come to be supposed that the only difference between perception and
imagination, by which they can be defined, must be a merely psychical
difference: and, if this were the case, it would follow at once that
to _be_ true was identical with being cognised in a certain way; since
the assertion that a thing is perceived does certainly _include_ the
assertion that it is true, and if, nevertheless, that it is perceived
means _only_ that the mind has a certain attitude towards it, then
its truth must be identical with the fact that it is regarded in this
way. We may, then, attribute the view that to be true _means_ to
be cognised in a certain way partly to the failure to perceive that
certain words, which are commonly supposed to stand for nothing more
than a certain kind of cognitive state, do, in fact, _also_ include a
reference to the truth of the object of such states.
=82.= I will now sum up my account of the apparent connections between
will and ethical propositions, which seem to support the vague
conviction that ‘This is good’ is somehow identical with ‘This is
willed in a certain way.’ (1) It may be maintained, with sufficient
show of truth, that it is only because certain things were originally
willed, that we ever came to have ethical convictions at all. And it
has been too commonly assumed that to shew what was the cause of a
thing is the same thing as to shew what the thing itself is. It is,
however, hardly necessary to point out that this is not the case. (2)
It may be further maintained, with some plausibility, that to think a
thing good and to will it in a certain way are _now_ as a matter of
fact identical. We must, however, distinguish certain possible meanings
of this assertion. It may be admitted that when we think a thing good,
we _generally_ have a special attitude of will or feeling towards it;
and that, perhaps, when we will it in a certain way, we do always think
it good. But the very fact that we can thus distinguish the question
whether, though the one is always accompanied by the other, yet this
other may not always be accompanied by the first, shews that the two
things are not, in the strict sense, identical. The fact is that,
whatever we mean by will, or by any form of will, the fact we mean by
it certainly always includes something else _beside_ the thinking a
thing good: and hence that, when willing and thinking good are asserted
to be identical, the most that can be meant is that this other element
in will always both accompanies and is accompanied by the thinking
good; and this, as has been said, is of very doubtful truth. Even,
however, if it were strictly true, the fact that the two things can be
distinguished is fatal to the assumed coordination between will and
cognition, in one of the senses in which that assumption is commonly
made. For it is only in respect of the _other_ element in will, that
volition differs from cognition; whereas it is only in respect of the
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