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What does it mean to say, x implies y?

It may mean either of two things: either that x presupposes y, in the sense that x requires y by a specific and definite necessity; or that x anticipates y, in the sense that x requires y by only a generic and indefinite necessity. (Perhaps another way of explaining what is meant by the two things that implication may mean_--imean—i.e., _ pressuposition and anticipation_--is presupposition and anticipation—is to say that, whereas the implication rightly distinguished as "presupposition" is _ unconditional, the implication rightly distinguished as "anticipation" is conditional.)

What Gamwell seems to want to say about a proper democratic constitution, which as such is merely formative, is two things: both that it necessarily implies certain substantive religious, moral, and political first principles, in the sense that it necessarily presupposes such first principles; and that it necessarily implies certain further, more specific, substantive principles (procedures, policies, and practices, and so on), in the sense that it necessarily anticipates such further principles.

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