Predication

“ It must be allowed that a predication, or proposition, is intended to mark some portion of the order either of our sensations or of our ideas, i.e., some part of the coexistences or sequences which take place either in our minds, or in what we term the external world. ”

“ For, if the term “predication” be thus extended to a “sentence-word,” it thereby becomes deprived of that distinctive meaning upon which alone the whole argument of my adversaries is reared: it is conceded that no distinction obtains between speaking and pointing: the predicative phase of language has been identified with the indicative: man and brute are acknowledged to be “brothers.” ”

“ In predication the name and definition of the subject must be predicated. But it is evident from what has been said, that of those things which are predicated of a subject, both the name and the definition must be predicated of the subject, as "man" is predicated of "some certain man," as of a subject, and the name, at least, is predicated, for you will predicate "man" of "some certain man," and the
definition of man will be predicated of "some certain man," for "a certain man" is both "man" and "animal;" wherefore both the name and the definition will be predicated of a subject. ”

“ But we have seen, above, that Predication by Genus and Species is merely the substitution of one name for another, the more general for the less general; the fact of the substitution being marked by the Copula. It follows, if all Predication is by Genus and Species, that all Predication is the substitution of one name for another, the more for the less general.
It will be easy for the learner to make this material fact familiar to himself, by attending to a few instances. Thus, when it is said that man is rational, the term rational is evidently elliptical, and the word animal is understood. ”

“ In Lojban we make no such grammatical distinctions; these three sentences, when expressed in Lojban, are structurally identical. The same part of speech is used to represent the relationship. In formal logic this whole structure is called a “predication”; in Lojban it is called a “bridi”, and the central part of speech is the “selbri”. Logicians refer to the things thus related as “arguments”, while Lojbanists call them “sumti”. These Lojban terms will be used for the rest of the book.
In a relationship, there are a definite number of things being related. ”

“ Surely one needs be no great philosopher to see that all which is wanting to give authority to the argument from prophecy, is, That we have reason to admit the delivery of a prediction—that we have reason to admit the completion of it—and that we have reason to think the agreement between the prediction and the event not fortuitous. ”

“ It speaks to every aspect of the human predicament. It stretches all horizons inimitably. It bursts through the narrow orbit of habitual thought-forms, hackneyed social attitudes, doctrinal predilections. ”

“ To prove, in short, that our science, and our knowledge of the particular case, render us competent to predict the future, we must show that they would have enabled us to predict the present and the past. ”

“ But to predict what has not been observed, is to attempt ourselves to use the legislative phrases of nature; and when she responds plainly and precisely to that which we thus utter, we cannot but suppose that we have in a great measure made ourselves masters of the meaning and structure of her language. The prediction of results, even of the same kind as those which have been observed, in new cases, is a proof of real success in our inductive processes. ”

“ Not for earth, but for heaven, let your forecasting gift of prophecy come into play. Fill the present with quiet faith, with patient waiting, with honest work, with wise reading of God's lessons of nature, of providence, and of grace, all of which say to us, Live in God's future, that the present may be bright: work in the present, that the future may be certain! ”

“ You will accuse our prognostications of partiality and of false perspective: “All will not be so rosy,” you will be tempted to say, “as sanguine forecast has pictured it, you have represented the exceptional as the typical, the typical as the exceptional; hard outlines have become blurred for you, and shadows, in their turn, taken substance.” Well, we do our best; we are puppies, perhaps, and idealists, but you will do well to take our depositions and to sift them for yourselves. ”

“ For to what end is the prediction delivered in obscure and enigmatic terms, if the purpose of the inspirer was that the subject of the prediction should be immediately, and in all its circumstances, precisely apprehended? Why, then, is any distinction made between Prophecy, and History? The mode of writing clearly demonstrates, that something, 226 for a time at least, was meant to be concealed from us: and then, if men will attempt, out of season, to penetrate this mystery, what wonder if mistake be the fruit of their presumption? ”

“ Whensoever that task shall have been accomplished, strong light, I venture to predict, will be thrown on our sun’s present condition, as well as on his past history, and on that future fate upon which depends the future of our earth. ”

“ For preaching is not a profession; but a work of divine appointment, to be rightly discharged only by him who receives a commission from God, and fulfils it as under his eye, and in dependence upon his promise, Lo, I am with you alway.”
PREDESTINATION, according to some, is a judgment, or decree of God, by which he has resolved, from all eternity, to save a certain number of persons, hence named elect. Others define it, a decree to give faith in Jesus Christ to a certain number of men, and to leave the rest to their own malice and hardness of heart. ”

“ We must have learned to predict the past, so to speak, before we can predict the future; because the first use of the observed relations among fulfilled facts is to teach us by the anterior succession what the future succession will be. ”

“ I shall account how such divinations may be made, and divert the reader with many rare examples, taken from several faithful and undoubted historians, of persons who have done the like before him, some in one way, and some in another; though in this he seems to be peculiar, and to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a species by himself, alone in the talent of prediction; that he has collected with [Pg 40] in his own individual capacity all the methods which others severally used, and with which they were differently and singly gifted in their several ways of foreseeing and foretelling. ”

“ Thou hadst asked about fate, predestination and ... Thou hadst asked about fate, predestination and will. Fate and predestination consist in the necessary and indispensable relationships which exist in the realities of things. These relationships have been placed in the realities of existent beings through the power of creation and every incident is a consequence of the necessary relationship. For example, God hath created a relation between the sun and the terrestrial globe that the rays of the sun should shine and the soil should yield. ”

“ We expect, and we anticipate, and how often, during the flow of buoyant thought, we map out the way to future greatness. My feelings are so fluctuating, my anticipations so frequently unrealized, that no result can be very unexpected. ”

“ THE PREDICATE OBJECTIVE 487. Verbs of choosing, calling, naming, making, and thinking may take two objects referring to the same person or thing.
The first of these is the direct object, and the second, which completes the sense of the predicate, is called a predicate objective (§ 104) .
The predicate objective is often called the complementary object or the objective attribute.
The people have elected Chamberlain governor. Peter calls Richard my shadow. The court has appointed you the child’s guardian. John thinks himself a hero. 488. An adjective may serve as a predicate objective. ”

“ 22 During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. ”

“ When predictions, like those in Scripture, are particular and complicated, and the events are so remote and so contingent as to be out of the reach of human sagacity, it is plain that the writers of the predictions do not speak according to the measure of information which they had acquired by natural means, but are merely the instruments through which the Almighty communicates, in such measure and such language as he thinks fit, that knowledge of futurity which is denied to man. ”

“ Predictions may possibly be made more particular, though with less certainty, if, when the general tendencies of the times are found, a good philosophical or political judgment applies them to such things as are most liable to accidents of this kind. ”

“ We see that every prediction was literally fulfilled, and when we take a scrutinizing retrospect, we discover that every command, every promise and every threatening, have been so plainly set forth by the inspiration of Heaven, that all those who heard, evidently understood at the time, so that ignorance can never be plead by them in bar of Justice. ”

“ For if we examine the data of prognostication, whether it be of dream, divination or prophecy, we find that they concern almost exclusively such particular human events as would be classed in the category of the contingent rather than in that of the necessary. Fortune tellers regularly tell people about the kind of children they will have, the sort of things they will do, and so on. ”

“ Even when the event does not always justify the prediction, the predictor may not have been the less correct in his principles of divination. The catastrophe of human life, and the turn of great events, often turn out accidental. ”

“ That expectation brings its own fulfilment, and is always God's way of preparing the path for His own large gifts, like the strange, indefinable attitude of expectation which we know filled the civilised world before the birth of Jesus Christ—like the breath of the morning that springs up before the sun rises, and says, 'The dawn; the dawn,' and dies away. The expectation is the precursor of the gift, and the prayer is the guarantee of the acceptance. ”

“ The subject of a prediction is the downfall of some mighty state, or the fortune of its governours. Why then is this important revelation intrusted to an obscure priest, or sordid peasant, in preference to the great persons, more immediately concerned in it8?
Again; some momentous events have been signified in dreams: why not to persons awake, and in the full possession of their best faculties9?
And then, of those dreams, why are they 18 sometimes sent to one man, and the interpretation of them reserved for another10? ”

“ In every case the practical aim of knowledge is prediction, and we have good reasons to regard as the defining characteristics of knowledge those properties of it which make prediction possible. „Savoir pour prévoir. ”

“ God has endowed us with some degree of foresight, and has thus made us provident beings. We have a native tendency to take account of and forecast the future. By the aid of reason we can, in some measure, foresee the tendencies of our actions; we can lay our plans for the future, and anticipate events which are yet remote. We can also bring to our aid the lessons of experience, and from this also we can learn that our present action will have a powerful influence upon our future condition. ”

“ PREDESTINATION. Synonyms:
Predestination is a previous determination or decision, which, in the divine action, reaches on from eternity. Fate is heathen, an irresistible, irrational power determining all events with no manifest connection with reason or righteousness; necessity is philosophical, a blind something in the nature of things binding the slightest action or motion in the chain of inevitable, eternal sequence; foreordination and predestination are Christian, denoting the rational and righteous order or decree of the supreme [283] and all-wise God. ”

“ In the development of time into causation, persistence becomes state and change becomes event. In the development of judgment into conception, consciousness becomes recollection and choice becomes inference. ”

“ O my soul, prepare provision in abundance, prepare not little, while thou art yet alive, and while thy hand has yet strength, because the journey is too great for thee. And say not: ‘I shall prepare provision to-morrow’; for the day has declined, and thou knowest not what the next day may bring forth. Know likewise that yesterday shall never come back, and that whatever thou hast done therein is weighed, numbered, and counted. ”

“ I abhor the doctrine of predestination, a doctrine, upon the supposition of which, if one could possibly suppose it for a moment, (call it election, reprobation, or what you please, for all comes to the same thing,) one might say to our adversary, the devil, “Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not, that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands; and that he doeth it much more effectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee ”

“ There is nothing in all the annals of prophecy, divination, fortune-telling, or prediction, which is nearly so wonderful as what we may all do if we would by practice and exercise bring out of ourselves our own innate power of perception. ”

“ In another class of signs, a fact is announced which is, in itself, natural, but not to be foreseen by any human combination, the coming to pass of which, in the immediate future, furnishes the proof that, at a distant future, that will be fulfilled which was foretold as impending. ”

“ But can the ability to predict be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. ”

“ The purpose of such an advent must be to communicate blessings which the world could not otherwise attain. How numerous are the external evidences which the world could not otherwise attain. How numerous are the external evidences which the world exhibits, in proof that now is the time of it! ”