characteristics is implied to be directly object of thought.[16] Thus both perceiving and thinking presuppose that the reality to which they relate is directly object of the mind, and that the character of it which we apprehend in the resulting judgement is not affected or altered by the fact that we have had to perceive or conceive the reality.[17] [15] Cf. Bosanquet, _Logic_, vol. ii, p. 2. [16] In saying that a universal judgement is an immediate apprehension of fact, it is of course not meant that it can be actualized by itself or, so to say, _in vacuo_. Its actualization obviously presupposes the presentation of individuals in perception or imagination. Perception or imagination thus forms the necessary occasion of a universal judgement, and in that sense mediates it. Moreover, the universal judgement implies an act of abstraction by which we specially attend to those universal characters of the individuals perceived or imagined, which enter into the judgement. But, though our apprehension of a universal connexion thus implies a process, and is therefore mediated, yet the connexion, when we apprehend it, is immediately our object. There is nothing between it and us. [17] For a fuller discussion of the subject see Chh. IV and VI. Kant in the formulation of his problem implicitly admits this presupposition in the case of perception. He implies that empirical judgements involve no difficulty, because they rest upon the perception or experience of the objects to which they relate. On the other hand, he does not admit the presupposition in the case of conception, for he implies that in _a priori_ judgements we are not confronted with reality but are confined to our own ideas. Hence we ought to ask why Kant is led to adopt an attitude in the latter case which he does not adopt in the former. The answer appears to be twofold. In the first place, there is an inveterate tendency to think of universals, and therefore of the connexions between them, as being not objective realities[18] but mere ideas. In other words, we tend to adopt the conceptualist attitude, which regards individuals as the only reality, and universals as mental fictions. In consequence, we are apt to think that while in perception, which is of the individual, we are confronted by reality, in universal judgements, in which we apprehend connexions between universals, we have before us mere ideas. Kant may fairly be supposed to have been unconsciously under the influence of this tendency. In the second place, we apprehend a universal connexion by the operation of thinking. Thinking is essentially an activity; and since activity in the ordinary sense in which we oppose action to knowledge originates something, we tend to think of the activity of thinking as also originating something, viz. that which is our object when we think. Hence, since we think of what