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science with unnecessary and perplexing distinctions. It will be sufficient to refer them to the single faculty of thought or reflection, the operation of which is, in all cases, comparison. The unit of thought is always a judgment, based on a comparison of objects; and the several operations of thought are, in ultimate analysis, nothing more than judgments derived from different data. In order to exhibit this in special instances, it will be convenient to adopt provisionally the logical classification, and to examine the phenomena of thought under the several heads of Conception, Judgment, and Reasoning.' (Mansel, Metaphysics, pp. 176-7, ed. 1871, New York.)

180. "In a psychological point of view, to enumerate separate mental faculties, as giving rise to the various products of thought, is, to say the least, to encumber the science with unnecessary and perplexing distinctions. It will be sufficient to refer them to the single faculty of Thought, the operation of which is in all cases Comparison (see Hamilton, Lect. on Metaphysics, Lect. xxxiv.). But the faculty of Thought, though uniform in its own nature and in the manner of its operation, may yet give rise to different products, according to the diversity of the materials upon which it operates; and this difference forms the basis of the classification usually adopted in Logic. Extending the terms Apprehension and Judgment beyond the region of Thought proper (into Psychology), it may be laid down, as a general canon of Psy

chology, that the unit of consciousness is a judgment; in other words, that every act of consciousness, intuitive or discursive, is comprised in a conviction of the presence of its object, either internally in the mind or externally in space. The result of every such act must thus be generally stated in the proposition, "This is here." Consequently, at least with reference to the primary and spontaneous, as distinguished from the secondary and reflex acts of consciousness, it is more correct to describe Apprehension as the analysis of Judgments, than Judgment as the synthesis of Apprehensions. In a psychological point of view, therefore, it is incorrect to describe Simple Apprehension as the first operation of the mind. In one sense, indeed, the relation of prior and posterior is altogether out of place: Chronologically, inasmuch as every Apprehension is simultaneous with a Judgment, and every Judgment with an Apprehension; and logically, inasmuch as Judgment cannot exist without Apprehension, nor Apprehension without Judgment. In another sense, however, we may properly say that Judgment is prior to Apprehension; meaning that the subject and the object are first given in their mutual relation to each other, before either of them can itself become a separate object of attention. But when a corresponding division is adopted of the operation of Thought, properly so called, the same order of priority cannot be observed. Every operation of thought is a judgment, in the psychological

sense of the term; but the psychological judgment must not be confounded with the logical. The former is the judgment of a relation between the conscious subject and the immediate object of consciousness; the latter is the judgment of a relation which two objects of thought bear to each other. The former cannot be distinguished as true or false, inasmuch as the object is thereby only judged to be present at the moment when we are conscious of it as affecting us in a certain manner; and this consciousness is necessarily true. The latter is true or false according as the relations thought as existing between certain concepts are actually found in the objects represented by those concepts or not. The logical judgment necessarily contains two concepts (products of thought), and hence must be regarded as logically and chronologically posterior to the conception (act of thought), which requires one only. The psychological judgment is coeval with the first act of consciousness, and is implied in every mental process, whether of intuition or of thought. It cannot, therefore, be called prior or posterior to any other mental operation, for there is no mental operation in which it does not take place; but the judgments of intuition are logically and chronologically prior to the judgments of thought. Conception is a psychological judgment, but not a logical one, and is properly ranked as the first operation of Thought, inasmuch as it is the simplest.

Conceiving has been already explained as the individualizing of certain attributes compre

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hended in a general notion and expressed in a general term; the representation, namely, of such attributes as coëxisting in a possible object of intuition. Language is, in its earliest operations, a sign, not of concepts, but of intuitions. Its earliest terms are employed as the proper names of individual objects. Conception does not take place till after we have learned to give the same name to various individuals presented to us with certain differences of attributes, and hence we associate it with a portion only, not with the whole, of what is presented in each. This may be distinguished as Abstraction, a spontaneous, though not always a voluntary act, the concentration of the mind on certain portions only of a given object in relation to its name. This must not be treated. . as a conscious process of thought, being only a preliminary condition to thinking, taking place in the majority of cases unconsciously, during the gradual acquisition of speech. Our names thus gradually acquire a signification, being transformed from proper names to appellatives. Finally, the act of conception consists in contemplating the attributes thus combined in the signification of a name as coëxisting, along with individual features, in a possible object of intuition, and hence, apart from the individual features, as indifferently representing all such objects. This representative collection of attributes, combined by means of a sign, is a Concept.

As in

Conception a single general notion is considered in its relation to a possible object of intuition,

so in Judgment two such notions are considered as related to a common object. When I assert that A is B, I do not mean that the attributes constituting the concept A are identical with those constituting the concept B,-for this is only true in identical judgments,-but that the object in which the one set of attributes is found is the same as that in which the other set is found. . The common language and common thought of mankind assume, whether they explain it or not, that a certain smell and color and form, which are distinct attributes, are in some way related, as parts or qualities, to some one thing which we call a rose; and that, when I assert that the rose is fragrant, I imply that the thing which affects in a certain way my power of sight is in some manner identical (Identity) with that which affects in a certain way my power of smell. Reasoning is the most complex of the three operations, as in it two concepts are determined to be in a certain manner related to each other, through the medium of their mutual relations to a third concept. This operation is therefore treated last in order. The several relations asserted in the premises and deduced in the conclusion, are of the same nature as those implied in Judgment. It will be sufficient to attempt. a definition of the products of the several acts of Thought, the Concept, the Judgment, and the Syllogism, the legitimate objects of Formal Logic. 1. A Concept is a collection of attributes, united by a sign, and representing a possible object of intui

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