3. The explicit Predicate is more necessary than the explicit Subject.
We have spoken of Judgments expressed by one word, “Fire!” “Thieves!” etc., and also of impersonal Propositions, “It is raining,” “It is thawing.” These two classes of Judgments show hardly any explicit Subject at all. But we could not assert anything without a Predicate—that would be to assert without asserting anything in particular.
As these Judgments have, roughly speaking, a Predicate and no Subject, I do not think it convenient to call them, with Dr. Venn, existential judgments. It is true that they refer to reality, but their peculiarity is in not referring to a distinct subject. And when used for definite and complex assertions they become very artificial, e.g. “There is a {101} British Constitution by which our liberties are guaranteed.” Instead of organising the content of the Judgment, such a form of assertion simply tosses the whole of it into the Predicate in a single mass.
The question is only one of words; but it appears to me more convenient to reserve the term Existential judgments for those highly artificial assertions which actually employ the Predicate “exist” or “existence,” e.g. “Matter exists.” These are at the opposite end of the scale from those last-mentioned, and are the nearest approach to Judgment with Subject and no Predicate. That is to say, their Predicate is the generalised abstract form of predication [1] without any special content—the kind and degree of existence asserted being understood from the context.
[1] Expressed in Greek by the word corresponding to “is,” used with an accent, which does not belong to it in its ordinary use. He is good = ἄγαθός ἐστι [= agathos esti]; He exists = ἔστι [= esti Tr.].
Except, however, in the case of these peculiarly abstract and reflective assertions, it must be laid down that a predicated content is necessary to judgment, while an explicit subject of predication is unnecessary.
Two Ideas of Things
4. If it is possible, in some cases, to throw the whole content of judgment into the predicate, this rather disposes us to criticise the notion that there must be two distinct matters, objects, ideas, or contents, in every judgment. The notion in question has two forms.
It is thought that the Judgment consists in putting two ideas together, [1] or, {102} That the Judgment consists in comparing two or more things. [2]
[1] For this conception, see Hamilton’s Lectures on Logic, i. 227, and for a criticism on it. Mill’s Logic, Bk. I. ch. v., init, Dr. Venn seems to incline to Hamilton’s view, but I do not feel sure that he intends to discuss the question in the form in which it is referred to in the text. See his Empirical Logic, pp. 210 and 211.