[IV]
THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT AND PERCEPTION
Reaction of the concept upon the representation.
Problems of a widely different nature from these formalist playthings await exploration in the depths of the Science of Logic. And resuming what we have called the descent of the universal into the individual, it is of importance, after having established the relation between concept and form of expression, to examine in what way the concept reacts upon the representation, from which it appears to be at a stroke and altogether separated.
In more precise terms: Beyond doubt the concept is thought only in so far as it becomes concrete in an expressive form and itself also becomes, from this point of view, representative. Thus, a logical affirmation, or one that presents itself as logical, can be viewed under a twofold aspect, as logical and as æsthetic. It can be regarded as well thought-out, and so also very well expressed, perfectly æsthetic because perfectly logical; or as very well expressed but ill thought, or not truly thought, and so not logical, and yet sentimental, passionate and imaginative. But this expression-representation, in which the concept lives (and which is, for example, the tone, the accent, the personal form, the style, which I am employing in this book to expound Logic), is a new representation, conditioned by the concept. We now ask, not indeed the character of this representation (which is sufficiently clear), but of what kind are those representations, about and upon which, the thought of the concept has been kindled. Do they remain apart, excluded from the light of the concept, obscure as before, that is, logically obscure? Does the concept illuminate only itself in a sort of egoistic satisfaction, without irradiating with its light the representations upon which it has arisen?
Logicization of the representations.
That would be inconceivable and contrary to the unity of the spirit; and indeed, such separation and indifference do not exist. The appearance of the concept transfigures the representations upon which it arises, making them other than they formerly were; from being indiscriminate it makes them discriminate; from fantastic, logical; from clear but indistinct (as used to be said), clear and distinct. I am, for example, in such a condition of soul as prompts me to sing or to versify, and thus to make myself objective and known to myself; but I am objective and known only to fancy, so much so, that at the moment of poetical or musical expression I should not be able to say what was really happening in me: whether I wake or dream, whether I see clearly, or catch glimpses, or see wrongly. When from the variety of the multitude of representations, which have preceded and which follow it, I pass on to enquire as to the truth of them all (that is to say, the reality, which does not pass), and rise to the concept, those representations themselves must be revised in the light of the concept that has been attained, but no longer with the same eyes as formerly,—they must not be looked at, but henceforth, thought. My state of soul then becomes determinate; and I shall say, for example: "What I have experienced (and sung and made poetry of), was an absurd desire; it was a clash of different tendencies that needed to be overcome and arranged; it was a remorse, a pious desire," and so on. Thus by means of the concept is formed a judgment of that representation.
The individual judgment and its difference from the definitive judgment.