Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/466

 452 F. H. BRADLEY : to another mind, or even secondarily to our own, or again to material nature. The above knowledge (of which we have the idea) is absent from our known fact. But on the other hand this knowledge, the answer to our question, is not fetched from nowhere. We take it to be truth which already is there and which in some sense exists. 1 It already, that is, qualifies another realm of reality and to this realm it is attached. We may pass from this to consider the case of supposition and hypothetical judgment. In supposition we use an idea which in one connexion is true and is real. This ideal truth we bring into relation with a "fact" taken in another sphere, in order to discover what result comes in a certain direction. This result is truth which is considered now, as before, to qualify and to be rooted in the ideal world. Sup- position in short presupposes that the actual or real fact is not the whole of reality. It implies that there are other spheres, or other provinces of the same sphere, all connected in a wider Universe. Hence ideas once more never float except relatively. Their suspension involves a positive attachment to a point of support taken elsewhere. I may perhaps be allowed to dwell somewhat longer on the problem raised by hypothetical judgment. It is obviously impossible for me here to discuss this fully either in regard to its psychological origin or logical value, and I must content myself with calling attention to a point which is essential. In a hypothetical judgment we have an assertion, and it is really idle to dispute this. If you suppose something then something follows, and, unless you know that this is so, you cannot say it. There is an assertion, but this assertion (properly) is not of actual fact. On the other side you have before you a datum which in some sense you take to be fact and actually real. And there is some connexion, you assume, between this fact and your ideal truth. But in spite of this connexion the fact is not the subject of your judgment, or rather it never is so except improperly and through mere implication. In order to understand the hypothetical judgment we must keep in mind the following essential aspects. (1) The 1 The reader possibly may object that, in the case of the future which I am to make, the above account will not hold. I reply that it holds here unquestionably as it holds elsewhere, and that otherwise the attempt at prevision would be meaningless. The difficulty is caused by the nature of a real fact which is future, a construction which is full of radical inconsistency. But in any case, if the idea of the future cannot qualify the world of fact and truth, it still does not float but is attached to the imaginary world.