CHAPTER I.

OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL.

JUDGING is an operation of the mind so familiar to every man who hath understanding, and its name is so common and so well understood, that it needs no definition.

As it is impossible by a definition to give a notion of colour to a man who never saw colours; so it is impossible by any definition to give a distinct notion of judgment to a man who has not often judged, and who is not capable of reflecting attentively upon this act of his mind. The best use of a definition is to prompt him to that reflection; and without it the best definition will be apt to mislead him.

The definition commonly given of judgment, by the more ancient writers in logic, was, that it is an act of the mind, wherely one thing is affirmed or denied of another. I believe this is as good a definition of it as can be given. Why I prefer it to some later definitions, will afterwards appear. Without pretending to give any other, I shall make two remarks upon it, and then offer some general observations on this subject. [498]

1. It is true that it is by affirmation or denial that we express our judgments; but there may be judgment which is not expressed. It is a solitary act of the mind, and the expression of it by affirmation or denial is not at all essential to it. It may be tacit, and not expressed. Nay, it is well known that men may judge contrary to what they affirm or deny; the definition therefore must be understood of mental affirmation or denial, which indeed is only another name for judgment.

2. Affirmation and denial is very often the expression of testimony, which is a different act of the mind, and ought to be distinguished from judgment.

A judge asks of a witness what he knows of such a matter to which he was an eye or ear-witness. He answers, by affirming or denying something. But his answer does not express his judgment; it is his testimony. Again, I ask a man his opinion in a matter of science or of criticism. His answer is not testimony; it is the expression of his judgment.

Testimony is a social act, and it is essen

tial to it to be expressed by words or signs. A tacit testimony is a contradiction: but there is no contradiction in a tacit judgment; it is complete without being expressed.

In testimony a man pledges his veracity for what he affirms; so that a false testimony is a lie: but a wrong judgment is not a lie; it is only an error.

I believe, in all languages, testimony and judgment are expressed by the same form of speech. A proposition affirmative or negative, with a verb in what is called the indicative mood, expresses both. To distinguish them by the form of speech, it would be necessary that verbs should have two indicative moods, one for testimony, and another to express judgment. [499] I know not that this is found in any language. And the reason is-not surely that the vulgar cannot distinguish the two, for every man knows the difference between a lie and an error of judgment-but that, from the matter and circumstances, we can easily see whether a man intends to give his testimony, or barely to express his judgment.

Although men must have judged in many cases before tribunals of justice were erected, yet it is very probable that there were tribunals before men began to speculate about judgment, and that the word may be borrowed from the practice of tribunals. As a judge, after taking the proper evidence, passes sentence in a cause, and that sentence is called his judgment, so the mind, with regard to whatever is true or false, passes sentence, or determines according to the evidence that appears. Some kinds of evidence leave no room for doubt. Sentence is passed immediately, without seeking or hearing any contrary evidence, because the thing is certain and notorious. In other cases, there is room for weighing evidence on both sides, before sentence is passed. The analogy between a tribunal of justice, and this inward tribunal of the mind, is too obvious to escape the notice of any man who ever appeared before a judge. And it is probable that the word judgment, as well as many other words we use in speaking of this operation of mind, are grounded on this analogy.

Having premised these things, that it may be clearly understood what I mean by judgment, I proceed to make some general observations concerning it.

First, Judgment is an act of the mind, specifically different from simple apprehension, or the bare conception of a thing." It would be unnecessary to observe this, if some philosophers had not been led by their theories to a contrary opinion. [500]

Although there can be no judgment without a conception of the things about which we judge, yet conception may be without any judgment. Judgment can be expressed by a proposition only, and a proposition is a complete sentence; but simple apprehension may be expressed by a word or words, which make no complete sentence. When simple apprehension is employed about a proposition, every man knows that it is one thing to apprehend a proposition-that is, to conceive what it means-but it is quite another thing to judge it to be true or false. It is self-evident that every judgment must be either true or false, but simple apprehension, or conception, can neither be true nor false, as was shewn before.

One judgment may be contradictory to another; and it is impossible for a man to have two judgments at the same time, which he perceives to be contradictory. But contradictory propositions may be conceived at the same time without any difficulty. That the sun is greater than the earth, and that the sun is not greater than the earth, are contradictory propositions. He that apprehends the meaning of one, apprehends the meaning of both. But it is impossible for him to judge both to be true at the same time. He knows that, if the one is true, the other must be false. For these reasons, I hold it to be certain that judgment and simple apprehension are acts of the mind specifically different.

Secondly, There are notions or ideas that ought to be referred to the faculty of judgment as their source; because, if we had not that faculty, they could not enter into our minds; and to those that have that faculty, and are capable of reflecting upon its operations, they are obvious and familiar. Among these we may reckon the notion of judgment itself; the notions of a proposition of its subject, predicate, and copula; of affirmation and negation, of true and false; of knowledge, belief, disbelief, opinion, assent, evidence. From no source could we acquire these notions, but from reflecting upon our judgments. Relations of things make one great class of our notions or ideas; and we cannot have the idea of any relation without some exercise of judgment, as will appear afterwards. [501] Thirdly, In persons come to years of

*Which, however, implies a judgment affirming its subjective reality-an existential judgment.-H. See last note, and above, p. 243, a, note *, and p. 75, a, note t.-H.

See above, p. 377, b, note.-H

understanding, judgment necessarily accompanies all sensation, perception by the senses, consciousness, and memory, but not conception.*

I restrict this to persons come to the years of understanding, because it may be a question, whether infants, in the first period of life, have any judgment or belief at all. The same question may be put with regard to brutes and some idiots. This question is foreign to the present subject; and I say nothing here about it, but speak only of persons who have the exercise of judgment.

In them it is evident that a man who feels pain, judges and believes that he is really pained. The man who perceives an object, believes that it exists, and is what he distinctly perceives it to be; nor is it in his power to avoid such judgment. And the like may be said of memory, and of consciousness. Whether judgment ought to be called a necessary concomitant of these operations, or rather a part or ingredient of them, I do not dispute; but it is certain that all of them are accompanied with a determination that something is true or false, and a consequent belief. this determination be not judgment, it is an operation that has got no name; for it is not simple apprehension, neither is it reasoning; it is a mental affirmation or negation; it may be expressed by a propo sition affirmative or negative, and it is accompanied with the firmest belief. These are the characteristics of judgment; and I must call it judgment, till I can find another name to it.

If

The judgments we form are either of things necessary, or of things contingent. That three times three is nine, that the whole is greater than a part, are judgments about things necessary. [502] Our assent to such necessary propositions is not grounded upon any operation of sense, of memory, or of consciousness, nor does it require their concurrence; it is unaccompanied by any other operation but that of conception, which must accompany all judg ment; we may therefore call this judgment of things necessary pure judgment. Our judgment of things contingent must always rest upon some other operation of the mind, such as sense, or memory, or consciousness, or credit in testimony, which is itself grounded upon sense.

That I now write upon a table covered with green cloth, is a contingent event, which I judge to be most undoubtedly true. My judgment is grounded upon my perception, and is a necessary concomitant or ingredient of my perception. That I dined

* In so far as there can be Consciousness, there must be Judgment.-H.

with such a company yesterday, I judge to be true, because I remember it; and my judgment necessarily goes along with this remembrance, or makes a part of it.

There are many forms of speech in common language which shew that the senses, memory and consciousness, are considered as judging faculties. We say that a man judges of colours by his eye, of sounds by his ear. We speak of the evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, the evidence of consciousness. Evidence is the ground of judgment; and when we see evidence, it is impossible not to judge.

When we speak of seeing or remembering anything, we, indeed, hardly ever add that we judge it to be true. But the reason of this appears to be, that such an addition would be mere superfluity of speech, because every one knows that what I see or remember, I must judge to be true, and cannot do otherwise.

And, for the same reason, in speaking of anything that is self-evident or strictly demonstrated, we do not say that we judge it to be true. This would be superfluity of speech, because every man knows that we must judge that to be true which we hold self-evident or demonstrated. [503]

When you say you saw such a thing, or that you distinctly remember it, or when you say of any proposition that it is selfevident, or strictly demonstrated, it would be ridiculous after this to ask whether you judge it to be true; nor would it be less ridiculous in you to inform us that you do. It would be a superfluity of speech of the same kind as if, not content with saying that you saw such an object, you should add that you saw it with your eyes.

There is, therefore, good reason why, in speaking or writing, judgment should not be expressly mentioned, when all men know it to be necessarily implied; that is, when there can be no doubt. In such cases, we barely mention the evidence. But when the evidence mentioned leaves room for doubt, then, without any superfluity or tautology, we say we judge the thing to be so, because this is not implied in what was said before. A woman with child never says, that, going such a journey, she carried her child along with her. We know that, while it is in her womb, she must carry it along with her. There are some operations of mind that may be said to carry judgment in their womb, and can no more leave it behind them than the pregnant woman can leave her child. Therefore, in speaking of such operations, it is not expressed.

Perhaps this manner of speaking may have led philosophers into the opinion that, in perception by the senses, in memory, and in consciousness, there is no judgment at all. Because it is not mentioned in

speaking of these faculties, they conclude that it does not accompany them; that they are only different modes of simple apprehension, or of acquiring ideas; and that it is no part of their office to judge. [504]

I apprehend the same cause has led Mr Locke into a notion of judgment which I take to be peculiar to him. He thinks that the mind has two faculties conversant about truth and falsehood. First, knowledge; and, secondly, judgment. In the first, the perception of the agreement or disagreement of the ideas is certain. In the second, it is not certain, but probable only.

According to this notion of judgment, it is not by judgment that I perceive that two and three make five; it is by the faculty of knowledge. I apprehend there can be no knowledge without judgment, though there may be judgment without that certainty which we commonly call knowledge.

Mr Locke, in another place of his Essay, tells us, "That the notice we have by our senses of the existence of things without us, though not altogether so certain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our reason about abstract ideas, yet is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge." I think, by this account of it, and by his definitions before given of knowledge and judgment, it deserves as well the name of judgment.

That I may avoid disputes about the meaning of words, I wish the reader to understand, that I give the name of judgment to every determination of the mind concerning what is true or what is false. This, I think, is what logicians, from the days of Aristotle, have called judgment. Whether it be called one faculty, as I think it has always been, or whether a philosopher chooses to split it into two, seems not very material. And, if it be granted that, by our senses, our memory, and consciousness, we not only have ideas or simple apprehensions, but form determinations concerning what is true and what is false-whether these determinations ought to be called knowledge or judgment, is of small moment. [505]

The judgments grounded upon the evidence of sense, of memory, and of consciousness, put all men upon a level. The philosopher, with regard to these, has no prerogative above the illiterate, or even above the savage.

Their reliance upon the testimony of these faculties is as firm and as well grounded as his. His superiority is in judgments of another kind-in judgments about things abstract and necessary. And he is unwilling to give the name of judgment to that wherein the most ignorant and unimproved of the species are his equals.

Our judgments of this kind are purely the gift of Nature, nor do they admit of improvement by culture. The memory of one man may be more tenacious than that of another; but both rely with equal assurance upon what they distinctly remember. One man's sight may be more acute, or his feeling more delicate, than that of another; but both give equal credit to the distinct testimony of their sight and touch.

And, as we have this belief by the constitution of our nature, without any effort of our own, so no effort of ours can overturn it.

The sceptic may perhaps persuade himself, in general, that he has no ground to believe his senses or his memory: but, in particular cases that are interesting, his disbelief vanishes, and he finds himself under a necessity of believing both. [506] These judgments may, in the strictest sense, be called judgments of nature. Nature has subjected us to them, whether we will or not. They are neither got, nor can they be lost by any use or abuse of our faculties; and it is evidently necessary for our preservation that it should be so. For, if belief in our senses and in our memory were to be learned by culture, the race of men would perish before they learned this lesson. It is necessary to all men for their being and preservation, and therefore is unconditionally given to all men by the Author of Nature.

I acknowledge that, if we were to rest in those judgments of Nature of which we now speak, without building others upon them, they would not entitle us to the denomination of reasonable beings. But yet they ought not to be despised, for they are the foundation upon which the grand superstructure of human knowledge must be raised. And, as in other superstructures the foundation is commonly overlooked, so it has been in this. The more sublime attainments of the human mind have attracted the attention of philosophers, while they have bestowed but a careless glance upon the humble foundation on which the whole fabric rests.

A fourth observation is, that some exercise of judgment is necessary in the formation of all abstract and general conceptions, whether more simple or more complex; in dividing, in defining, and, in general, in forming all clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are the only fit materials of reasoning.

That I may not be mistaken, it may be observed that I do not say that abstract notions, or other accurate notions of things, after they have been formed, cannot be barely conceived without any exercise of judgment about them. I doubt not that they may : but what I say is, that, in their formation in the mind at first, there must be some exercise of judgment. [507]

It is impossible to distinguish the different attributes belonging to the same subject, without judging that they are really different and distinguishable, and that they have that relation to the subject which logicians express, by saying that they may be predicated of it. We cannot generalise, without judging that the same attribute does or may belong to many individuals. It has been shewn that our simplest general notions are formed by these two operations of distinguishing and generalising; judgment therefore is exercised in forming the simplest general notions.

In those that are more complex, and which have been shewn to be formed by combining the more simple, there is another act of the judgment required; for such combinations are not made at random, but for an end; and judgment is employed in fitting them to that end. We form complex general notions for conveniency of arranging our thoughts in discourse and reasoning; and, therefore, of an infinite number of combinations that might be formed, we choose only those that are useful and necessary.

That judgment must be employed in dividing as well as in distinguishing, appears evident. It is one thing to divide a subject properly, another to cut it in pieces. Hoc non est dividere, sed frangere rem, said Cicero, when he censured an improper division of Epicurus. Reason has discovered rules of division, which have been known to logicians more than two thousand years.

There are rules likewise of definition of no less antiquity and authority. A man may no doubt divide or define properly without attending to the rules, or even without knowing them. But this can only be when he has judgment to perceive that to be right in a particular case, which the rule determines to be right in all cases.

I add in general, that, without some degree of judgment, we can form no accurate and distinct notions of things; so that one province of judgment is, to aid us in forming clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are the only fit materials for reasoning. [508]