jectives. Things common to many individuals, were by the ancients called univerfals. All predicates are univerfals, for they have the nature of adjectives; and, on the other hand, all univerfals may be predicates. On this account, univerfals may be divided into the fame claffes as predicates; and as the five claffes of predicates above mentioned have been called the five predicables, fo by the fame kind of phrafeology they have been called the five univerfals; although they may more properly be called the five classes of universals.

The doctrine of the five univerfals or predicables makes an effential part of every fyftem of logic, and has been handed down without any change to this day. The very name of predicables fhews, that the author of this divifion, whoever he was, intended it as a complete enumeration of all the kinds of things that can be affirmed of any fubject; and fo it has always been understood. It is accordingly implied in this divifion, that all that can be affirmed of any thing whatever, is either the genus of the thing, or its fpecies, or its fpecific difference, or fome property or accident belonging

to it.

Burgersdick, a very acute writer in logic, seems to have been aware, that ftrong objections might be made to the five predicables, confidered as a complete enumeration: but, unwilling to allow any imperfection in this ancient divifion, he endeavours to restrain the meaning of the word predicable,

dicable, fo as to obviate objections. Thofe things only, fays he, are to be accounted predicables, which may be affirmed of many individuals, truly, properly, and immediately. The confequence of putting fuch limitations upon the word predicable is, that in many propofitions, perhaps in moft, the predicate is not a predicable. But admitting all

his limitations, the enumeration will still be very incomplete for of many things we may affirm truly, properly, and immediately, their exiftence, their end, their caufe, their effect, and various relations which they bear to other things. Thefe, and perhaps many more, are predicables in the ftrict fenfe of the word, no less than the five which have been fo long famous.

Although Porphyry and all fubfequent writers, make the predicables to be, in number, five; yet Ariftotle himself, in the beginning of the Topics, reduces them to four; and demonftrates, that there can be no more. We fhall give his demonftration when we come to the Topics; and shall only here obferve, that as Bürgerfdick juftifies the fivefold divifion, by reftraining the meaning of the word predicable; fo Ariftotle juftifies the fourfold divifion, by enlarging the meaning of the words property and accident.

After all, I apprehend, that this ancient divifion of predicables with all its imperfections will bear a comparison with those which have been fubfti

tuted in its ftead by the moft celebrated modern philofophers.

Locke, in his Effay on the Human Understanding, having laid it down as a principle, That all our knowledge confifts in perceiving certain agreements and disagreements between our ideas, reduces these agreements and difagreements to four heads to wit, 1. Identity and diverfity; 2. Relation; 3. Coexiftence; 4. Real Existence *. Here are four predicables given as a complete enumeration, and yet not one of the ancient predicables is included in the number.

The author of the Treatife of Human Nature, proceeding upon the fame principle that all our knowledge is only a perception of the relations of our ideas, obferves, "That it may perhaps be esteemed "an endless task, to enumerate all thofe qualities "which admit of comparison, and by which the "ideas of philofophical relation are produced: "but if we diligently confider them, we shall find, "that without difficulty they may be comprised "under feven general heads: 1. Refemblance; "2. Identity; 3. Relations of Space and Time; 4. Relations of Quantity and Number; 5. De(6 grees of Quality; 6. Contrariety; 7. Caufa"tion+". Here again are seven predicables given as a complete enumeration, wherein all the predicables of the ancients, as well as two of Locke's are left

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out.

Book 4.chap. 1. + Vol. 1. p. 33. and 125.

The

The ancients in their divifion attended only to categorical propofitions which have one fubject and one predicate; and of these to fuch only as have a general term for their fubject. The moderns, by their definition of knowledge, have been led to attend only to relative propofitions, which express a relation between two fubjects, and these fubjects they suppose to be always ideas.

SECT. 2. On the Ten Categories, and on Divifions in general.

The intention of the categories or predicaments is, to mufter every object of human apprehenfion under ten heads: for the categories are given as a complete enumeration of every thing which can be expreffed without compofition and structure; that is, of every thing that can be either the fubject or the predicate of a propofition. So that as every foldier belongs to fome company, and every company to fome regiment; in like manner every thing that can be the object of human thought, has its place in one or other of the ten categories; and by dividing and subdividing properly the several categories, all the notions that enter into the human mind may be muftered in rank and file, like an army in the day of battle.

The perfection of the divifion of categories into ten heads, has been ftrenuously defended by the

1

followers of Ariftotle, as well as that of the five predicables. They are indeed of kin to each other they breathe the same spirit, and probably had the fame origin. By the one we are taught to marshal every term that can enter into a propofition, either as fubject or predicate; and by the other, we are taught all the poffible relations which the fubject can have to the predicate. Thus, the whole furniture of the human mind is prefented to us at one view, and contracted, as it were, into a nut-fhell. To attempt, in fo early a period, a methodical delineation of the vast region of human knowledge, actual and poffible, and to point out the limits of every district, was indeed magnanimous in a high degree, and deferves our admiration, while we lament that the human powers are unequal to fo bold a flight.

A regular diftribution of things under proper claffes or heads, is, without doubt, a great help both to memory and judgment. As the philofopher's province includes all things human and divine that can be objects of inquiry, he is naturally led to attempt fome general divifion, like that of the categories. And the invention of a divifion of this kind, which the fpeculative part of mankind acquiefced in for two thousand years, marks a, fuperiority of genius in the inventor, whoever he was. Nor does it appear, that the general divifions, which, fince the decline of the Peripatetic

philofophy,