Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/107

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

96 CRITICAL NOTICES : he singular in his indulgence of such an " attitude " or " bias ". One may point to the words of a philosopher no less profoundly influenced by the conception of Reality as " ideal construction " Dr. Hutchison Stirling who, in his Annotations to Schwegler's 7//.--/"/7/ <>f Pit ilottiipliij, says : ' Neither gods nor men are in very truth logical categories '. Such a deliberate conviction about the nature of Reality, though it may interfere with the triumphant march of an idealistic logic, is not to be simply set aside as " capricious" and deficient in " thoroughness". It is enunciated precisely on the ground that the thorough following out of the standpoint of Idealism does not yield Reality, but only its semblance, as result ; and in order to its refutation, this criticism of Idealism must be refuted. This is a task which Mr. Bosanquet does not contem- plate. He contents himself with proclaiming that the Real is simply the system of relations, the ideal completion of that pro- cess of Judgment which is its progressive definition. " The ideal assertion, which alone could have absolute strength, would be the predication of the whole content of the Real about itself as sub- ject " (p. 138). There is no difficulty, on this view of Reality, in giving a co- herent account of Judgment. The subject does not now fall outside the judgment, " except in ?//> .sr/w <.f tJ/f nn<' iiltininU' ,*>/!>- jvct, ri'nlit// <>r llir non-phenomenal /<'f, which all judgment is an attempt to define, and this falls within the judgment, in as far as the latter is true " (p. 187). The Judgment thus becomes a self- contained unity : " each part, though distinguished, is in the other ". Nor can Mr. Bosanquet yield to Mr. Bradley that the old logical subject, predicate and copula are mere " superstitious ". He is particularly earnest and successful in his vindication of the copula. Even in such abbreviated judgments as ' Wolf ! ' or ' Fire !' which Mr. Bradley cites as irresistible evidence in favour of liis view, Mr. Bosanquet finds something of the nature of a copula. It is indeed implied in every judgment as such; it is " nothing but the indication that the act of judgment is performed ". " When we regard the logical copula as the common or formal element of the act which is a judgment . . . and the gramma- tical or linguistic copula as the expression or communication of this act, . . . then it becomes a contradiction to say with Mr. Bradley that judgment can exist without a copula" (p. 168). For the essence of Judgment is still seen to be connexion thoa^a i nexion of a different kind from that of the old Logic ; and the copula is simply the explicit exhibition of that "systematic" character which constitutes Reality, and which the Judgment claims " to exhibit, that is, to construct or reconstruct ". It is only possible to refer in a word to Mr. Bosanquet's view of Inference. Here he is essentially at one with Mr. Bradley in his condemnation of Subsnmption as an inadequate account of the actual operation. He adds, however, that " subsumption still haunts us " in two forms (1) in " the process of interpreta-