y, for in "P is
predicated of every S" he virtually follows common speech.]

II.--THE PRACTICE OF SYLLOGISTIC ANALYSIS.

The basis of the analysis is the use of general names in predication.
To say that in predication a subject is referred to a class, is only
another way of saying that in every categorical sentence the predicate
is a general name express or implied: that it is by means of general
names that we convey our thoughts about things to others.

"Milton is a great poet." "Quoth Hudibras, _I smell a rat_." _Great
poet_ is a general name: it means certain qualities, and applies to
anybody possessing them. _Quoth_ implies a general name, a name for
persons _speaking_, connoting or meaning a certain act and applicable
to anybody in the performance of it. _Quoth_ expresses also past time:
thus it implies another general name, a name for persons _in past
time_, connoting a quality which differentiates a species in the genus
persons speaking, and making the predicate term "persons speaking in
past time". Thus the proposition _Quoth Hudibras_, analysed into the
syllogistic form S is in P, becomes S (Hudibras) is in P (persons
speaking in past time). The Predicate term P is a class constituted on
those properties. _Smell a rat_ also implies a general name, meaning
an act or state predicable of many individuals.

Even if we add the grammatical object of _Quoth_ to the analysis, the
Predicate term is still a general name. Hudibras is only one of the
persons speaking in past time who have spoken of themselves as being
in a certain mood of suspicion.[1]

The learner may well ask what is the use of twisting plain speech into
these uncouth forms. The use is certainly not obvious. The analysis
may be directly useful, as Aristotle claimed for it, when we wish
to ascertain exactly whether one proposition contradicts another, or
forms with another or others a valid link in an argument. This is
to admit that it is only in perplexing cases that the analysis is of
direct use. The indirect use is to familiarise us with what the
forms of common speech imply, and thus strengthen the intellect for
interpreting the condensed and elliptical expression in which common
speech abounds.

There are certain technical names applied to the components of
many-worded general names, CATEGOREMATIC and SYNCATEGOREMATIC, SUBJECT
and ATTRIBUTIVE. The distinctions are really grammatical rather than
logical, and of little practical value.