If Judgment consists in the extension of our perceptions by an interpretation considered as equally real with their content, it clearly is not confined to the particular facts and truths which from time to time we utter in language. And more than this, everything that we do definitely utter, implies a great deal which is not definitely uttered. If I say, “I have to catch the train at Sloane Square to go down to Essex Hall,” I only mention the reality of one train, one square, and one building. But my assertion shades off into innumerable facts, the equal reality of which as elements in my world is necessary to make this judgment intelligible and true. It implies the real existence of the underground railway, which implies that of London, and therefore that of the surface of our globe in a certain definite order, and of the civilised world. It implies the reality of this building and of the meetings which we hold in it, of the University {34} Extension system, and of my own life and habits as enabling me to take part in the work of that system. Only a part of this is in the focus of my attention as I judge; but the whole is a continuous context, the parts of which are inseparable; and although I do not affirm the whole of it in so many words, when I say that I am coming down here by train this evening, yet if any part of it was not affirmed the rest would, so to speak, fall to pieces, _i.e._ would lose relations in the absence of which its meaning would be destroyed. Other detached parts of one’s life and knowledge may seem to be separable from the content of such a judgment; but on looking closely we see that this is not the case. So long as we are awake, our whole world is conceived as real, and forms for us a single immense affirmation, which hangs from present perception, and shares its constraining power. My present perception is the illuminated spot, and shades off gradually into the rest which forms the background, receiving from this background its organised systematic individuality, while impressing upon it a relation to its own sensuous presentness. We have only to reflect, in order to illustrate this connection, on the way in which the idea of London forms a determining background for the present perception of this room, while on the other hand it is perceived by us as real in our presentation of this room.