204 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



Again, the only occasion we have for forming the negative 

 judgment, &quot; 5 is not P&quot; seems to be the presence in our mind of 

 a suggestion that &quot; 5 is P &quot; an error which we wish to remove. 

 The presence of such a suggestion we may call the psychological 

 cause or motive for proceeding to judge about 5. Of course, it 

 is not necessary that before we formulate the negative judgment 

 &quot;5 is not P&quot; we ourselves should have asserted the affirmative 

 &quot; S is P&quot;. The negative does not involve the affirmative in this 

 sense. The latter may be suggested to our minds in various 

 ways : by the assertion or question of another, as one of a number 

 of alternatives, etc. But the affirmation, &quot; 5 is P&quot; by ourselves, is 

 not a prerequisite to our forming the negative judgment &quot; 5 is 

 not P&quot;. All that is necessary is that we should have thought of 

 the affirmative judgment &quot; 5 is P&quot; that it should be present to 

 our minds : and in this sense every negative judgment presup 

 poses an affirmative. 



In another way, also, the negative judgment &quot; 5 is not P &quot; 

 may (though not necessarily) presuppose an affirmative judgment. 

 In this way : Our appreciation of the logical ground for our 

 denial may involve an affirmation. We may deny that S is P 

 because we see that there is in 5 something (M, let us say) which 

 separates it from P : in other words, because we see &n& judge that 

 &quot; 5 is M&quot;. &quot; If I assert of a distant object that it is not red,&quot; 

 I do so because I think the question of its being red has been or 

 may be raised [psychological motive], and also because I think 

 that it is some other colour which is incompatible with red [logical 

 ground or reason].&quot; 1 Hence, we may say that every negative 

 judgment presupposes an affirmative ; all negation presupposes 

 affirmation. 2 



But does affirmation, though the more fundamental, involve 

 negation? We may admit that in a certain sense it does: in 

 this sense, that in order to form any positive ideas, such as 5 and 

 P, to keep them distinct from each other, and to compare them 

 in judgment, we must have made each of them definite by limit 

 ing it, i.e. by marking it off from all that is not itself; and this 

 process of determining each of our concepts, by setting it over 

 against all others, involves the idea of distinction^ difference, other- 



1 MELLONE, Introd. Text-book of Logic, p. 373. 



2 &quot;There is,&quot; says Aristotle, &quot;one primary assertive \6yos, affirmation; then 

 there is denial&quot;; &quot;affirmation is prior in thought to denial&quot; (De Int., c. 5, An. 

 Post., i. 25 ; cf. Poetics, c. 20 \-apud MELLONE, op. cit., p. 373). 



