concepts. The intuitions of sense being, according to Kant's theory of perception, immediate representations of objects, the judgment is thus the mediate cognition of an object, or the representation of a representation.2

In a psychological point of view, the Kantian definition of Judgment is too narrow; as it virtually denies that any act of Judgment whatever is performed in the exercise of the intuitive fuculties; a denial which the author repeats still more explicitly in other passages. In a logical point of view, it is too wide; the province of Judgment being made coëxtensive with the whole of Thought, including, therefore, under it, Conception or Simple Apprehension. Every concept, according to Kant, is the predicate of a possible judgment, in which it may be affirmed of any of the objects of intuition included within its sphere. He might have gone further, and said that, in all positive thinking, the possible judgment becomes an actual one. But it is a psychological, not a logical judgment. It

1 "Wir können alle Handlungen des Verstandes auf Urtheile zurückführen, so dass der Verstand überhaupt als ein Vermögen zu urtheilen vorgestellt werden kann. Denn er ist nach dem Obigen ein Vermögen zu denken. Denken ist das Erkenntniss durch Begriffe. Begriffe aber beziehen sich, als Prädicate möglicher Urtheile, auf irgend eine Vorstellung von einem noch unbestimmten Gegenstande."— Kritik der r. V. p. 70, ed. Rosenkranz.

2 "Da keine Vorstellung unmittelbar auf den Gegenstand geht, als blos die Anschauung, so wird ein Begriff niemals auf einen Gegenstand unmittelbar, sondern auf irgend eine andre Vorstellung von demselben (sie sey Anschauung oder selbst schon Begriff) bezogen. Das Urtheil ist also die mittelbare Erkenntniss eines Gegenstandes, mithin die Vorstellung einer Vorstellung desselben."- Kritik der r. V. p. 69.

3" Wahrheit oder Schein sind nicht im Gegenstande, so ferne er angeschaut wird, sondern im Urtheile über denselben, so ferne er gedacht wird. Man kann also zwar richtig sagen: dass die Sinne nicht irren, aber nicht darum, weil sie jederzeit richtig urtheilen, sondern weil sie gar nicht urtheilen."- Kritik der r. V. p. 238.

affirms only the mental existence of the object, as now present in thought; and the affirmation is necessarily true, whatever be the nature of the object. To make the doctrine of Kant consistent, the province assigned to Judg ment must be either extended or contracted. It must either be extended, to denote every consciousness of a relation between subject and object, i. e., to every operation of mind, or it must be contracted, to denote the consciousness of a relation between two objects of thought; in which case it does not extend beyond the logical judgment by means of, at least, two concepts.

Having thus pointed out the distinction of Thought from other mental acts, and its various subdivisions relatively to Logic, I shall proceed to offer a few observations on the nature of Law, in so far as that term is applicable to a conscious subject.

CHAPTER III.

ON LAW, AS RELATED TO THOUGHT AND OTHER OBJECTS.

THE following passage from Archbishop Whately's Logic may serve as an appropriate introduction to this part of our subject. "What may be called a mathematical impossibility, is that which involves an absurdity and selfcontradiction; e. g., that two straight lines should inclose a space, is not only impossible, but inconceivable, as it would be at variance with the definition of a straight line. And it should be observed, that inability to accomplish anything which is, in this sense, impossible, implies no limitation of power, and is compatible even with omnipotence, in the fullest sense of the word. If it be proposed, e. g., to construct a triangle having one of its sides equal to the other two, or to find two numbers having the same ratio to each other as the side of a square and its diameter, it is not from a defect of power that we are precluded from solving such a problem as these; since, in fact, the problem is in itself unmeaning and absurd: it is, in reality, nothing that is required to be done."1

Substantially, perhaps, this is not far from the truth. But it may be stated in a more satisfactory form by divesting it of a hypothesis which, even if true (and this we have no

1 Whately's Logic, p. 353. (Sixth edition.)

means of ascertaining), may for the present purpose be dispensed with."

When anything is said to be inconceivable, it is thereby acknowledged that the human mind is not altogether unrestricted in its operations. It is bounded not only as regards the sphere of objects of which it is permitted to take cognizance, but also as regards the manner in which it is capable of thinking about objects within that sphere. In other words, there are laws under which the mind is compelled to think, and which it cannot transgress, otherwise than negatively, by ceasing to think at all.

The existence, then, of laws of thought is a fact of which our every-day consciousness assures us. Necessity, of whatsoever kind, implies a necessary agent; that is, an agent acting under a law. If, then, any question can be proposed to the mind of man which he feels himself compelled to decide in one way only, that compulsion is at once an evidence of the existence of laws which, as a thinker, he is compelled to obey.

And this admission is all that is required for the solution of such difficulties as that suggested above. If our whole thinking is subject to certain laws, it follows that we cannot think of any object, not even of omnipotence itself, except as those laws compel us. The limitation does not lie in the object of which we think, but in the thinking subject. "Whatsoever we imagine," says Hobbes, "is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an

1 In venturing to criticize this note, one of the most valuable portions of the Archbishop's work, I beg to state, that it is to the wording only of the first part that my remarks are intended to apply. With the just and philosophical distinction laid down in the same place between the three senses of the word impossibility, I have only to express full concurrence.

1

image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When we say anything is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the things named; having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability."1

But

It may be, indeed, that the conditions of possible thought correspond to conditions of possible being, that what is to us inconceivable is in itself non-existent. of this, from the nature of the case, it is impossible to have any evidence. If man, as a thinker, is subject to necessary laws, he cannot examine the absolute validity of the laws themselves, except by assuming the whole question at issue. For such examination must itself be conducted in subordination to the same conditions. Whatever weakness, therefore, there may be in the object of criticism, the same must necessarily affect the critical process itself.

We may indeed believe, and ought to believe, that the powers which our Creator has bestowed upon us are not given as the instruments of deception. We may believe, and ought to believe, that, intellectually no less than morally, the present life is a state of discipline and preparation

1 Leviathan, i. 3. (p. 17, ed. Molesworth.) This opinion of Hobbes has been severely censured by Cudworth, Intellectual System, B. I. ch. v. § 1, who, however, mistakes the meaning of the assertion, both in what it expresses and in what it implies. The error of Cudworth in this respect has been corrected by his learned translator, Mosheim, who, though no friend to Hobbes's views in general, admits that in this particular his doctrine is not liable to the objections urged against it. See Harrison's edition of Cudworth, vol. ii. p. 522.

2 In itself, distinguished from, as an object of thought. As the latter, it is of course impossible. The distinction between things per se and things as objects of thought, will be familiar to every reader of Kant. It is, in fact, the cardinal point of the whole Critical Philosophy.