Note 261 — Chapter XIV

I may remark that it was Aristotle who first fell into the error of identifying the copula with the verb to be, by which it happens to be expressed in Greek. For many centuries afterwards this error was a fruitful source of endless confusions; but it is curious to find a wholly new fallacy springing from it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Touching the subject and predicate, Aristotle, of course, never contemplated any more primitive relation between them than that which obtained in the only forms of speech with which he was acquainted. As regards his “categories” the following remarks by Professor Max Müller are worth quoting:—