Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/292

Rh avoid reference both to the what and to the that of the universe.

Now, this observation may itself seem questionable. You may object: “Can I not make judgments about fairies and centaurs without asserting whether they are or are not? And if I distinguish between ideas and facts at all, cannot I do so in my judgments also, and make judgments about ideal objects merely as ideal objects, without referring to the Reality in any way?” The answer to all these questions is simply, No. To judge is to judge about the Real. It is to consider internal meanings with reference to external meanings. It is to bring the what into relation with the that. And if you have sundered the external and internal meanings, every attempt to judge, even while it recognizes this sundering as sharpest, is an effort to link afresh what it all the time, also, seems to keep apart. To illustrate the truth of this principle, look over the list of forms of judgment as they appear in the ordinary text-books of Logic. The list in question is, indeed, in many ways, imperfect; but it will serve for our present purpose.

Judgments may be, as the logical tradition says, “Categorical,” or “Hypothetical,” or “Disjunctive.” That is, they may assert, for example, that A is B; or they may affirm that If A is B, then C is D; or they may declare that Either A is B, or else C is D. This ancient classification is no very deep one; but it may aid us to survey how our various sorts of judgment view Reality.

Let us begin with the “hypothetical” judgment, the judgment of the bare “if.” This sort of judgment seems, of course, to be capable of becoming as remote as pos-