All that is mental is our apprehension of their connexion. Again, in judgement we cannot be said to _relate_ predicate to subject. Such an assertion would mean either that we relate a conception to a conception, or a conception to a reality[42], or a reality to a reality; and, on any of these interpretations, it is plainly false. To retain the language of 'relation' or of 'combination' at all, we must say that in judgement we recognize real elements as related or combined. Again, when we infer, we do not construct, ideally or otherwise. 'Ideal construction'[43] is a contradiction in terms, unless it refers solely to mental imagining, in which case it is not inference. Construction which is not 'ideal', i. e. literal construction, plainly cannot constitute the nature of inference; for inference would cease to be inference, if by it we made, and did not apprehend, a necessity of connexion. Again, the phrase '2 and 2 _make_ 4' does not justify the view that in some sense we 'make' reality. It of course suggests that 2 and 2 are not 4 until they are added, i. e. that the addition makes them 4.[44] But the language is only appropriate when we are literally making a group of 4 by physically placing 2 pairs of bodies in one group. Where we are counting, we should say merely that 2 and 2 _are_ 4. Lastly, it must be allowed that the use of the phrase 'putting two and two together', to describe an inference from facts not quite obviously connected, is loose and inexact. If we meet a dog with a blood-stained mouth and shortly afterwards see a dead fowl, we may be said to put two and two together and to conclude thereby that the dog killed the fowl. But, strictly speaking, in drawing the inference we do not put anything together. We certainly do not put together the facts that the mouth of the dog is blood-stained and that the fowl has just been killed. We do not even put the premises together, i. e. our apprehensions of these facts. What takes place should be described by saying simply that seeing that the fowl is killed, we also remember that the dog's mouth was stained, and then apprehend a connexion between these facts. [41] Cf. Caird, i. 394, where Dr. Caird speaks of 'the distinction of the activity of thought from the matter which it _combines or recognizes as combined_ in the idea of an object'. (The italics are mine.) The context seems to indicate that the phrase is meant to express the truth, and not merely Kant's view. [42] Cf. the account of judgement in Mr. Bradley's _Logic_. [43] Cf. the account of inference in Mr. Bradley's _Logic_. [44] Cf. Bradley, _Logic_, pp. 370 and 506.