4. Secondly, propositions in which a part of any complex idea is predicated of the whole.
II. Another sort of
trifling propositions is, when a part of the complex idea is predicated of the name of the whole; a part of the
definition of the word defined. Such are all propositions wherein the genus is predicated of the species, or more
comprehensive of less comprehensive terms. For what information, what knowledge, carries this proposition in it,
viz., "Lead is a metal" to a man who knows the complex idea the name lead stands for? All the simple ideas that
go to the complex one signified by the term metal, being nothing but what he before comprehended and signified
by the name lead. Indeed, to a man that knows the signification of the word metal, and not of the word lead, it is a
shorter way to explain the signification of the word lead, by saying it is a metal, which at once expresses several
of its simple ideas, than to enumerate them one by one, telling him it is a body very heavy, fusible, and malleable.
