I deliver the forms above for a true and exact ordination of names; for this cannot be performed as long as philosophy remains imperfect; nor that by placing (for example) _light_ in the predicament of _qualities_, while another places the same in the predicament of bodies, I pretend that either of us ought for this to be drawn from his opinion; for this is to be done only by arguments and ratiocination, and not by disposing of words into _classes_. Lastly, I confess I have not yet seen any great use of the predicaments in philosophy. I believe _Aristotle_ when he saw he could not digest the things themselves into such orders, might nevertheless desire out of his own authority to reduce words to such forms, as I have done; but I do it only for this end, that it may be understood what this ordination of words is, and not to have it received for true, till it be demonstrated by good reason to be so. ------- CHAPTER III. OF PROPOSITION. 1. Divers kinds of speech.—2. Proposition defined.—3. Subject, predicate, and copula, what they are; and abstract and concrete what. 4. The use and abuse of names abstract.—5. Proposition, universal and particular.—6. Affirmative and negative.—7. True and false.—8. True and false belongs to speech, and not to things.—9. Proposition, primary, not primary, definition, axiom, petition.—10. Proposition, necessary and contingent.—11. Categorical and hypothetical.—12. The same proposition diversely pronounced.—13. Propositions that may be reduced to the same categorical proposition, are equipollent.—14. Universal propositions converted by contradictory names, are equipollent.—15. Negative propositions are the same, whether negation be before or after the copula.—16. Particular propositions simply converted, are equipollent.—17. What are subaltern, contrary, subcontrary, and contradictory propositions.—18. Consequence, what it is.—19. Falsity cannot follow from truth.—20. How one proposition is the cause of another. [Sidenote: Divers kinds of speech.]