10 Dec. 1815

Chrestom. or Language

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'. Noun substantive

3. Number

Number. Every proposition in which the noun is in the plural number, is a complex one; and, as such, resolvable, at least in its origin, into a multitude of propositions, according to the number of the persons or things which occupy in it the station of subject or predicate, to which soever it be that that number is attributed.

When the number of these objects is determinate, the number of the simple propositions included in the complex one thus formed, will be exactly equal to the number of these objects, and so far no abstraction will necessarily have had place. When the number of these objects is altogether indeterminate, so, of consequence, must be the number of the simple propositions requisite to the constituting one equivalent to the supposed plural one.

Take the state of things when the primeval society consists of four persons, Cain and Abel being born to Adam and Eve. Applied to persons, - They are asleep, addressed by Eve to Adam, will have for its equivalent these two simple propositions, Cain is asleep - Abel is asleep. A sister, suppose, is born to them; - the numbers of simple propositions capable of being included in a pronoun-substantive of the first person, is now increased from two to three.

As soon as the plural becomes indefinite, abstraction is performed, the idea of a class is formed, an aggregate of which the individual elements are susceptible of continual change.

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