ABSTRACT
A subject and an assertion, if simply juxtaposed, do not, it is true, constitute a proposition; but the assertion is actually asserted of the subject, the proposition reappears. The assertion is everything that remains of the proposition when the subject is omitted: the verb remains an asserted verb, and is not turned into a verbal noun; or at any rate the verb retains that curious indefinable intricate relation to the other terms of the proposition which distinguishes a relating relation from the same relation abstractly considered. To be more than a yard long, for example, is a perfectly definite assertion, and we may consider the class of propositions in which this assertion is made, which will be represented by the propositional function “x is more than a yard long.” A difficult point arises as to the variation of the concept in a proposition.
