(b) Thus it would seem that Jevons and Mill are much nearer the real point when they say that the proposition has to do with two Things, or with a Thing and a group of Things. But we must notice in passing that Mill, [1] after fighting hard against calling them Ideas, takes our breath away by saying that they are states of consciousness. There is, of course, a difficulty, which I will not try to deal with now, in the fact that however much we refer to things, we have nothing to work with intellectually but our ideas of them, and in some types of Judgment the reference to real things is difficult to trace. Mill further emphasises this by showing, that what we assert in ordinary general Judgment is co-existence of attributes. [2] “Now when we say, Man is mortal, we mean that wherever these various mental and physical phenomena (the attributes of man) are all found, then we have assurance that the other physical and mental phenomenon called death, will not fail to take place.” That is, no doubt, a very indirect way of referring to the real things which we call men. Moreover, he treats all conclusions in geometry and mechanics as hypothetical. [3] All this we shall have to return to, in order to reconcile it with our doctrine; which is apparently coincident with {105} Mill’s view in the place first alluded to, that the subject in Judgment is always reality.
[1] Logic, Bk. I. ch. V. § 5. [2] Ibid., § 4.
[3] Ibid., Bk. II. ch. vi. §§ 3, 4.
But our point at present is only the duality ascribed to the Judgment by saying that it essentially deals with two things or groups of things. Jevons even says [1] that every Judgment is a comparison of two things—though these “things” are really, it would seem, groups of things. [2] We thus have it impressed upon our minds that there is one “thing” corresponding to the Subject-word (or clause) of the Propositional sentence, and another “thing” corresponding to the Predicate-word (or clause), and that these are somehow separate, like two railway carriages, till we bring them together by the coupling-link of the copula. This is a very inconvenient way of looking at the matter. It is not true that all Judgment is comparison, in the proper and usual sense of the word. It is not true that Judgment involves two things; two or more things may be mentioned in a Judgment, but they cannot correspond respectively to the Subject and Predicate. It is a real Comparison if you say, “A.B. is taller than C.D.,” but C.D. is here not a term in the Judgment. The one person, A.B., is qualified by the ideal content “taller than C.D.,” and the idea of A.B. so qualified is referred to, or discriminated within, perceptive reality. Comparison is a rather complex process, and consists in a cross-reference by which each of two objects is judged according to a standard furnished by the other; but this complex process is not necessary to all Judgment, and cannot be expressed with complete convenience in a single Judgment. And in {106} any case the two objects that enter into the comparison do not correspond to two essential parts of Judgment.
[1] Elementary Lessons in Logic, p. 61. [2] Ibid. p. 62.
It is far more simple and true to say that Judgment is always the analysis and synthesis of elements in some one thing or ideal content. “Gold is yellow” has not within it, as Jevons says it has, [1] any direct comparison of gold with other yellow substances. It simply drags to light the property “yellow” as distinct within the complex of attributes belonging to gold, while at the same time insisting that this property—this meaning of an idea—belongs to, is of one piece with, perceived reality in so far as gold is given in such reality. The Judgment exhibits the content in its parts. It breaks it up, and pronounces it to be all of one tissue, by one and the same indivisible act. We should practically have a much fairer chance of seeing clearly what Judgment is if we began by considering it as not two things or two terms — but as one thing or one term drawn out into elements by discriminating selection. Even if the paradox that every “Thing” is a Judgment neglects some necessary distinctions, I am convinced that we shall understand Judgment much more clearly if we do our best to approach it from this point of view. Whenever we look or listen, and notice features and qualities in the perceptions that arrest the eye and ear, we are rapidly and continuously judging. “The fire is crackling,” “The daylight is waning,” “That bookshelf is not full,” “The window-curtain is twisted.” In none of these cases is there any separation other than an intellectual distinction between the predicated content and the perceived reality. The Judgment is simply a distinct {107} insistence on a quality within a certain focus of reality as belonging to that reality. This is the fundamental nature of Judgment.
[1] Loc. cit.
Therefore, to draw our conclusion as to the Unity of the Judgment, it is not a transition from one mental state to another; the relation of which it consists is not between ideas in it, but is the content of the idea which forms it. Judgment is not primarily comparison between two things; it is a thing or content displayed as possessing some definite relation or quality within its identity. Every Judgment is the content of one idea, but you may of course distinguish relations between ideal elements within this idea. “Fire causes heat” is a single content or idea, the nature of fire, expanded into one of its properties.
Distinction between Subject and Predicate
5. But then, if the whole Judgment is a single content, what is the difference between Subject and Predicate, and is it necessary to distinguish Subject from Predicate at all? If some Judgments can be made without explicit Subjects, cannot all be made in that way?