I have spoken of the will in order to illustrate the judgment, because the dim and implied elements are perhaps more easy to observe in the case of the will. Almost all our common waking life is carried on by actions such as walking and sitting, which we hardly know that we will, but which we could not do if we did not will them. And also the greater part of our life is rather within a sphere of will which has become objective for us in our profession, interests, and ideals, than a perpetual active choice between {40} alternatives such as brings the act of volition before us in the most striking way. Just so it is with judgment. Our speaking and writing is a very small part of our judging, just as our conscious choice between alternatives [1] is a very small part of our willing.
[1] I do not for a moment suggest that our “conscious choice” is ultimately different in kind from our habitual persistence in a course of life. I only take it as an instance in which we fully attend to our volition.
Distribution of Attention
6. Thus the world of knowledge and the world of will must each of them be regarded as a continuum for the waking consciousness. Whenever we are awake, we are judging; whenever we are awake we are willing. The distribution of attention in these two worlds is very closely analogous. In both, it is impossible to attend to our whole world at the same moment. But in both, our world is taken as being a single connected system; and therefore (i.) attention shades off gradually from the momentary focus of illumination into less and less intensity over the other parts of the continuous judgment or purpose; but (ii.) that which is in the focus of attention depends for its quality upon that which is less distinctly or not at all in the focus of attention. And as attention diminishes in intensity, the implication of reality does not diminish with it. In other words, in spite of the inequality of attention, the reality of our whole world is implied in the reality of which at any moment we are distinctly aware. But being distinctly aware of reality is another name for judgment.
Now the common logical judgments which we shall have to analyse and classify are simply those parts of this continuous affirmation of consciousness which are from time {41} to time separately made distinct. Each of them therefore must be regarded as a partial expression of the nature of reality, and the subject will always be Reality in one form, and the predicate reality in another form. The ultimate and complete judgment would be the whole of Reality predicated of itself. All our logical judgments are such portions and fragments of this judgment as we can grasp at the moment. Some of these gather up in a system whole provinces of reality, others merely enlarge, interpret, or analyse the content of a very simple sense-perception. We shall not go far wrong in practice if we start from this judgment of Perception as the fundamental kind of Judgment. The real subject in Judgment is always Reality in some particular datum or qualification, and the tendency of Judgment is always to be a definition of Reality. We see the parts of Judgment most clearly in such thoughts as “This is blue”; “This is a flower”; “That light is the rising sun”; “That sound is the surf on a sandy shore.” In these we can plainly distinguish the element of presentation and the interpretative construction or analytic synthesis which is by the judgment identified with it.
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LECTURE III THE RELATION OF LOGIC TO KNOWLEDGE
Meaning of “Form”
1. I spoke of the whole world, which we take to be real, as presented to us in the shape of a continuous judgment. It is the task of Logic to analyse the structure of this Judgment, the parts of which are Judgments.
The first thing is then to consider what sort of properties of Judgments we attend to in Logic. It is commonly said that Logic is a formal science; that is, that it deals with the form, and not with the content or matter of knowledge.