310 Modality. [CHAP. xm. 



by no means rigidly carried out in many cases. In fact it- 

 was beginning to be abandoned, to an extent and in direc 

 tions which we have not opportunity here to discuss, before 

 the influence of Kant was felt. Many, for instance, added to 

 the list of the four, by including the true and the false; 

 occasionally also the probable, the supposed, and the certain 

 were added. This seems to show some tendency towards 

 abandoning the objective for the subjective view, or at least 

 indicates a hesitation between them. 



16. With Kant s view of modality almost every one is- 

 familiar. He divides judgments, under this head, into the 

 apodeictic, the assertory, and the problematic. We shall have 

 to say something about the number and mutual relations of 

 these divisions presently ; we are now only concerned with 

 the general view which they carry out. In this respect it will 

 be obvious at once what a complete change of position has 

 been reached. The necessary and the impossible de 

 manded an appeal to the matter of a proposition in order to 

 recognize them ; the apodeictic and the assertory , on the 

 other hand, may be true of almost any matter, for they 

 demand nothing but an appeal to our consciousness in order 

 to distinguish between them. Moreover, the distinction 

 between the assertory and the problematic is so entirely 

 subjective and personal, that it may vary not only between 

 one person and another, but in the case of the same person 

 at different times. What one man knows to be true, another 

 may happen to be in doubt about. The apodeictic judgment 

 is one which we not only accept, but which we find ourselves 

 unable to reverse in thought ; the assertory is simply ac 

 cepted ; the problematic is one about which we feel in 

 doubt. 



This way of looking at the matter is the necessary out 

 come of the conoeptualist or Kantian view of logic. It has 



