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In intellective

perception, it is not intelli

gence, but nature,

that unites the terms of the judgment.

This judgment produces its

45.

Why do we say that subject and predicate cannot be united in a judgment unless both are previously known? Because it is supposed that the principle which brings them into union is the intelligence or the intelligent will, as in the majority of judgments; and it is obvious that the intelligence does not unite two terms without previously knowing them. But might it not be that what unites the terms is not the intelligence at all, but nature itself? This is precisely what happens in the case in question; for the essence of being and the felt activity are brought into union, not by our intelligence, but by our nature, as we have said. This union has its origin in the unity of the subject, and in the identity which exists between being as known and being as felt (active). Now, inasmuch as nature unites these two elements, it remains to be seen whether, by uniting them, it has not rendered them capable of becoming the terms of a judgment. In order to make this clear to ourselves, let us take the formula of such a judgment, and, analyzing it into its terms, consider whether these possess the requisite conditions. The formula we may express thus: Being (whereof I have knowledge) is realized in this feeling (felt activity). When I make this affirmation within myself, I know real being; I know what feeling, the felt activity, is; I know what a being is. The element, therefore, which was unknown to me

before I made the affirmation, is known to me as own subject. soon as the affirmation is made. Therefore, although feeling, before being united with ideal being, was unknown to me, and, therefore, not yet capable of becoming one of the terms of a judgment; yet as soon as nature joined it to ideal being by a spontaneous act of affirmation, it is already known, and therefore capable of being one of the terms of a judgment. If we agree to give the name of subject to feeling or reality, it will be easy at once to comprehend the meaning of the statement which we have several times made, to the effect that this primitive affirmation, this primitive judgment, produces its own subject.

Kant and his followers committed two great and fundamental errors: first, in supposing that, before a judgment could be formed, both its terms had to be known; and, second, in not seeing that the primitive and constitutive form of the understanding must be that which is common to all judgments. The first led them to overlook the spontaneous judgment of simple apprehension; the second, to destroy the unity of consciousness and abolish true objectivity. Both these errors are corrected in the system of Rosmini, who does full justice to the primitive judgment. "The judgment," he says, "respecting the existence of this or that sensibly determined thing, of this body which now falls under my senses, may easily be explained and analyzed in the following manner :-We have a mind (spirito) at once sensitive and intellective [cf. under §§ 42, 122]. . . . Sense is the power of perceiving sensibles; the understanding is the faculty of perceiving things as existing in themselves. Now, that which falls under our sense becomes the object of our understanding, because WE who feel are the same who possess understanding. When, therefore, we have perceived sensible qualities, what operation

The term judgment does not express the nature of affirmation, but a subsequent

will our minds perform upon them? The understanding consists, as we have said, in the power to see things as existing in themselves [see under § 32]. Therefore, our understanding will perceive the sensibles as existing in themselves, and not in the intimate relation which, as sensations, they have with us. Now, to perceive sensibles as existing in themselves, independently of us, is the same thing as to judge them existing in themselves. This, again, is the same thing as judging that there exists outside of us a being in which the sensible qualities are. . . . Let us, then, fix the difference between the two kinds of judgment which we form. Sometimes in our judgments we do nothing more than think a quality as existing in a being already conceived by us, as when I say, 'This man is blind,' in which case I think blindness as existing in the man of whom I have an idea, and who is the subject of my judgment. At other times, on the contrary, with our judgment, we think a being as adhering to certain sensibles, as when we say, 'There exists a being determined by those sensible qualities which I now perceive with my senses.' In the first kind, the object of the judgment exists before the judgment itself; in the second, the object does not exist before the judgment, but only the elements of it; that is, (1) sensations not yet become cognitions; (2) the idea of existence which lights up these sensations by adding being to them, and makes them known in and through being. To conclude: Judgment is not always an operation performed on an object already thought, but sometimes an operation performed on sensibles which, in the judgment itself, become objects of our thought" (New Essay, vol. i. § 128).

46.

Plainly, then, the affirmation of a real being is entitled to the name of judgment only after it is formed, not before. Now, reflection distinguishes in every judgment a subject and a predicate; but, in so doing, it analyzes a judg

analysis

ment already formed. That which is not yet reflective formed cannot be analyzed. It is this analysis of it. that supplies the definition of judgment, which runs: A judgment is the logical union of a predicate with a subject. This definition is analytical and the product of reflection. The term judgment, therefore, as applied to an affirmation, does not designate the affirmation itself, as it is in its origin, but a subsequent reflection, which, by dealing with affirmations according to its own laws of action, changes or analyzes them into judgments.

This is an extremely important point, and one that is often lost sight of in philosophical and logical discussions. Many people talk as if a judgment were the putting together of two concepts, and then declaring whether they were identical or different. For example, the logic from which I have already quoted lays down that "Judicium est quo mens non solum PERCIPIT DUO OBJECTA, sed, quasi pro tribunali sedens, expresse apud se pronuntiat, illa inter se convenire aut dissedere." The truth is that the judgment is neither the one nor the other of these processes. Perception of two objects is not necessary to a judgment, nor is the affirmation of agreement or disagreement any part of one. When I say, "A is B," this means, not that I have perceived A and B as two objects, but that I have perceived them as one. If I had not, I should never think of making the judgment. When I say "Fire is not water," this means that I have tried to think them as one, and failed.

47.

This statement may be rendered clearer if we Reflection, consider that, when reflection analyzes an affirma- ing a judg

K

in analyz

ment, distinguishes, but does

not separate, its elements.

Subject and predicate do not exist prior to the judgment, but are formed

in the act of judg

ment.

tion into subject and predicate, it does not in reality separate or disunite the two terms. Indeed, if it could do so, both would at once be destroyed. They would at once cease to be subject and predicate, and hence would cease to be elements of a judgment. The judgment would therefore be destroyed. Reflection, indeed, merely distinguishes the two terms notionally, and does not really break up the judgment of which they are the interdependent elements, and through which alone they are subject and predicate.

Let

us illustrate this by an example. Let us take the
judgment: This being which I see is a man. Of
what does this judgment inform me? That this
being which I see is a man. Before I pronounced
this judgment, I did not know that this being
which I see was a man; for knowing this and
saying it to myself are precisely one and the same
thing. Now, let us by reflection analyze this
judgment. This being is the subject, and a man
is the predicate. It is clear that if I should
regard these two terms separately, without paying
attention to their relation, I should not know the
one as subject and the other as predicate. They
would not be terms of a judgment at all. How,
then, do they become subject and predicate? By
means of the judgment itself. Subject and pre-
dicate, therefore, do not exist prior to the judg-
ment of which they are elements. They are
formed in the judgment, and, after they are
formed, reflection finds them there.
Let us now

apply this reasoning to our affirmation: Being is

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