Such an influence, however, the treatise has not exercised. The earlier views still hold unbroken sway even to-day, and although the appearance of the monograph in a new edition bears testimony to a certain interest in wider circles, this is manifestly not due to the circumstance that the work was believed to have thrown light upon old doubts and errors. Darwin’s epoch-making work, quite apart from the truth of its hypothesis, had, even for its opponents, an indisputable worth; the wealth of important observations and ingenious combinations every one had to acknowledge with admiration. So also in the case of Miklosich, who has compressed into a few pages a rich store of learning and interspersed the most subtle observations. Many who have withheld their assent to his principal thesis may still feel indebted to him for many points of detail. Here, however, we wish chiefly to consider the main problem and, very briefly, to make ourselves clear respecting that with which it really deals. It is an old assertion of logic that the judgment consists essentially in a binding or separating, in a relation of ideas to one another. This view, almost unanimously maintained for two thousand years, has exercised an influence upon other disciplines. And so we find grammarians from very early times teaching that no more simple form of expression in the case of the judgment exists, or can exist, than the categorical, which combines a subject with a predicate. That the carrying out of this doctrine brings with it difficulties could not, of course, be permanently concealed. Propositions like: it rains, it lightens, appear as though they had no wish to conform to this view. Yet none the less the majority of inquirers were so firmly convinced, that in such cases they felt compelled, not so much to doubt the universal validity of their theory as rather to search for the subjects, which in their view were only apparently missing. Many really believed themselves to be in possession of the same. Now, however, in marked contrast to the unity which had hitherto prevailed, they branched off in the most varied directions. And if we examine somewhat closely and in detail the various attempts at an explanation, we shall easily be able to understand, why none of these were able to give permanent satisfaction, or even for a time to bring about unanimity. Science explains by reason of its comprehending a multiplicity as a unity. Here also, of course, every effort has been made to accomplish this, but every attempt has proved futile. When we say: it rains, many have supposed that the unnamed subject denoted by the indefinite “it” is “Zeus”: Zeus rains. But when we say: “es rauscht,” it is obvious that Zeus cannot be the subject. Others again have thought that the subject is here “das Rauschen”; consequently the meaning of the proposition would be: “das Rauschen rauscht.” The previous example they also completed in the same manner: “Raining, (or the rain) rains.”