ABSTRACT
Prima facie, the study of quantity, quality, relation, and modality is on Cook Wilson’s view not a logical inquiry at all. The study of quantity, quality relation, and modality, though it begins by being grammatical, quickly becomes metaphysical—an inquiry into certain general features of reality, as revealed by the general forms of our statements about reality. Cook Wilson’s account of quantity, quality, relation, and modality is largely undertaken with reference to the doctrine of predication. He begins with modality. This he discusses as a distinction affecting the copula. His reason for discussing the copula is that there exists a doctrine that the copula is ‘a sign of predication’. He next discusses the distinction between categorical and hypothetical statements, because of the existence of the doctrine that a hypothetical statement does not affirm its predicate of its subject absolutely, but only under a condition.
