Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/314

 298 ALEXANDER F. SHAND : not to confuse what a content of thought logically involves with what an occurring thought actually contains. It is true that the hypothetical judgment involves a categorical. " If he persist in his present behaviour, I shall leave" involves a categorical judgment as to his objectionable conduct. Nay more, this judgment has actually occurred, and its occurrence has been a psychical condition of the volitional attitude which succeeds to it. But, as categorical, it does not make a definite action in the future conditional on the persistence of his objectionable conduct. The categorical judgment contains no supposal ; and the hypothetical cannot therefore be resolved into it. The hypothetical psychologically contains a supposal, but contains no judgment. If the categorical judgment persist, it is co-presented with the hypothetical, but not contained in it, as, " His conduct is objectionable ; I shall leave if it continue ". We must therefore conclude that although the hypothetical logically involves, it neither con- tains nor can be analysed into a categorical judgment, but is, in respect of its supposal, a distinctive attitude of thought. If we take next the disjunctive type of will, "I shall go either to Calais or Boulogne," it may be said that this does contain a categorical volition. It is certain that we are going to travel, but we are in doubt w'hether our temporary destination shall be Calais or Boulogne. We may say that the only volition is this categorical judgment that we are going to travel, and that in the undecided thought that we shall go either to Calais or Boulogne there is no will. But suppose that we have excluded other alternatives, that we have settled not to go to Havre or Dieppe, and have de- finitely confined ourselves to the alternative of Calais or Boulogne, then over and above a vague resolution to travel, there is the more definite resolution that we shall travel either to Calais or Boulogne. Instead of containing more doubt, this disjunctive volition contains less ; and you cannot reduce it to the vaguer categorical volition which may have preceded it. But we may ask : Is it our previous type of hypothetical will differently expressed ? for, if I do not go to Calais, I shall go to Boulogne, and if not to Boulogne, to Calais. But neither of these hypothetical taken separately commits me to the alternative of one or the other. " If I do not go to Calais I shall go to Boulogne," does not tell me what must happen if I do go to Calais. Neither of these hypo- theticals taken separately is then a disjunctive volition. Each tells me what will follow from a given supposal. Neither tells me that this supposal must become fact, nor