  The methodological and metaphysical elements of logical atomism come together in postulating the theoretical, if not the practical, realizability of a fully analyzed language, in which all truths could in principle be expressed in a perspicuous manner. Such a “logically ideal language”, as Russell at times called it, would, besides logical constants, consist only of words representing the constituents of atomic facts. In such a language, the simplest sort of complete sentence would be what Russell called an “atomic proposition”, containing a single predicate or verb representing a quality or relation along with the appropriate number of proper names, each representing an individual. The truth or falsity of an atomic proposition would depend entirely on a corresponding atomic fact. The other sentences of such a language would be derived either by combining atomic propositions using truth-functional connectives, yielding molecular propositions, or by replacing constituents of a simpler proposition by variables, and prefixing a universal or existential quantifier, resulting in general and existential propositions. According to the stronger form of logical atomism Russell at times adopted, he held that in such a language, “[g]iven all true atomic propositions, together with the fact that they are all, every other true proposition can theoretically be deduced by logical methods” (PM2, xv; cf. OKEW, 50). This puts the truth or falsity of atomic propositions at the core of Russell’s theory of truth, and hence, puts atomic facts at the center of Russell’s metaphysics.