NATURE OF THE JUDGMENT AND PROPOSITION. 159 



ovcrla Trpwrij, &quot; hoc aliquid&quot; by apprehending in it, and abstracting 

 from it, through repeated acts of conception, the ideas tree, trunk, 

 branches, leaves, green, rough, large, etc., I simultaneously refer or 

 attribute these concepts to the individual sense-datum from which 

 I derive them : that is to say, I predicate them of the latter, I 

 interpret the latter through them, I try to diminish its original 

 indeterminateness by means of them: \judge that it is all that 

 they represent. Thus it is that judgment goes hand in hand 

 with, and is naturally inseparable from, the conception or simple 

 apprehension of abstract ideas. 



This is a fact of consciousness which is confirmed and corroborated by the 

 application of the common names of language (74). In fact, the process of 

 naming, of fixing a common name on some individual &quot;this,&quot; or &quot;that,&quot; of 

 sense experience, amounts simply to affirming of the vaguely known &quot;this &quot; 

 or &quot;that&quot; in question, some abstract concept found to be embodied and 

 verified in it : to give the name wolf, lupus, Vrka (meaning that which tears 

 or rends] to an individual, is to predicate of it the attribute (or attributes) 

 implied by the name. And if, after asserting &quot; this &quot; to be a brown-coloured 

 animal, I go on to formulate the proposition, &quot; This brown-coloured animal 

 is a wolf,&quot; I am simply giving two names to the same thing and stating that 

 the reality designated by both names, and embodying their joint meaning, is one 

 and the same reality. Hobbes was right in saying that stating a proposition 

 is simply expressing one s belief that the predicate is a name of the thing of 

 which the subject is another name ; that it is, as it were, giving two names 

 to the same thing, a subject-name and a predicate-name. 



These concepts, which form the materials of the judgment, 

 are, if taken in themselves, neither true nor false. Logical terms 

 which express them are neither true nor false : the words of a 

 dictionary, for example, are neither true nor false. Truth or 

 falsity appertains exclusively to the judgment, not to the concept, 

 nor to the process of simple apprehension by which the concept 

 is formed. This is all the more deserving of notice because the 

 concept particularly if it be complex often seems to carry with 

 it this characteristic of truth or falsity. Scientists, philosophers, 

 and theologians often discuss and dispute whether certain con 

 cepts are valid or invalid : but a little reflection will show that in 

 all such cases the controversy is about the truth or falsity of a 

 certain statement that is made or implied about the object of the 

 concept in question, the statement, namely, that the concept repre 

 sents an object which exists really in some definite sphere. The 

 dispute is always about the existential import of the concept, 

 about the truth or falsity of the judgment which asserts that the 



