  Ramsey begins his new examination by considering whether molecular statements can be analysed into subjects and predicates – specifically predicates which stand for complex universals. He argues, reductio ad absurdum, that they don’t. He assumes that if two analyses of a proposition invoke different constituents then they are analyses of different propositions. Absurdity results when this assumption is combined with the claim that complex predicates are terms for complex universals. This is because more than one complex predicate may be isolated in a sentence of the form ‘aRb’ – predicates that may be represented by ‘xRb’, ‘aRy’ and‘xRy’. If these predicates are terms for different universals, then the sentence ‘aRb’ expresses no less than three propositions. The propositions are distinct because they correspond to the three different collections of constituents: (i) xRb, a, (ii) aRx, b, and (iii) xRy, a, b. But this is absurd because ‘aRb’ says only one thing: that aRb. Ramey concluded, “so the theory of complex universals is responsible for an incomprehensible trinity, as senseless as that of theology” (1925b, 406). Ramsey must also have thought but doesn’t spell out, that it’s a consequence of this argument that complex particulars should be dismissed too – otherwise particulars would be distinguished from universals in terms of complexity. (For discussion of Ramsey’s argument against complex universals see Oliver 1992; Mellor 1992; and MacBride 2005a, 86-94; 2018, 210–220.)