Page:Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922.djvu/51

Rh (just as the musical theme is not a mixture of tones).

The proposition is articulate.

Only facts can express a sense, a class of names cannot.

That the propositional sign is a fact is concealed by the ordinary form of expression, written or printed.

(For in the printed proposition, for example, the sign of a proposition does not appear essentially different from a word. Thus it was possible for Frege to call the proposition a compounded name.)

The essential nature of the propositional sign becomes very clear when we imagine it made up of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, books) instead of written signs.

The mutual spatial position of these things then expresses the sense of the proposition.

We must not say, “The complex sign ‘aRb’ says ‘a stands in relation R to b’”; but we must say, “That ‘a’ stands in a certain relation to ‘b’ says that aRb”.

States of affairs can be described but not named.

(Names resemble points; propositions resemble arrows, they have sense.)

In propositions thoughts can be so expressed that to the objects of the thoughts correspond the elements of the propositional sign.

These elements I call “simple signs” and the proposition “completely analysed”.

The simple signs employed in propositions are called names.

The name means the object. The object is its meaning. (“A” is the same sign as “A”.)

To the configuration of the simple signs in the Rh