" Predication may be unconventionally, but not really inaccurately, defined as, 'Whatever is done by the word is in such a sentence as: a horse is an animal; the earth is a planet.' If I say a horse is an animal; then a) if by the word animal I mean something more, or less, or other than horse, I have told a lie; but b) if I do not mean by the word animal something more, or less, or other than horse, I have said almost nothing. For I might was well have said a horse is a horse. Hence the attempts we are now witnessing to replace the traditional logic based on predication by a new logic, in which symbols of algebraic precision refer to 'atomic' facts and events having no vestige of connection with the symbols and no hierarchical relation to each other. "

― Owen Barfield , Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry