contrary, observing the object in the specific character imposed by its notion. 167.] The Judgment is usually taken in a subjective sense as an operation and a form, occurring merely in self-conscious thought. This distinction, however, has no existence on purely logical principles, by which the judgment is taken in the quite universal signification that all things are a judgment. That is to say, they are individuals, which are a universality or inner nature in themselves,--a universal which is individualised. Their universality and individuality are distinguished, but the one is at the same time identical with the other. The interpretation of the judgment, according to which it is assumed to be merely subjective, as if _we_ ascribed a predicate to a subject, is contradicted by the decidedly objective expression of the judgment. The rose _is_ red; Gold _is_ a metal. It is not by us that something is first ascribed to them.--A judgment is however distinguished from a proposition. The latter contains a statement about the subject, which does not stand to it in any universal relationship, but expresses some single action, or some state, or the like. Thus, 'Caesar was born at Rome in such and such a year, waged war in Gaul for ten years, crossed the Rubicon, &c.,' are propositions, but not judgments. Again it is absurd to say that such statements as, 'I slept well last night,' or 'Present arms!' may be turned into the form of a judgment. 'A carriage is passing by'--would be a judgment, and a subjective one at best, only if it were doubtful, whether the passing object was a carriage, or whether it and not rather the point of observation was in motion:--in short, only if it were desired to specify a conception which was still short of appropriate specification. 168.] The judgment is an expression of finitude. Things from its point of view are said to be finite, because they are a judgment, because their definite being and their universal nature, (their body and their soul,) though united indeed (otherwise the things would be nothing), are still elements in the constitution which are already different and also in any case separable. 169.] The abstract terms of the judgment, 'The individual is the universal,' present the subject (as negatively self-relating) as what is immediately _concrete,_ while the predicate is what is _abstract,_ indeterminate, in short, the universal. But the two elements are connected together by an 'is': and thus the predicate (in its universality) must also contain the speciality of the subject, must, in short, have particularity: and so is realised the identity between subject and predicate; which, being thus unaffected by this difference in form, is the content.