He sets out with the correct observation that the first judgments which we make are all positive in character. These judgments are evident and made with full confidence. “Now, however,” he continues, “our thought goes out beyond the given; by the aid of recollections and associations, judgments arise which are at first also formed in the belief that they express reality” (which means, according to other expressions of Sigwart, that the ideas are combined with the consciousness of objective validity; for this (xiv. p. 98) belongs to the essence of the judgment) “as, for example, when we expect to find something with which we are acquainted in its usual place or pre-suppose respecting a flower that it smells. Now, however, a part of what is thus supposed _contradicts_ our immediate knowledge.” (We leave Sigwart to show here how we are able to recognize anything as “contradictory” when we are not as yet in possession of negative judgments and negative notions. The difficulty becomes still more sharply apparent as he proceeds:) “when we do _not find_ what we expected, we become conscious of the _difference_ between what exists _merely_ in idea and what is real.” (What does “not find” mean here? I had not found it previously; obviously I now find that what was erroneously supposed to be associated with another object is _without_ it, and this I can only do by recognizing the one and denying the other, i.e. recognize it as _not_ being with it. Further what is meant here by “difference”? To recognize difference means to recognize that of two things the one is _not_ the other. What is meant by existing “merely in idea”? Manifestly, “what exists in idea which is _not_ at the same time also real.” It would seem, however, that Sigwart is still unaware that in what he is describing the negative function of the judgment is already more than once involved. He continues:) “That of which we are immediately certain is _another_ than that” (i.e. it is not the same, it is indeed absolutely incompatible with that) “which we have judged in anticipation, and now” (i.e. after and since we have already passed all these negative judgments) “appears the negation which annuls the supposition and denies of it validity. _And here a new attitude is involved in so far as the subjective combination is separated from the consciousness of certainty._ The subjective combination is compared with one bearing the stamp of certainty, its distinction therefrom recognized, and out of this arises the notion of invalidity.” This last would almost seem to be a carelessness of expression, for if invalid were to mean as much as “false” and not “uncertain” it could not be derived from the distinction between a combination with and a combination without certainty, but only from the opposition existing between combination which is denied and one which is affirmed. As a matter of fact, the opposite affirmative judgment is not at all necessary to it.