The exclusion of the three latter Predicables from predication probably recommended itself to the author as a support to his doctrine that all Predication is the substitution of one name for another, which he considered himself to have already demonstrated so far as regards Genus and Species. But proofs have just been given that in the predication of Genus and Species no more than in that of Differentia, Proprium, or Accidens, is anything which turns upon names the main consideration. Except in the case of definitions, and other merely verbal propositions, every proposition is intended to communicate a matter of fact: This subject has that attribute--This cluster of sensations is always accompanied by that sensation. Let me remark by the way, that the word _connote_ is here used by the author in what I consider its legitimate sense--that in which a name is said to connote a property or properties belonging to the object it is predicated of. He afterwards casts off this use of the term, and introduces one the exact reverse: but of this hereafter.--_Ed._] {170} With respect, however, to such examples as this last, namely, all those in which the predicate consists {171} of the genus and differentia, the proposition is a mere definition; and the predicate, and the subject, are precisely equivalent. Thus, "rational animal" is precisely the same class as "man;" and they are only two names for the same thing; the one a simple, or single-worded name; the other a complex, or double-worded, name. Such propositions therefore are, properly speaking, not Predications at all. When they are used for any other purpose than to make known, or to fix, the meaning of a term, they are useless, and are denominated identical propositions.[52] [Editor's footnote 52: In this passage the author virtually gives up the part of his theory of Predication which is borrowed from Hobbes. According to his doctrine in this place, whenever the predicate and the subject are exactly equivalent, and "are only two names for the same thing," the predication serves only "to make known, or to fix, the meaning of a term," and "such propositions are, properly speaking, not Predications at all."--_Ed._] The preceding expositions have shown the peculiar use of the _Copula_. The Predication consists, essentially, of two marks, whereof the first is called the Subject, the latter the Predicate; the Predicate being set down as a name to be used for every thing of which the Subject is a name; and the _Copula_ is merely a mark necessary to shew that the Predicate is to be taken and used as a substitute for the Subject. There is a great convenience in giving to the _Copula_ the same powers of connotation, in respect of Time, {172} Manner, Person, and Number, as we have seen to be usefully annexed to the Verb.