Note 21 — Chapter V · OF THE IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS.

To the preceding statement it has been objected, that "we naturally construe the subject of a proposition in its extension, and the predicate (which therefore may be an adjective) in its intension, (connotation): and that consequently coexistence of attributes does not, any more than the opposite theory of equation of groups, correspond with the living processes of thought and language." I acknowledge the distinction here drawn, which, indeed, I had myself laid down and exemplified a few pages back (p. 104). But though it is true that we naturally "construe the subject of a proposition in its extension," this extension, or in other words, the extent of the class denoted by the name, is not apprehended or indicated directly. It is both apprehended and indicated solely through the attributes. In the "living processes of thought and language" the extension, though in this case really thought of (which in the case of the predicate it is not), is thought of only through the medium of what my acute and courteous critic terms the "intension."

For further illustrations of this subject, see Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, ch. xxii.