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Source. Ramsey (1930), Part II, printed p. 276 (PDF, physical p. 13).
Use the forms and system from the preceding reduction. Let be an integer with .
The universal sentence has a model on exactly elements if and only if contains an -form together with every smaller form involved in .
Necessity
Suppose a model has universe . Evaluate every relation atom on this ordered list. The resulting complete canonical alternative lies in one -form . Since the universal sentence holds, the -row of must contain that form.
For every subset of elements, restrict the same truth assignment to the atoms involving only that subset and relabel its elements. This realizes one of the -forms involved in . Every possible choice and ordering of the subset occurs among the assignments quantified by the sentence, so each such involved form must occur in the -row of . Thus is completely contained through all smaller sizes.
Sufficiency
Conversely, suppose contains and every form involved in it. Choose one complete alternative and label an -element universe by . Define each relation on every tuple of these elements by the truth value assigned to the corresponding atom in . Equality consistency of makes this a well-defined interpretation. Its nullary literals, if any, give the shared truth values of the propositional constants.
The original complete alternative listed every relation atom formed from the . Since each of the equality classes contains an , it therefore specifies every relation tuple on this -element universe, including tuples with repeated entries.
Consider any assignment of in this structure. It uses some distinct elements. After the equality reduction, its complete truth alternative is obtained by restricting to those elements and then permuting their labels. If , this is a representative of itself; if , it belongs to a -form involved in . In either case the form occurs in . Hence is true under every assignment, so the constructed structure is a model.
The condition is exact for each prescribed nonempty cardinality . Empty universes are outside the source's convention.