descriptive. In studying the theory of propositional
expression it is important to remember the wide difference between the
analogous modest words 'this' and 'that' on the one hand and 'a' and
'the' on the other hand. The sentence

'The college building in Regent's Park is commodious'

means, according to the analysis first made by Bertrand Russell, the
proposition,

'There is an entity which (i) is a college building in Regent's
Park and (ii) is commodious and (iii) is such that any college
building in Regent's Park is identical with it.'

The descriptive character of the phrase 'The college building in
Regent's Park' is thus evident. Also the proposition is denied by the
denial of any one of its three component clauses or by the denial of any
combination of the component clauses. If we had substituted 'Green Park'
for 'Regent's Park' a false proposition would have resulted. Also the
erection of a second college in Regent's Park would make the proposition
false, though in ordinary life common sense would politely treat it as
merely ambiguous.

'The Iliad' for a classical scholar is usually a demonstrative phrase;
for it demonstrates to him a well-known poem. But for the majority of
mankind the phrase is descriptive, namely, it is synonymous with 'The
poem named "the Iliad".'

Names may be either demonstrative or descriptive phrases. For example
'Homer' is for us a descriptive phrase, namely, the word with some
slight difference in suggestiveness means 'The man who wrote the Iliad.'

This discussion illustrates that thought places before itself bare
objectives, entities as we call them, which the thinking clothes by
expressing their mutual relations. Sense-awareness discloses fact with
factors which are the entities for thought. The separate distinction of
an entity in thought is not a metaphysical assertion, but a method of
procedure necessary for the finite expression of individual
propositions. Apart from entities there could be no finite truths; they
are the means by which the infinitude of irrelevance is kept out of
thought.

To sum up: the termini for thought are entities, primarily with bare
individuality, secondarily with properties and relations ascribed to
them in the procedure of thought; the termini for sense-awareness are
factors in the fact of nature, primarily relata and only secondarily
discriminated as distinct individualities.

No characteristic of nature which is immediately po