THE PRINCIPAL ACTS 399 



Yet if we consider the great majority of men, we find that whenever 

 there is no pressing need or danger they rarely judge for themselves 

 but rely on the judgments of others. 



This obstacle to the progress of individual intelligence is not merely 

 due to idleness, carelessness, or lack of means ; it is due further to 

 the habit impressed on individuals, during their childhood and youth, 

 of beheving what they are told and of always submitting their 

 judgment to some authority. 



Now that we have briefly indicated the importance of judgment, 

 and especially of developing it by use and gradually improving it by 

 experience, let us enquire what it is itself and by what mechanism it 

 works. 



A judgment is a very peculiar act, carried out by the nervous fluid 

 in the intellectual organ ; its result is then traced upon that organ 

 and is immediately brought back to the individual's inner feeling ; 

 in other words, is brought into consciousness. Now this act is always 

 the result of some comparison made, or some relation sought, between 

 ideas previously acquired. 



The following is probably the mechanism of this physical act : 

 for it is the only mechanism which seems to me capable of giving rise 

 to it, and is in harmony with the known effects of the law of united 

 or combined movements. 



Each idea that is graven doubtless occupies a special site in the 

 organ : now when the nervous fluid is agitated and traverses the outlines 

 of two different ideas at the same moment, as occurs in a comparison 

 of two ideas, it is then necessarily divided into two separate streams, 

 one of which passes over the first of the two ideas while the other 

 passes over the second. In each case these two streams of nervous 

 fluid undergo a modification of movement, which is caused by the 

 outUnes they pass over and which is peculiar to the idea in question. 

 Hence we may imagine that, if these two streams are subsequently 

 united into one, their movements will also be combined, so that the 

 common stream will have a compound movement which is the resultant 

 of the two kinds of movements brought into combination. 



The physical act giving rise to a judgment is therefore probably 

 constituted by the movements of the nervous fluid, when spread over 

 the impressed outlines of ideas that are being compared ; and it 

 appears to consist of as many special movements of the fluid, as there 

 are ideas compared and separate streams of fluid passing over the 

 outHnes of these ideas. Now these separate streams of the same 

 fluid, each with its special movement, all unite to form a single stream 

 whose movement is compounded of all the special movements named ; 

 and this compound movement then impresses new outlines on the 



