Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/194

 180 G. E. MOOEE : position is true which consists of a combination of concepts that is actually to be found among existents. This explana- tion was indeed actually used above (p. 179), as a preliminary explanation. And it may be admitted that propositions with which this is the case are true. But if this constituted the truth of a proposition, concepts too might in themselves be true. Red would be a true concept, because there actually are red things ; and conversely a chimera would be a false concept, because no such combination either has been, is, or will be (so far as we know) among existent things. But the theory must be rejected as an ultimate one, because not all true propositions have this relation to reality. For example 2 + 2 = 4 is true, whether there exist two things or not. Moreover it may be doubted here whether even the concepts I of which the proposition consists, can ever be said to exist. We should have to stretch our notion of existence beyond intelligibility, to suppose that 2 ever has been, is, or will be an existent. It would seem, in fact, from this example, that a proposi- f tion is nothing other than a complex concept. The difference between a concept and a proposition, in virtue of which the latter alone can be called true or false, would seem to lie merely in the simplicity of the former. A proposition is a synthesis of concepts ; and, just as concepts are themselves immutably what they are, so they stand in infinite relations to one another equally immutable. A proposition is con- stituted by any number of concepts, together with a specific relation between them ; and according to the nature of this relation the proposition may be either true or false. What kind of relation makes a proposition true, what false, cannot be further defined, but must be immediately recognised. And this description will also apply to those cases where , there appears to be a reference to existence. Existence is itself a concept ; it is something which we mean ; and the great body of propositions, in which existence is joined to other concepts or syntheses of concepts, are simply true or false according to the relation in which it stands to them. It is not denied that this is a peculiarly important concept ; that we are peculiarly anxious to know what exists. It is only maintained that existence is logically subordinate to truth ; that truth cannot be defined by a reference to exis- tence, but existence only by a reference to truth. When I say " This paper exists," I must require that this proposition be true. If it is not true, it is unimportant, and I can have no interest in it. But if it is true, it means only that the concepts, which are combined in specific relations in the