It was natural enough that the originators of conceptual logic, seeing
that judgments can be expressed by propositions, and conceptions by
terms, should fall into the error of supposing that, as propositions
consist of terms, so judgments consist of conceptions, and that there
is a triple mental order--conception, judgment, reasoning--parallel to
the triple linguistic order--term, proposition, discourse. They
overlooked the fact that man thinks long before he speaks, makes
judgments which he does not express at all, or expresses them by
interjections, names and phrases, before he uses regular propositions,
and that he does not begin by conceiving and naming, and then proceed
to believing and proposing. Feeling and sensation, involving believing
or judging, come before conception and language. As conceptions are
not always present in judgment, as they are only occasional
conditions, and as they are unfitted to cause beliefs or judgments,
and especially judgments of existence, and as judgments both precede
conceptions in sense and continue after them in inference, it follows
that conceptions are not the constituents of judgment, and judgment is
not a combination of conceptions. Is there then any analysis of
judgment? Paradoxical as it may sound, the truth seems to be that
primary judgment, beginning as it does with the simplest feeling and
sensation, is not a combination of two mental elements into one, but
is a division of one sensible thing into the thing itself and its
existence and the belief that it is determined as existing, e.g. that
hot exists, cold exists, the pained exists, the pleased exists. Such a
judgment has a cause, namely sense, but no mental elements.
Afterwards come judgments of complex sense, e.g. that the existing hot
is burning or becoming more or less hot, &c. Thus there is a
combination of sensations causing the judgment; but the judgment is
still a division of the sensible thing into itself and its being, and
a belief that it is so determined. Afterwards follow judgments arising
from more complex causes, e.g. memory, experience, inference. But
however complicated these mental causes, there still remain these
points common to all judgment:--(1) The mental causes of judgment are
sense, memory, experience and inference; while conception is a
condition of some judgments. (2) A judgment is not a combination
either of its causes or of its conditions, e.g. it is not a
combination of sensations any more than of ideas. (3) A judgment is a
unitary mental act, dividing not itself but its object into the object
itself and itself as determined, and signifying that it is so
determined. (4) A primary judgment is a judgment that a sensible thing
is determined as existing; but later judgments are concerned with
either existing things, or with ideas, or with words, and signify that
they are determined in all sorts of ways. (5) When a judgment is
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