Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/193

 THE NATURE OF JUDGMENT. 179 ducible to anything else. The concept is not a mental fact, nor any part of a mental fact. Identity of content is pre- supposed in any reasoning ; and to explain the identity of content between two facts by supposing that content to be a part of the content of some third fact, must involve a vicious circle. For in order that the content of the third fact may perform this office, it must already be supposed like the contents of the other two, i.e., having something in common with them, and this community of content is exactly what it was proposed to explain. When, therefore, I say " This rose is red," I am not attri- buting part of the content of my idea to the rose, nor yet attributing parts of the content of my ideas of rose and red together to some third subject. What I am asserting is a specific connexion of certain concepts forming the total concept "rose" with the concepts " this" and " now" and "red"; and the judgment is true if such a connexion is existent. Similarly when I say " The chimera has three heads," the chimera is not an idea in my mind, nor any part of such idea. What I mean to assert is nothing about my mental states, but a specific connexion of concepts. If the judgment is false, that is not because my ideas do not corre- spond to reality, but because such a conjunction of concepts is not to be found among existents. With this, then, we have approached the nature of a pro- position or judgment. A proposition is composed not of words, nor yet of thoughts, but of concepts. Concepts are possible objects of thought ; but that is no definition of them. It merely states that they may come into relation with a thinker ; and in order that they may do anything, they must already be something. It is indifferent to their nature whether anybody thinks them or not. They are incapable of change ; and the relation into which they enter with the knowing subject implies no action or reaction. It is a unique relation which can begin or cease with a change in the subject ; but the concept is neither cause nor effect of such a change. The occurrence of the relation has, no doubt, its causes and effects, but these are to be found only in the subject. It is of such entities as these that a proposition is com- posed. In it certain concepts stand in specific relations with one another. And our question now is, wherein a proposition differs from a concept, that it may be either true or false. It is at first sight tempting to say that the truth of a proposition depends on its relation to reality ; that any pro-