We reject these various teachings as erroneous and misleading. Only confusion can result if judgment be defined as the affirming or denying one thing of another; or as the recognition of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; or as the perception of a relatedness or a nonrelatedness between objects or between conceptions; or as the effectuation of some synthesis or some separation of mental or psychical states.

Our reasons for this opinion might be given in the shape of objections to the foregoing theories. But, in the present instance, we think that the elucidation of the truth will be more profitable than the examination of error, and will prove the best possible refutation of the error. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with maintaining the position that judgment is the mental assertion of the existence or of the non-existence of things. This view is involved in the doctrine, already taught, that belief always attaches itself to one or other of the two thoughts of existence and non-existence.

The theory of judgment and belief, which we advocate, is so simple and evident that one wonders whether there can be any discussion over it; yet it has not hitherto been taught by philosophers, and it should not be accepted without consideration.

Enunciation

CHAPTER XV.

JUDGMENT.

1. THE account commonly given of propositions and asser- overlooks the difference between a proposition merely tion distin- thought, and a proposition believed. Logicians genguished. erally-for example, President Porter and President McCosh-teach that "a proposition is a judgment expressed in words." This is not a satisfactory statement. It is a definition of propositions from the chief use we make of them, and not from their own nature. A proposition may be completely formed and enunciated without any judgment. We must distinguish between the enunciative and the assertive proposition. The former expresses thought, or conception, only; the latter, thought and belief also. A proposition, simply as such, is merely enunciative. At the beginning of every criminal trial the jury has two propositions in mind, namely, "The man is guilty," and "The — man is not guilty,' but neither of these is yet a matter of judgment or belief.

"A proposition,"

Dr. Reid calls our attention to this point. he says, "may be simply conceived, without judging of it; but when there is not only a conception of the proposition, but a mental affirmation or negation, an assent or dissent of the understanding, that is judgment." Let us remember that we may

think and state propositions without entertaining any belief respecting the matters which they may bring under our consideration.

sition an

2. Such being the case, the question arises, How Every propo- does the doctrine that judgment is the assertion of existential existence or of non-existence agree with the admitted thought. fact that every judgment may be expressed by means of a proposition? We reply that a very satisfactory proof of the new doctrine may be found in a right understanding of the essential force of propositions; because, on examination, we discover every proposition to be nothing else than the explicit statement of an existential thought. For we may divide propositions into two comprehensive classes, and may say that the function of one of these classes is to set forth the existence or the non-existence of the subject-object of the proposition, and that the function of the other class is to set forth the existence or the non-existence of the predicate-object of the proposition. In illustration of the first class we may say, "God exists," or "God does not exist;" because in these statements the subject is set forth as existing and as non-existent. The second class may be exemplified by the statements, "God is wise," "God is not selfish;" for in these we assert the existence of wisdom, and the non-existence of selfishness, in God. The predica- It is marvellous that the distinction now presented tion proper. is not to be found in any logical treatise, and cannot be expressed in the terminology of any text-book. Both classes of propositions those which assert the existence or the nonexistence of the subject, and those which assert the existence or the non-existence of the predicate are placed without discrimination under the head of predications. Let us note, however, that propositions of the second class have a better right than those in the first class to be styled predications; for it is only in them that we truly predicate one thing of another. The statements, "God is wise," "God is not selfish," may be described as an affirming and a denying one entity of another; for wisdom and selfishness are both things, or entities. But when we say, "God is," or "God is not," we do not predicate one thing of another; for existence and non-existence are not things: we only assert existence or non-existence of God. We might therefore distinguish propositions of the first class as simple existential statements, and say that those of the second class are predications proper.

Now, that every predication proper sets forth the existence or the non-existence of its predicate-object may be shown, because such a proposition can always be converted, by a little ingenuity,

into a direct existential statement. For example, instead of the ordinary mode of expression, we can say that "Wisdom, as something in God, exists," and that " Selfishness, as a divine attribute, does not exist; so, also, instead of "John walks," or "John is not walking," we can say "Walking as an action of John exists," or "does not exist."

The origin and use of

But here some one may argue: If such be the essential significance of predications, why do not men say predications just what they mean? Why do they not always employ proper. simple existential statements? We reply that the ordinary forms of speech do express just what men mean, and this, too, in the best possible manner. For sometimes we desire to say that something considered per se, or without reference to its connections with other things, exists or does not exist; and then we use the direct mode of statement. But, more frequently, we wish to assert the existence or the non-existence of something as in relation to something else which is already known or assumed to exist; in this case we find it convenient to mention first, and as the subject of the sentence, that which is already known to be, and then, in the predicate part of the proposition, to present that the existence of which is asserted or denied. For we must mark that no predication proper ever asserts or denies the existence of its subject. The statement, "John is not walking," does not assert the non-existence of John; nor does the statement, "John is walking," assert his existence. In each case John is assumed as a fact already known, and the assertion concerns only the walking as related to John.

tive verb.

Moreover, there is no inexplicable mystery in the The origin of the copula- circumstance that the copulative verb, though in immediate grammatical relation to the subject, sets forth the existence or the non-existence of the predicate. Primeval language appears to have had no term to express the abstract idea of existence. To indicate this thought, verbs signifying to begin, to grow, to breathe, to live, to stand, to remain, were employed, because such verbs specially directed attention to the existence of that which began, or grew, or breathed, or lived, or remained. Hence "existere," in Latin, meaning "to emerge,' and yevéobat, in Greek, meaning "to be born," came to signify existence.

To this cause, also, we trace the various irregular parts of the verb "to be," both in our own and in other languages. The English "is" and "am," the Latin "sum" and " esse," and the Greek ciui and civai, are identical with the Sanskrit "asmi," signifying originally "to breathe," and "the meanings of which

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were probably developed in the following order: breathe, live, be." 1 The German bin" and "bist," the English "be" and "been," and the Latin " fui" and "futurus," are identical with ovéolai, signifying "to grow or spring up." "War" and gewesen" in German, and “ was and were " in English, are derived from a Sanskrit root ("was ") meaning "to dwell or stay." When, therefore, our distant forefathers would assert the existence of some one, they said, "The man was born," or 66 The man dwells," or "The man shall breathe; " birth, dwelling, and breath being mentioned simply to indicate being. After a period of such use these verbs lost their original and proper force, and came to signify existence only.

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But now it will be seen that before these verbs lost their own peculiar meanings, they were fitted to indicate the existence of the predicate placed after them just as well as that of the subject placed before them. For, in saying, "The tree stands strong; the tree grows high; the tree remains green," the adjectives “strong," "high," green," are connected with the verbs after the manner of grammatical limitation, and the whole stress of the predication plainly falls on them. So, even to our ears, the expressions," He lives righteous; he breathes happy," would assert the existence of the righteousness and of the happiness of some one; while "He breathes not happy; he lives not righteous," would indicate the non-existence of these things. Clearly the verb "to be," even in its secondary use as the copula in predications, is employed to signify existence and non-existence; and so it is put beyond question that the essential aim of every proposition is to express existential thought.

Judgment and belief

3. Judgment and belief, therefore, are not a conjunction or a separation of our conceptions of things; defined. they are an exercise of mental confidence in connection with the thoughts of existence and of non-existence.

Accordingly, we can conceive of things, both synthetically and analytically, without any exercise of belief respecting the things conceived of; we can entertain convictions concerning things viewed separately as well as when they may be considered with reference to their connections; and even when we do use the composition or the separation of thought in the expression of our belief, it cannot be said that the mental compounding of things is specially connected with affirmation, or that the mental partition of things is specially connected with denial. For a union of things may be non-existent and may be denied, and a separation of things may be existent and may be affirmed. We

1 Curtius, Greek Etymology, § 378.

can even think of things as existing or as non-existent without believing in their existence or in their non-existence.

One wonders at the confusion affecting the doctrines of philosophers respecting judgment and conviction. We trace it to their failure to note the difference between thought and the belief which may or may not accompany thought, and to their attempt, consequent upon this want of discrimination, to explain belief and disbelief as a compounding and a dividing of conceptions.

4. But here some one may say: Granting that the fitness of propositions to express conviction arises from their constitution as forms of existential thought, and that some propositions set forth the existence or non-existence of the subject, while others set forth the existence or non-existence of the predicate, yet in this latter class of statements, which have been distinguished as predications proper, is it not true that the thing immediately judged and asserted to be or not to be, is always and essentially a relation, that is, the relation between the subject-object and the predicate-object of the proposition? Evidently the doctrine thus suggested, while conceding the main points for which we have contended, would somewhat justify the teachings of those who say that all judgment and cognition consist in the perception of relations; for it would teach that the majority of our judgments may be thus described.

We cannot, however, accept this doctrine. We cannot allow that predications proper set forth only the existence or the nonexistence of relations. Such sometimes is their force; more frequently they express belief in regard to things which are indeed related, yet which are not relations. When we say, "John walks, or is walking," we set forth, not the relation of the action to the agent, but the existence of the action. The relation is implicated in the fact of the action, but is not the point of the assertion. Aristotle teaches the true doctrine when he says that predication deals not with relations alone, but with "whatever may be inherent or non-inherent in any subject:" that is, predication sets forth whatever may or may not be naturally conjoined in being with any given entity; for spaces, times, quantities, qualities, powers, actions, changes, and combinations of these things are all, in this way, set forth as existent or as non-existent.

Relation only one of the

categories of predication.

Let us illustrate this point by quoting and applying the teaching of Aristotle. "The categories," he says, are ten in number, what a thing is, quantity, quality, relation, where, when, position, possession,

action, passion," and he adds that every proposition signifies