Note 278 — Chapter IX

In connexion with the problem of opposition we may touch briefly on the relation between the apodeictic proposition If any P is Q that P must be R and the assertoric proposition Some PQ is not R. These propositions are not contradictories, for they may both be false. They cannot, however, both be true; and the latter, if it can be established, affords a valid ground for the denial of the former. Mr Bosanquet appears not to admit this, but to maintain, in opposition to it, that the enumerative particular is of no value as overthrowing the abstract universal. “When we have said that If (i.e., in so far as) a man is good, he is wise, it is idle to reply that Some good men are not wise. This is to attach an abstract principle with unanalysed examples. What we must say in order to deny the above-mentioned abstract judgment is something of this kind: If or Though a man is good, yet it does not follow that he is wise, that is, Though a man is good, yet he need not be wise” (Logic, i. p. 316). But surely if we find that some good men are not wise, we are justified in saying that though a man is good yet he need not be wise. Of course the converse does not hold. We might be able to shew that wisdom does not necessarily accompany goodness by some other method than that of producing instances. But if we can produce undoubted instances, that amply suffices to confute the apodeictic conditional.